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The friendship of Brigitte Berman and Hugh Hefner, which has endured for nearly 25 years, is fascinating. She’s an attractive blonde who has been a frequent guest at the Playboy Mansion, but she will never be mistaken for a shallow Playmate; she’s a remarkably intelligent and driven 56-year-old German-turned-Canadian who has directed hundreds of films, including one that won an Oscar for best documentary. He’s a notorious ladies’ man whose life has been filled with fame, fortune, and fun, but he is no fortunate son; he’s an 84-year-old who emerged from humble beginnings with a dream, turned it into reality, and then used his clout to advance numerous causes in which he believed. She saw a side of him that most others have overlooked; he saw that she saw it and trusted her in a way that he’d never trusted anyone before. The result? The captivating documentary “Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, and Rebel” (Phase 4 Films, 7/30, trailer), which opens in select theaters this Friday.

I first met Berman at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, where the film was screened for a large audience (that included Hefner and three of his former girlfriends) and elicited primarily strong notices (including my own). Earlier this month, she was kind enough to answer a number of questions that I had about Hefner the man and “Hefner” the film, as well as the journey that led her to both…

Where were you born and raised? And what brought you over to North America?
I was born and raised in Germany. My mother was a very, very adventurous woman. She grew up in a small town, and she wanted to go to a new country—to strike out—and she moved to Canada, so I followed. I was thirteen years old when I came to Canada. [Note: Sadly, Berman's mother passed away during the making of "Hefner."]

Growing up, did you go to the movies often? And, if so, were any films or filmmakers particular favorites or influences?
Well, interesting. In Germany, we weren’t very rich, so I never saw a movie at all. And the very first movie that I remember seeing—and it had already been out for a few years, believe it or not—was “The Music Man.” I didn’t really go to the movies until I went to university, and there I just fell in love with movies, and ended up trying out a film course—auditing it—and then, after a couple of weeks, I enrolled in as many film courses as I could, and switched from theater arts to film. And have not regretted it!

I know that you’ve made hundreds of films over the years, many of them documentaries about fascinating people and subjects. For someone who might like to begin scouring through them, which would you recommend the most?
Well, obviously, one of my absolute favorites is the documentary about Bix Beiderbecke, which also connected me with Hef. But it is one of my favorites because he had left so little behind and I had to really, kind of, dig and dig and find visuals of everything to tell his story—it was quite a job. And, you know, he was a very, very unusual human being who had a tragic life and was never really appreciated—well, he was appreciated by his parents; they kept unopened record boxes in a cupboard, and he discovered them one day, which really, really upset him, you know? So there was a lot of personal tragedy in his life. And I just loved his music—just, just loved his music—and I wanted to tell the story a person who could create—who could play, you know, just from his own soul—such amazing music. The other one, of course, is the Artie Shaw film, about the big band leader. I also made an interesting film, which is totally different from the Hefner film and all of that, about a Jesuit priest who got murdered in Jamaica. I spent some time in Jamaica digging up his story, and that was very, very interesting to do; and to film there; and to get to know the Jamaican people living on the hillside—very, very fascinating. And I made a film about the black community in Toronto quite a few years ago, again just really immersing myself, making friends—I already had many friends—and I found that there were a lot of stories to tell. And then I did the same thing with the Chinese community. I also did this story about the Saint Catharine’s Symphony Orchestra that I’m very fond of, with a very famous soprano, Maureen Forrester, who sang Mahler’s Symphony—his 3rd Symphony—in the film. And then I made a lot of current affairs films about serious subjects—the economy, and Canada, and the U.S., and, you know, all kinds of things like that. And then a lot of funny films. Truly, anything that interested me I made a film about.

In previous interviews, you’ve said you’re a researcher, first and foremost…
I’m a researcher at heart. I love to do the research. I love uncovering little “nuggets,” as I call them, and then stringing them into a beautiful necklace. [laughs]

Can you talk about the night that you won the best documentary feature Oscar for “Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got“? Documentary filmmaking is such a hard business, so being recognized in that way must have meant the world to you…
It truly was amazing. I went down with my associate producer, Don Hague, who has since passed away, and the two of us were sitting in the audience, and I never dreamt in a million years— I was just, as they say, “happy to be nominated.” And when my name was called—it was a tie, in fact, with “Down and Out in America”—I almost died. I just— My whole— I think my brain went somewhere else. I was, like, on auto-pilot, and I grabbed Don, and the two of us went up to the stage. I must have been in a trance when I gave my speech, but it was a good speech from what I saw afterwards. I only really came to when I was backstage and fell in the line, like Alice in Wonderland, and suddenly it just hit me–and I started to express it by jumping up and down. I was so ecstatically happy. I just couldn’t believe it. I can still remember it. It was truly amazing.

