Russell Brand: “Fame Is Not All That Good”

Russell Brand, like so many other celebrities, always dreamed of being an entertainer, but now that he’s famous, he’s not really loving life in the spotlight. For the past year, Brand has been working about a documentary about happiness, produced by Oliver Stone and directed by Albert Maysles, and in the film he explains that fame is not quite what he thought it would be. “I’m famous now,” he says. “I didn’t used to be but, when I was younger, I always wanted to be famous. I thought it would make me happy. But now I’ve got fame and some of the things that I thought would make me happy — it ain’t worked.”
It’s hard to tell if Brand is actually unhappy with his life or just unhappy with fame, and he only adds to the confusion saying “I don’t want to say, ‘Lavish sympathy upon me’. I can imagine what people will say, ‘Wasn’t it as good as you anticipated? Was it when you were single and all the sex and the boozing that was disappointing? Or is it really starting now you are living in a mansion with three cats and Katy Perry? You have suffered’. It’s just peculiar to me, a lad growing up in Essex, London, that I would attach such importance to becoming famous and things, and it’s not all that good.” No word on when we’ll actually be able to see this documentary, and according to an interview with Brand, it’s been in the works for nearly two years.