Chevy Chase has sparked uproar online after a clip from a new documentary about him went viral in which he tells the film’s director that she is “not bright enough” to understand him.
The 82-year-old comedian and actor, who was part of the inaugural Saturday Night Live cast in 1975, is the subject of the CNN documentary I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not.
Near the start of the film, director Marina Zenovich tells him: “I’m just trying to figure you out.”
Chase replies: “No s***. It’s not going to be easy for you.”
When Zenovich asks why it won’t be easy, the National Lampoon’s Vacation star snaps back: “You’re not bright enough. How’s that?”
After the director responds with surprise to the insult, Chase appears to backpedal and adds: “Well, you asked. I know you’re not gonna put that on the air, and I hope not.”
He continued: “But my answer is, I’m complex, and I’m deep and I can be hurt easily. And I react spontaneously to people who want to figure me out, as it were. As somebody who will hold up my guard, I’m not gonna let anybody figure me out, per se.”
The clip has been met with shock and derision online, with one X user captioning the clip: “I’m sorry but what an insufferable old goat.”
Another opined: “Maybe just me but enough with the Chevy Chase coverage. He was funny for one year on SNL and made a number of enjoyable movies. Forty years ago. Enough. He’s not that interesting.”
However, other users came to his defense. One wrote: “Hating on Chevy Chase is an IQ test. If you hate, you fail. You can't hold a job with any meaningful responsibility. If you recognize he's funny and his personal failings are none of your business because you're not 12 with a need to personally relate to celebrities, you pass.”
In an interview with Variety, Zenovich said about the interaction: “I’d never done an interview where someone was so rude to me.”
She added that it had been useful for her as a filmmaker, saying: “But I was so worried going into that first interview with him about how I was going to say to him, like, ‘Everyone thinks you’re an asshole.’ I thought if I did, he would throw me out of his house. So the minute he said that to me, I had a way in.”
Elsewhere in the documentary, Chase says that he was “hurt” by not being given a speaking role in the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary celebrations.
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