And a neat little piece of trivia for people: who presented the Oscar to you?
Oprah. It was quite wonderful—I’m very proud of that!

Can you explain how that film led to another film that basically connected you, for the first time, with—of all people—Hugh Hefner?
Well, it was the Bix film that connected me to Hugh Hefner, but it was because of me winning the Oscar for the Artie Shaw film. That’s what, I think, made Hefner become aware that I had also made a film about Bix Beiderbecke, because he got in touch with me after I won the Oscar through Mary O’Connor, his amazing executive assistant—she’s his right-hand person and one of the most incredible people; as you know from the film, she has worked at The Mansion for now close to forty years. She called me and said to me to me that she was calling from The Playboy Mansion—I, kind of, thought, “Oh, well, tell me another good one!” [laughs]—and that Mr. Hefner wanted to see and get a copy of the Bix Beiderbecke film. I was so surprised—it just seemed so implausible—that I asked her, you know, very gently, “Would it be okay if you could send me a letter?” And I got a letter from Mr. Hefner. He told me how much he loved Bix Beiderbecke, and would he be able to get a copy of the film? And I got it down to him right away—I mean, I just couldn’t believe it. And later I met him for the first time in Los Angeles at The Mansion, and then we became friends.

Was he at all similar to your preconceived notions of what he would be like, or was he very different?
I don’t tend to make preconceived notions about people; I think it’s something that we’ve got to be really careful about. What I did know was that I was gonna be at this incredible place—The Mansion—and, you know, I was really excited; that I was gonna meet this very famous person—I mean, like, truly famous; and it was a truly amazing, exciting moment. And I still remember, I was on the grounds, and Mary O’Connor was showing me around, and Mr. Hefner came down from the house in his pajamas, and I thought, “It really is true. He wears pajamas.” [laughs] It was very funny. And he was immediately very charming—which he is—and very friendly, and told me again how much he loved the Bix Beiderbecke film, and wanted to know more about the people who I’d interviewed and who had become my friends, and all that, and, we just had a wonderful conversation.

Many people who haven’t yet seen the film, and who are just hearing about it, will be surprised to learn (a) that it was a woman who chose to make a documentary about Hefner, and (b) that it’s not an unflattering portrait of him. What would you say to those people, and to people who would be surprised that Hefner has female friends at all?
Well, he has many, many female friends—let me say that first of all—and all of his old girlfriends remain his friends. It is astonishing how important friendship really, truly is to him—be it women, be it men, it doesn’t matter, you know? And he loves women—it’s very obvious from the way he treats them, and how they stay and work for him for years, and years, and years, and years. So I think there is a lot of untruth, you know, in the “objectifying,” because when I see him around women he’s not objectifying them in any way whatsoever. And I’ll get back to that “objectifying,” but as far as a woman making the film? I’m a filmmaker, first and foremost. I happen to be a woman, but I always look for subjects that have complexity, and for some reason my three big films have all been about men: Bix Beiderbecke, who died at age twenty-eight; Artie Shaw, who was married nine times; and Hugh Hefner. These are all very different kinds of individuals, but as a filmmaker they were all stories that were intriguing, that I was passionate about, and that’s what I look for. I think I’m not a feminist—if I am a feminist, I’m a feminist by doing, not by marching and carrying signs, and stuff like that—but I believe in women’s rights very, very strongly, and everything I feel, so does Hefner. I mean, he’s always given equal pay—equal everything—to women. But, as a woman, I also think that we—some men, too— I know that I have a great thirst for learning, and I really want to uncover, and I have a lot of patience and empathy, and I try to really link up, kind of, to the inner-core of the other person, no matter who I interview—all the people that I’ve interviewed. And maybe that’s something that’s easier to do for a woman than for a man. So I think being a woman has helped me in making these films; I just feel that when I go and do my interviews and put it together.

