Throughout the three-season run of his HBO docuseries, John Wilson has walked into some of the strangest places in New York with nothing but a camera. But Wilson says the scariest moment while filming the series happened down in Florida, when he showed up uninvited to the home of Jack Owoc, the CEO of Bang Energy.
In the Season 2 episode, titled “How to Appreciate Wine,” Wilson walks straight into a baby shower and immediately approaches Owoc, donning a collared black robe and Bang Energy gold chain. Without much hesitation, the beverage mogul gives Wilson an hourlong tour of his estate.
“The most scared I was … was when I just walked into the front door of the CEO of that energy drink company,” Wilson tells Variety on the “Awards Circuit” podcast. “We were on our way to the airport, and we had his address. What’s the worst that could happen? Yeah, I could get shot…”
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Hilariously, Wilson doesn’t complete the thought. “I was really, really scared,” he admits. “I was, like, shivering going in there. But thankfully he was just so excited about the idea that we might film him, that he let us hang out.”
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Wilson, whose show has taken him into countless outer-borough apartments, niche conventions and private gatherings, says the camera provides a “mutual liability.”
“I am pointing a camera, so I assume they won’t assault me,” he laughs. “Nobody has yet. So far so good.”
Memorable moments include visiting the founder of a “foreskin restoration” device called TLC Tugger — who allowed Wilson to film him demonstrating the product as he lay fully naked on the bed — and a candid conversation with an elderly man who described self-castrating as a teenager. Wilson says HBO has never given him a note on the graphic nudity.
“Weirdly, that was one of the only things they didn’t comment on,” he says. “They’re more worried about making sure it’s 28 minutes and 30 seconds. They want to make sure there’s a coherent plot of thought process behind how we get there.”
While Wilson spends the vast majority of the series behind the camera, he gets uncharacteristically vulnerable in the third season of “How To,” which is looking to compete for Emmys in the nonfiction program categories. In the fourth episode of the season, “How to Watch the Game,” Wilson explores the underground world of vacuum cleaner enthusiasts, talking to collectors who hid their passion for Hoovers for much of their lives for fear of embarrassment. The episode beautifully morphs into a meditation on grief (as Wilson recalls the awkward last time he saw his grandmother) and sexuality (when he discusses “fooling around” with a male friend throughout middle school and not-so-subtly asks a vacuum collector, “When did you come out?”).
“It’s really scary,” Wilson says of revealing details about his personal life on the show. “I have this weird thing where I have to process things emotionally on a stage rather than one-to-one, sometimes. There’s a lot of stuff that family and friends are hearing for the first time as this stuff airs. Sometimes it leads to really interesting and long-overdue conversations in real life afterward.”
Asked whether he received a different reception to that episode from people in his personal life compared to other episodes, Wilson says, “In ways, yeah. I don’t want to fully get into it. But it was good to get that out there, even though I could’ve gone the rest of my life without saying any of that shit. But I thought that it was something where the fans of the show would come up to me with their own stories.”
Also on this episode, we talk to “Jim Henson Idea Man” director Ron Howard about what he learned about the Muppets creator, and what it personally meant to him.
Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, produced by Michael Schneider, is your one-stop listen for lively conversations about the best in film and television. Each week “Awards Circuit” features interviews with top film and TV talent and creatives; discussions and debates about awards races and industry headlines; and much more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or anywhere you download podcasts. New episodes post weekly.