Former soccer star David Beckham and Netflix‘s chief content officer Bela Bajaria teased what to expect from the upcoming documentary following his wife, Victoria, on Tuesday.
The ex-Spice Girl is “one of the hardest working women I know”, her husband gushed to the audience during a fireside chat at the inaugural MIP London content and networking market on Tuesday.
“It’s gonna see her in a different light,” he began. “It’s gonna see the work that she puts into her business, her life, her family. There’s so many different elements of this documentary that people are going to be surprised by, the juggling that she does.”
He continued, referencing her fashion empire: “I think with Victoria, I suppose some people probably think, ‘Oh, she started a brand and it’s come very easy,’ but she’s been building this for a long time. I just think this is going to showcase that. She’s got a very witty personality — she’s very funny. Not as funny as me [Laughs].”
The star also touched on his content studio, Studio 99, which launched in 2019. It operates both editorial and commercial production, specializing in developing and producing doc features, series and formats for global platforms and networks, including Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon’s Prime Video.
Beckham opened up on the reception to his Emmy-winning Beckham documentary on Netflix (made with Studio 99), though he admitted he didn’t enjoy the making of it. “To see the amount of people that watched it, loved it, that got so much out of it, that was the most rewarding part,” he said. “[Director] Fisher [Stevens] said, ‘How much control do you want of the edit?’ I said, ‘None. That’s down to you.’ And that’s the way I felt it had to be — something that was very authentic, very open and very honest. And I think that we did that.”
“It was difficult at times to discuss some stuff,” he added, “because a lot of the footage and the archive stuff I’ve never seen before. Seeing that for the first time… I probably shouldn’t say this as well, [but] when I first watched a couple of clips, I [thought], ‘I think I’ve made a mistake making this.’”
The first 15 minutes of the session was dedicated to Bajaria’s more light-hearted probes, such as Beckham’s favorite film (Ratatouille), his upcoming fiftieth birthday (“I think [Victoria] is trying to organize things I don’t want”), and that viral Hugo Boss ad: “Getting back into my underwear at 50 years old in front of the world was [something] I actually wasn’t looking forward to.”