One thing that I only realized when I was researching the origins of this project was that you’d already known Hefner for years when you decided you wanted to make a documentary about his life, so I wonder if there was an event that made you decide, at that point, that it was now something you wanted to pursue?
Well, I went down to his eightieth birthday party. I had never gone to one of his birthday parties, and I thought to myself, “The eightieth? That’s a real landmark and I’d like to go to that.” I took my partner, Victor Solnicki, with me, and the two of us attended the party, which was quite an extraordinary. [laughs] I mean, The Mansion, and the people, and the music, and the incredible food, and the painted girls—it was like a Fellini set in some ways. And I saw Hefner, and he was being congratulated by everybody, of course, but somehow I felt that the side that I knew about him—and I had learned and researched about his activist side; I knew about some of the things that he had done with Playboy—I just didn’t see anything of that at the party. In some ways, nor should I have, because it was a party at The Mansion. But seeing that party at The Mansion, and knowing who he was, I thought to myself, “He’s eighty years old, and nobody has yet made a film about all the things that he has done for the culture, for society, for politics, for sexual history, sexual mores, sexual lives in America,” and I decided I wanted to make that film. And on the plane back from L.A., I told Victor, my partner, “That’s the film I want to make next.” I immediately began to really research, because I knew I would have to present Hef with a treatment that was a good treatment; and I Fed-Ex’d it down; and the very next day I got a fax back from Hefner saying he loved my treatment. That was the beginning of the film!

My understanding is that Hefner was very cooperative with the film—that he didn’t demand any sort of creative control, but that he did give you whatever access to materials and/or people that you needed. Is that right?
Yeah, absolutely. Absoutely. I had creative freedom—he never told me what I should be doing; never asked me what I was doing. We would meet in the hall—he’d see me working late and night—and we’d say hi and, you know, smile, and he’d be busy on his way and I’d be busy on my way; or we’d meet up in the scrapbook room, and he was, creating and adding to the scrapbooks, and I was going through them like a fiend gathering all the information, and never asked me a question, you know? I sometimes would tell him, “Oh, I just spoke to,” you know, “Mike Wallace, and I had a good, good interview,” and he’d just say, “That’s great.” Or, you know, Dick Gregory, when I called him, said, “Say hello to Mr. Hefner,” so I told Hef, and he was delighted. But that’s about the only way we ever really talked about the film. He was just very, very extraordinary, and I appreciated the trust; I need that trust as a filmmaker, because for me, when I have that kind of a trust, and when I have freedom to do what I believe I should be doing as a filmmaker, I pour my two-hundred-and-seventy-five percent into everything; I don’t stop; I just keep going until it’s ready. And it just made it possible for me to work like that because he had that trust in me. I think he had that trust in me because he’d seen my films and he knew me as a filmmaker through my work. But it was great to be able to work like that; it was the only way, I think, a real documentary filmmaker can work—if you have your subject, kind of, hands-off what you’re doing. At the same time, it gives you enormous responsibility, because you really have to get it right.

I gather from your answer there—and I hadn’t previously realized this—that you were staying at The Mansion throughout the production of the film?
Not at the very beginning, and for some time I wasn’t. When I say we would “meet up,” I would work until two or three in the morning and then drive over the valley—you know, a forty-five minute drive. It was pretty hard. So when I came closer to the end of the research and the filming, I was able to stay at The Mansion, which was unbelievable because, truly, I gained a day—more than a day—of work every week.

What a unique opportunity…
What a unique opportunity, yes! Except, you know what? I was up in the scrapbook office, buried in the books; I saw the grounds from the little window in the scrapbook office—I could see the peacocks; that was the only clue that I was at The Playboy Mansion. [laughs]

When you went out, one of the things that you did was interview a great many people, and one of the things that I admire about the film is that you didn’t only speak with people who had nice things to say about Hefner; you were very inclusive of people who you knew were not particularly fond of him or his work. Was it at all a challenge to get them to participate?
That’s a very good question. I’m just going to backtrack just a little bit. When I started to make the film, what was very, very important to me was that I would not be making a Valentine about Mr. Hefner; what I was going to do was I was going to set the record straight. I literally began with a blank white piece of paper in my mind, and I began to, you know, pour all the research—everything I knew—onto that page, so to speak, and many, many, many pages. At the same time, I also know that with everybody—but particularly with Mr. Hefner—there are people who love you, there are people who are indifferent to you, and there are people who truly dislike you. And, for some reason, he does invite— I mean, there are people who are extremely critical of him—the feminists, for one; the Christian right; the conservatives; and just a large number of people. It was actually very difficult to get people who did not like him to talk. Gloria Steinem refused to be interviewed three times—absolutely refused. Susan Brownmiller? She agreed very quickly. There were quite a few male people who we tried to interview who also absolutely refused. So it was difficult to get the naysayers into the film, but it was very, very important to get the naysayers because for a large part of his life there have been these naysayers, and they are important. You know, Keating, who was the founder of the Committee for Decent Literature, and who really was extremely outspoken against Hefner—there’s a couple of old interviews in the film by Keating. And Reverend Falwell, of course, also extremely critical; he passed away before I started the film, or I would have tried to interview him. And Dennis Prager, the conservative radio host. And Pat Boone, of course, the Christian activist and the singer, who, in fact, believes that Hef has broken the moral fiber of America. And, in the beginning, Mike Wallace was very critical of Hefner—you know, when he was a young upstart—and didn’t particularly like him, as he says in the film; interestingly enough, as Mike Wallace grew older and learned more about Hefner, he changed his mind, and actually, when a number of people’s interviews about Hefner were published in a book, Mike Wallace did the foreword for that book. So he began to realize the incredible importance that Hugh Hefner has had on society, and on America, and throughout the world, and he talks about that. And, to me, to do the interview with Mike Wallace was very, very important, because I got the old response, and then his response when he got to know Mr. Hefner better. It was very interesting from somebody like that, who is very much respected.

