'God Bless Ozzy Osbourne' Co-Director Says SHARON Saved OZZY's Life

May 25, 2011

Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly recently conducted an interview with Mike Fleiss, co-director of "God Bless Ozzy Osbourne", the feature-length documentary about the life of the legendary heavy metal singer. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Entertainment Weekly: Ozzy Osbourne is not exactly an undocumented figure. Why did Jack [Osbourne, Ozzy's son] want to make this movie in the first place?

Mike Fleiss: Jack is an aspiring filmmaker, but he's also a son who loves his father, and I think he saw this as a chance to pay tribute to his dad. I mean, Jack doesn't say that because it's maybe too sweet for him to say. But that's really what I think was his core motivation.

Entertainment Weekly: It is often quite a melancholic film, which I think might surprise people.

Mike Fleiss: Yeah. Ozzy's life is not all glamor and sold-out concerts and the rock star existence. He's lived a fucking hard, sometimes terrible existence. And the fact that he's still doing it, still up there rocking, it's a miracle. One of my favorite pieces in the movie is when the newscaster says, "How is Ozzy Osbourne still alive?" To me, that's sort of the thesis of the whole movie in a weird way. It's like, How is he still alive?

Entertainment Weekly: Do you have any theories about that?

Mike Fleiss: Sharon saved his life, clearly. And I think he's just one of those rugged British gentlemen, you know. He's got a hell of a constitution. You can't really fuck him up too bad. The fact that he can still go out and play two-hour rock concerts is incredible. I mean, I still play in a band and when we play a 45-minute set I'm exhausted the next day, I can't really go into work, I'm tired, I've got to sleep in. I feel terrible! And there's this 62-year-old man out there, jumping around, doing his little frog dance, and singing these incredibly challenging vocal lines for nearly two hours. I've got the utmost respect for him.

Read the entire interview from Entertainment Weekly.

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