OZZY OSBOURNE's Son JACK Discusses 'God Bless' Documentary In New Interview
May 27, 2011Ozzy Osbourne's son, Jack Osbourne, spoke to Cynthia Ellis of The Huffington Post about "God Bless Ozzy Osbourne", a feature-length documentary about the life of his father. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
The Huffington Post: How do you approach documenting the life of someone like your father, whose off-stage antics are equally spectacular to his life onstage?
Jack: The research you do is odd, in that it's normally what you do after your parents die. Going through all the old photos and finding journals and things like that. I was always calling my mom saying "I found these photos! And police records!" And then she'd have to explain the story.
The Huffington Post: While you were researching the film, did you ever have a moment where you thought, "My God, I can't show that!"?
Jack: There was one tape, I don't know who was recording it, and it was an argument between my mom, my dad, and my sister. And it was really bad. We couldn't put it in. It was too dark. (laughter) We chose not to go too deeply into the death of Randy Rhoads, my dad's guitar player and bandmate, because there was a lot of difference between what the public thought happened and what witnesses who were there told us, and they are two big cans of worms.
The Huffington Post: So what is it like to make a film about your father, and as you rightly noted, he's still alive? What was his response to seeing it?
Jack: The premiere was the first time he had seen it, and he asked my mom on the way home in the car, "I'm not that bad, am I?" When I spoke to him yesterday he told me he was flattered that Paul McCartney would sit down for an interview about him. (Ozzy, growing up in the North of England, decided to become a musician after hearing THE BEATLES' song 'She Loves You') It is mind-blowing for him that his childhood idol is in a film about him, talking about him.
The Huffington Post: One day, the when your dad is no longer with us, how would you like him to be remembered, what would you like his legacy to be?
Jack: One of my directors says that he's probably one of the most iconic figures in rock 'n roll. That's true in the sense that he's the most accessible, you know? People aren't afraid to come up to him and say hello and have a picture, and his fans genuinely love him. With someone like Paul McCartney, he has a certain distance, a certain reserve. You can't go up to him and say, "Sir Paul, high-five!"
The Huffington Post: How do you condense a career that spans decades into 90 minutes?
Jack: This is the ultimate challenge. We obviously know how it starts: he was born. He is still alive, so we needed to figure out how we wanted it to end. He's sober, he's touring, and he's doing what he was meant to do. We have to connect the dots to get to our conclusion in the most truthful and entertaining way possible. We decided to focus more on the redemption side of things, because the film is pretty harsh towards my dad, especially the parts with my sister and myself.
Read the entire interview from The Huffington Post.
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