Unlike most fiction-based films, which operate under very structured schedules and have to be completed within a certain period of time, you really took your time with your film—in terms of researching it, shooting it, and post-producing it—in order to do it right. Can you break down the time that was invested in making this film?
It took a little over three years to make the film. For about two-and-a-half years of that, I was researching—I continued to research as I was shooting. About a year after I began the film, I started doing the interviews, and I interviewed in Chicago, in New York, in L.A., in Sarasota, and San Francisco—just north of San Francisco and just south of San Francisco. So a fair bit of traveling. And that shooting took almost a year, as well. And then the editing began in September, when I almost had finished shooting. I finished shooting in November. And I edited the film from September until June—literally, like, every day, every day. We started with a seven-and-a-half-hour rough-cut, and then slowly, slowly, slowly that came down to the present. When the film was shown in Toronto, it was a longer version than it is now; Toronto, for me, was really a place where I wanted to test the film, and see how it worked for an audience, and how it felt at the length. I kind of knew the film was too long, but I really began to realize I had to cut it down, so I started again in late ’09 and finished in early 2010 what I call “the final cut” of the film. And, funnily enough, the director’s cut this time is shorter, which I’m quite proud of. The longer version is no longer around; it’s disappeared. [laughs]

A corollary to that question: on this particular film, what part of the process did you enjoy the most and what part of the process did you enjoy the least?
You know, I’ll just say one thing: there is nothing about filmmaking, and directing, and producing, and researching that I don’t enjoy; I enjoy every, every part of it. I think my most favorite part is in the editing room, and then when they’re mixing the film. You know, I have everything transcribed—I have pages, upon pages, upon pages of transcriptions—and you literally have to cut that apart, and assemble it into a shape, and then reshape, and reshape, and you work at it, and slowly, slowly, slowly, out of that big piece of rock, the sculpture emerges, and it’s quite an amazing feeling to slowly get it down to that. And then the moment when it finally works and you put the visuals to it? There’s nothing like it; there’s absolutely nothing like the many, many joys of discovery that things are working in the editing room. And then, of course, there are frustrations, because you can’t get something to work. And then when you overcome the frustrations—which you always do; you always overcome them—that’s doubly joyful. So that’s my favorite. And then, in the mix, of course, I sit back and I work with the mixer, and we’re just working on the music, and the sound, and, putting the polish onto it. And I was very, very happy—I had an amazing sound designer and an amazing composer working on the film. And music is really important in the film—I use music like an emotional narration; there is no narration, as you know, purposefully. And those people, working with them, just at the very end, and creating the polish, was the best; it was just incredible.

Another pretty special part of the process must have been when you first showed Hefner the completed film…
That was amazing. I actually showed him an earlier, longer version, not because he could see it and then say, “Change this,” “Change that,” but because I wanted to really make sure that everything was correct. As a documentary filmmaker, to have a mistake in your film is just something that you want to avoid at all costs, because once one mistake is found you’ve lost credibility, so I wanted to make sure that there were no mistakes—with photographs, with things that were connected, nothing. And so I showed it to him when it was, oh, about, half-an-hour longer than it was in Toronto, and it was amazing; it was quite amazing. You’ll have to ask him.

From what you were able to see, what sense were you able to get of his response?
At the end, he just— He was extremely moved by the film—extremely moved—and was amazed. I think he said, “You get me very well.” And that was a real compliment to me, you know? I was very proud of that. You know, he never said anything about the naysayers—nothing. The only thing he did say was he asked if they would be identified—in other words, would I identify Susan Brownmiller as being a feminist? I said, “Of course!” It’s absolutely necessary, you know? You have to know who’s talking and from whose mouth these words come, you know? So that was all. And then I showed him the film last July with a group of his friends; and I had flown down with me some of the people who had funded the film from Telefilm Canada and all the people who had constantly worked on the film—you know, my sound designer; my composer couldn’t come unfortunately, but a number of other people—and we are all were in the living room, which is the theater, and watched the film. And it was quite tremendous. There was so much laughter—the film is so funny—didn’t you find it funny? [laughs] And I love that, you know? And I think he was really surprised that it was so funny. But, again, at the end, Hef—he was deeply moved again. He just hugged me, and I hugged him, and it was just an incredible moment of knowing knowing that I got it right. And that real sense of responsibility had combined itself with the art. Now the responsibility of getting it out there, of getting people to come into the theater, is another responsibility. It’s like a child was born, and now you’ve got to make sure the child is clothed so it can go off to school.

