The tense exchange with the star best known for such hit comedies as Caddyshack, Fletch, and the National Lampoon\u2019s Vacation series has become the flashpoint of the film, but Chase told the director he didn\u2019t think she would keep it in.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, duh, of course I kept it in the film!\u201d Zenovich told host Matt Wilstein. She knew she had to bring up his reputation for being a massive jerk. \u201cBut I was afraid to bring it up because it was the second time I met him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In that moment, the documentarian had \u201cno idea\u201d whether or not she might get thrown out of the \u201880s comedy star\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the excitement of this job is you have no idea what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d she told Wilstein. \u201cAnd yes, he was rude, but I think he was just being himself. And I was just doing my job.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Chevy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/HZYGBPHFWVGELPOQ67BGJGQ6QM.png\")
Chevy Chase\u2019s career took off after the first season of \u201cSNL,\u201d but has been marred by on-set controversies ever since. Courtesy CNN Films <\/p>\n
The documentary, I\u2019m Chevy Chase and You\u2019re Not, premiered on CNN, and will begin streaming on HBO Max on January 31.<\/p>\n
According to Zenovich, very few of Chase\u2019s peers were willing to associate themselves with the documentary. SNL creator Lorne Michaels and fellow original cast member Dan Aykroyd were among the few to sign on. No one from Community, Chase\u2019s cult favorite NBC sitcom, appeared for an interview besides director Jay Chandrasekhar. <\/p>\n
![\"Chevy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GSXXYJ6QWRGIBFI35527NMQKZE.jpg\")
Chase\u2019s infamous on-set demeanor and age kept him from participating in the 50th anniversary special of \u201cSNL.\u201d Noam Galai\/NBC via Getty Images <\/p>\n
Chase, who played the curmudgeonly Pierce Hawthorne on Community, was fired<\/a> partway through the production of its fourth season by showrunner Dan Harmon after Chase supposedly used a racial slur in an argument on set. <\/p>\n Chase allegedly used the N-word in a heated exchange with co-star Yvette Nicole Brown, who played Shirley, about a joke involving a Black-face hand puppet operated by Chase\u2019s character. <\/p>\n After storming off set, Chase returned in what Chandrasekhar described in the documentary as a \u201cfull meltdown\u201d and never came back.<\/p>\n Chase refused to discuss the incident in the documentary.<\/p>\n And his co-stars may not have wanted to appear on camera, but they have not shied away from voicing their complaints about the aging actor and comedian. <\/p>\n \u201cThese are things I\u2019ve never spoken of publicly and perhaps never will,\u201d Brown posted on Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n Zenovich told Wilstein she was \u201csurprised\u201d when Brown spoke out about the documentary, as she had reached out to the actress during filming. \u201cShe didn\u2019t want to talk to me, and I respect that,\u201d Zenovich said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re limited by what you get, who\u2019s willing to talk to you, how deep they\u2019re willing to go,\u201d the director said on the podcast. \u201cIt\u2019s really like you\u2019re always digging, and you never know if it\u2019s going to be a good interview\u2026 That\u2019s part of the fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our YouTube<\/a> channel to watch new episodes of \u2018Obsessed: The Podcast\u2019 every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And follow our feed<\/a> to listen to the show the next morning on your favorite podcast platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The director of a new bombshell documentary about Chevy Chase knew she was onto something when the comedian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,57758,19593,5864,4973,75,5862,34566],"class_list":["post-400599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-chevy-chase","tag-cnn","tag-comedy","tag-documentary-film","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo","tag-snl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Yvette](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/H2EF2FU6RFFBHEPQPIQZDLEN24.jpg\")
Yvette Nicole Brown and Chevy Chase on \u201cCommunity.\u201d Mitchell Haaseth\/NBC <\/p>\n