Rob Reiner Updates ‘Spinal Tap’ Sequel While Celebrating Albert Brooks Emmy Nods

One of Rob Reiner’s greatest filmmaking credits is the classic mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. However, he has now ventured into the realm of actual documentaries with Albert Brooks: Defending My Life. While working on the sequel to Spinal Tap in New Orleans, Reiner learned he’s become an Emmy nominee for the HBO film about his longtime friend, Brooks.

“It’s a total surprise,” he said regarding the Emmy recognition for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, as well as for his direction of the film. “Especially because I’ve never made a real documentary. The only one I made was a fake one – Spinal Tap. It’s so funny to get recognized in this way.”

In the film, Reiner and Brooks discuss Brooks’ life, work, and comedic sensibility as expressed through his stand-up and movies like Lost in America and Defending Your Life. “We saw [Albert Brooks: Defending My Life] with an audience at the Academy, and I was surprised at how well it played,” Reiner told Deadline. “It played like a movie. There were a lot of laughs and people were really having a great time. So to me, it’s a surprise that I’d ever be thought of as a documentary filmmaker. It’s just a weird thing.”

The screening he referred to was at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, which was followed by a Q&A with Brooks and Reiner, moderated by Judd Apatow. Apatow was so enthusiastic about the conversation that he kept it going for about 45 minutes. It only wrapped up when Reiner informed Apatow that he needed to go to the bathroom.

“When you get to a certain age, you know, there are certain things that you need to take care of,” Reiner observed. “The interview was going on a very long time. And Judd, he’s not as old as Albert and I, so he didn’t take that into account.”

(For the record, Reiner is 77; Brooks turns 77 later this month).

Reiner is no stranger to the Emmys, having won Best Supporting Actor in Comedy in 1974 for All in the Family. He was nominated five times for the Norman Lear show. He also earned an Oscar nomination in 1993 in the Best Picture category for A Few Good Men.

“You don’t think about doing things to either get nominated or get an award,” he said. “You just do things that you want to do and that you think you like and hopefully the public likes.”

Reiner’s dad, Carl Reiner, won 11 Emmys in his extraordinary career in show business. One of Carl’s nominations came for narrating the 2018 documentary If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast.

“I love the documentary that he was a part of — all about people in their 90s who were still very active. And that was a line he always used to say, ‘I open the paper in the morning, and I look at the obits, and if I’m not in it, I eat breakfast,’ and that became the title of the doc,” Reiner recalled. “And now Mel Brooks, his best friend, just turned 98, and Dick Van Dyke is 98. So it’s amazing how these people, great talents, are still out there doing things.”

Reiner shared an update on his progress on the Spinal Tap sequel. He said the New Orleans shoot is just about the last one for the film, which began production in February of this year.

“It’s going good. Our first screening for our family and friends will probably be in August,” he said, “and then sometime in September, we’ll start showing it to distributors, and we’re hoping to have it out sometime late spring or early summer of next year.”

The follow-up literally gets the band back together: David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer). Spinal Tap’s distinguished oeuvre includes the metal anthems “Big Bottom,” “Stonehenge,” and the slightly repetitive “Tonight I’m Going to Rock You Tonight.”

“We got everybody together and we added a couple of surprise guests,” Reiner said. “We have Paul McCartney and Elton John and Garth Brooks. It’s fun.”

And there’s always the potential for a sequel to Albert Brooks: Defending My Life. “Twenty years from now, we’ll do another one: Still Defending Our Lives,” he joked. “Another 20 years of defending.”

Source: Deadline