There is a generation of people right now who know Hefner only as the older guy with the girls on the E! TV show “The Girls Next Door” and through stuff like that. What do you most hope that they would learn about him through your documentary?
Well, I’m gonna give you a little anecdote before I answer that. Victor and I were in Miami at the Miami Film Festival, and there was a little group of girls who must have been, like, sixteen or seventeen years old, that had come to the film, and they were just standing outside talking, and Victor went up to them, and I followed–he was, you know, surprised–and he said, “What brought you girls to this film? You’re so young!” And one of the girls, kind of, piped up and said, “Well, it’s Hugh Hefner!” And then the other one chimed in and said, “And I am so glad he’s not an asshole!” [laughs] It was just very delicious. And I think it, kind of, indirectly brings me to what I want people to see. I want people to put away their preconceptions about this man and come into the film prepared to look at a story of a very complex individual who has had a polarizing effect on society in many ways—on people—and watch it, listen to him, listen to the naysayers, and then make up their own mind. And, also, listen to the many, many things that he has done for civil rights, for human rights, for the First Amendment, for abortion, against outdated sex laws. He’s changed the face of America—totally. And he’s dared to stick his neck out—you know, breaking the color lines with Dick Gregory; taking on the post office, of all things, in America, when they were opening the people’s mail; standing up for moral rights, for justice in prison, against the Vietnam War, marijuana laws—anything that he felt was not right. He didn’t just go and say, “Oh, well, that’s a bad thing and I wish it was better.” No. He truly fought in the magazine, with the letters and the literature, and then worked with people to help change laws that people wrote in about. He changed things. And so to really listen and see all the things that he has done to change the social fiber of America, and the sexual laws of America. And then, at the same time, yes, to listen to Susan Brownmiller, who says that he objectified women, and make up your own mind about that. You’ll listen to Hugh Hefner talk about women; you’ll listen to his secretary talk about him; and, at the end, without any narration to tell you how to think, come out of that and you decide who this man is and what his contributions have been, for good or not.

Hefner is now eighty-four. From what I understand, he’s doing well and he’s got very good genes, so he may continue doing what he’s been doing for a long time to come. But many years from now, when we’re all gone, how do you think he will be remembered? What do you think his legacy will be?
Right now, there are a number of people who still can’t get over that he is Hugh Hefner and that he created Playboy. “How can this same person also be an activist?” “How can this same person be fighting for Civil Rights?” You know, they just can’t wrap their heads around it. But lo and behold, when we’re all gone and future generations look at that, I think they will really, really see him in context, and see truly the impact he has had on America. Unfortunately, when we lose icons, that’s when we truly begin to appreciate them, and what they have done really stays behind. I mean, we’ve all benefited from what Hugh Hefner has done, you know? My husband jokes when he says to young people, “The very fact that you can sleep with your girlfriend,” you know, “you can thank Hugh Hefner for that.” I mean, it’s a joke, but it’s no joke sexually. I mean, this man–I love the integrity of Mr. Hefner, and the daring, and believing in doing what is right, and actually doing it. And how many people do you know who actually do it? Very, very few.

RELATED: Click here to read my exclusive interview with Hugh Hefner himself about this film and the life it chronicles/he has lived!

Photo: Hugh Hefner and Brigitte Berman on the grounds of The Playboy Mansion. Credit: Phase 4 Films.

Tags: Alice in Wonderland, Artie Shaw, Artie Shaw: Time Is All You've Got, Bix Beiderbecke, Brigitte Berman, Canada, Charles Keating, Chicago, Dennis Prager, Dick Gregory, Don Hague, Down and Out in America, E!, Germany, Gloria Steinem, Hugh Hefner, Hugh Hefner: Playboy Activist and Rebel, Interviews, Jamaica, Jerry Falwell, Los Angeles, Mahler, Mary O'Connor, Maureen Forrester, Mike Wallace, Oprah Winfrey, Pat Boone, Playboy, Playboy Mansion, San Francisco, Sarasota, Susan Brownmiller, Telefilm Canada, The Girls Next Door, The Music Man, Toronto, Victor Solnicki, Vietnam War