‘Untold Mr. T’: Pity the Fool’ Director Talks Getting to Know Man Behind Iconic Figure

“I pity the fool.” These were the iconic words that became a trademark of Mr. T after playing Clubber Lang opposite Sylvester Stallone in the 1982 Rocky III. It’s also the name of Netflix‘s Untold Mr. T: I Pity The Fool documentary that premiered Sunday, September 7, which explores the life of the 74-year-old actor, real name Laurence Tureaud. The larger-than-life personality, known for his gold chains and mohawk, reached pop culture icon status thanks to a series of memorable turns, perhaps none bigger than B. A. Baracus in the classic television series The A-Team. 

Fame came hard and fast. Yet the road to superstardom wasn’t easy. Mr. T was raised largely by a single mother in poverty in the South Side of Chicago as one of 12 siblings. His experiences in the military, being a bouncer, and celebrity bodyguard ultimately shaped the man the world knows today. Here, Director Scott Weintrob gets candid about the making of the project. 

Universal/Courtesy: Everett Collection

Mr. T is such a unique character with so many layers to him. Talk about what it was like to get to know him a bit. What was your approach when it came to this particular project?

Scott Weintrob: Well, Mr. T was my childhood hero. So, you know, they say never work with your heroes or never meet your heroes. It’s interesting because the more you learn about someone, the more human they become. They’re not your hero anymore. You see them as the regular person with the same ambitions and dreams as anybody else. I feel like that was really the case with this film. I’m there to provide comfort to Mr. T, so he can tell his story honestly and openly, and that’s what I did. I’ve interviewed many people. There’s a moment that if you set out in the right environment and converse in the right way, people open up and find it very therapeutic. He certainly opened up because he told us things that he certainly didn’t need to at this point in his life. 

What were some of the more eye-opening or surprising elements in the documentary?

Look, Mr. T is an incredible character. He’s an incredible superhero, and the thing is he shouldn’t have become famous. I say that only because he came from incredible challenges. He grew up in a time where the opportunity to succeed in the way he did just really wasn’t present. So he’s an anomaly. He really is a superhero. The thing that I always wanted to find out was why, what drove him. How did he do it? Everybody wants to know how someone became successful, right? One day, he just started talking about a time where when he got some success, he left outside Chicago, and was around a different type of person. His mom sadly got robbed for her welfare check, and what happened next is he sought revenge. You watch the film, and you find out what he did to the person that did it, but this set him on a journey. It really was an inciting incident that made him become a superhero. So, that certainly was not the answer I thought that he was going to tell us about. Mr. T is a one in a million,  but that wasn’t the story I thought he was going to tell me about with how he handled someone that hurt his mother.

He worked on so many big things from the A-Team to Rocky III to being part of the first WrestleMania onward. Talk about what this doc brings in terms of background and things that we may have never known before. 

No one knows anything about Mr. T. They just know the guy with the mohawk and the goatee, right? They knew he was B.A. Baracus, they knew he was Clubber Lang, but no one really knows who this guy is, where he’s from, and how his life lies. Who he is, what makes him tick, what is he about? You learn that in this film. Where he was in his life, how he designed it all. Nothing happened by chance. Everything was by design. His hair, his gold, his shoes, his name. It’s all by design. He built the character. He sought out to become a bodyguard, what happened next was an incredible set of ingredients. When the spider bit Spider-Man. These things only happened in comic books. You’ll learn how that role for Rocky came about, what happened, how he did it, and the journey onwards, but also how that connects to what happened on the A-Team. He was probably the most famous person on the planet, other than Michael Jackson. Then what happened when it all stopped and when it came to an end. And then what happened next?

You sit down with a number of individuals. Anyone you wish had been a part of it, but just didn’t work out? 

Let’s talk about it. Most people that were asked to be part of the film said no. Sylvester Stallone said no. Others said no. The people that did sit down were important, but there were people that we wanted to talk to that we didn’t get to because of Mr. T. I will probably leave that one there. But the people that we do sit down with us. Terry Crews loves Mr. T. He actually adores him. He dressed up as him on TV. He was great, and he’s a real fan. He grew up in the era. He was inspired. You know, he flexes his muscles because Mr. T inspired him. We interviewed people that were close to Mr. T. People that he’d worked with in the past, they didn’t want to be part of it. You’ll see it in the film. Mr. T is an incredibly complicated man. The journey of Mr. T, he became an amazing superhero. That’s the story to be told, not the people that didn’t want to be part of it. 

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – CIRCA 1982: Actor Sylvester Stallone (left), as Rocky Balboa, faces off against Mr. T, as Clubber Lang, on the boxing set of Rocky III in May of 1982 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by James Drake/Getty Images)

 Mr. T was critical of the final product in an profile feature [with The Guardian]. For a creative like yourself, how do you kind of take that in? Is that heartbreaking for you?

The last time I saw Mr. T was at Netflix when we screened the film for him, he loved it. He cried, he hugged us. These words of he doesn’t like it. I don’t even know where they even came from. They sound like untruths. I’m not even sure what this is about because we saw him at Netflix. He loved it, He has been doing press. I believe he’s on the Today morning show. So, I’m not sure. I feel like sometimes, there is drama created where there is none. This is an incredible film about an incredible human that did something that no one else has been able to do. That should be the focus. Is it heartbreaking that a journalist says that Mr. T doesn’t like it? Not in the slightest. What is exciting is we’ve made a film that’s brilliant, really exciting about someone that people can be inspired by. A story of a person beating all the odds and winning when people watch that. That’s what they’ll take away from it. Millions of people will watch that film. So forget about one journalist trying to be noticed.

Was this one of your most challenging projects you’ve tackled, you’d say?

If you love making films, there’s no challenge to it. Right? That’s the dream. Pinch yourself. I’m a kid from London. Making films, here’s no challenge to it. You’re living your dream. This is amazing. You’re sitting in front of Rihanna, Lewis Hamilton, Edward Norton. There’s no heartbreak. People don’t really realize or forget everything that goes into the making of a film. Just watch the film. Do you watch it and do you feel something at the end of it? That’s the only question that you need to ask. When you watch it, do you feel something? Do you feel better than you did at the beginning of the film? Then everybody’s done a great job, and it’s a win. I really feel with this film you sit down, you watch it, and at the end of it, you feel like you could jump over a house because you just believe in yourself. It’s inspiring. 

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What did you walk away with from working on this doc? 

Documentary is such a specific format. When you make a scripted project, you know what you’re shooting every day. I’ve done movies, you know what you’re filming every day. With documentaries, the story changes from the morning to the afternoon. It’s a journey. We go through someone’s life and learn, because I’m an audience member. I’m sitting there watching. I just happen to be watching from a different angle. Mr. T’s story is brilliant.  We went to where he grew up. We spent a lot of time on the South Side of Chicago. We met the people and saw what he was about. We saw a little kid who just had a dream so big and lived it.

We followed it. It’s an amazing journey when you’re kind of inside the TV and watch this come together. I can see the edit, I can watch it and know, “Man, wow, this is his life. This is what he did, this is his footsteps, and then this is what happened.” I watched him sort of revisit all these places and get to the end of it, where he was like, “And then it just stopped.” You feel that with him. Whether he wanted it to stop, whether he wanted it to continue, that’s up to the viewer to decide. My opinions are relevant. I’m just there to tell the story, and I feel that I know Mr. T pretty well now. I know who he is. I know that he was just a regular person who lived an incredible dream.

Untold Mr. T’: Pity the Fool premiere, September 8, Netflix