Pharrell Williams declined the chance to make a conventional documentary about his life because he feared it would be boring.
The musician is the focus of Piece by Piece, an animated story of his life and career. Williams has admitted that he only committed to the project after he was convinced by the concept.
“I do things that I am curious and enthusiastic about and a documentary about me is not interesting, so I said no at first. Then my very persistent agent said I could do it any way I wanted,” the “Happy” hitmaker said during an appearance on “The Graham Norton Show.”
“When I said I wanted to do it with the best documentary-maker Morgan Neville and for him to tell it any way he wanted — but in Lego — my agent said, ‘No, no, no.’ But then everyone said yes,” Williams continued.
“This project is the sum of lots of yeses and is what impossible looks like. Whether you are eight or 80 it’s not too late to build your dream piece by piece,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Williams recently admitted that Piece by Piece enabled him to reflect on his experiences with a fresh perspective.
“Essentially, this movie is my dissertation on my humility,” the men’s creative director of Louis Vuitton explained. “I spent most of my time being arrogant, pompous, incredibly cocky, braggadocious. That was my musical environment, and that’s what I thought I needed to be.”
“When I turned 40, the universe humbled me. I realized that it wasn’t all about me, and I was part of a bigger equation and was lucky not to be a word or a sentence, but just to be punctuation,” Williams told HELLO! “The minute that dawns on you, you realize you’re so lucky to be in that conversation. Humility is how you get to that place.”
