Q. The documentary premiered recently at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. What was that like, and what was the reception from the audience?

Sarah Gibson: It was the first time we’ve shown it for a group of people that big. Stormy was in the audience watching it; she’d seen it before for the first time over Zoom with me (and Erin) — that was very powerful. We were so impressed that she showed up because she was quite frightened to go. She was sitting in the audience, and she got up onstage afterward, and she was very weepy and told the story about how she met Judd, how she met me [and] how grateful she was for us telling her story. She said, “You warned me this wasn’t going to be a puff piece, and it was a truth piece, and I feel like you really did my story justice.” That was the best review we could have gotten. That was the most important feedback, from a woman who has been through hell. We didn’t want this film to cause her more trauma.

Erin Lee Carr: Ultimately, we as filmmakers want (documentary subjects) to feel like they’re accurately portrayed but that we show what it’s like to be them, we show their heart (and) we show the intimacy. Stormy is among so many people that we’ve tried to put forward in an authentic way.

Q. Why did you decide to do a documentary about Daniels? How did you initially connect with her?

Gibson: I worked with Stormy on a comedy project in 2019. … We stayed in touch after she left the set. On the way up to Canada that same day, she got stopped at the Canadian border with the 17 charges on her FBI record that were false [shown in the documentary]. She was texting me from the airport and telling me what had happened. It sounded like a conspiracy theory. After she got home, we stayed in touch about that … She was in a really dark place at the time.

When she was in court against Michael Avenatti in 2022, I was listening to [a clip about] it on NPR. I live here in L.A., pulled over on the freeway and called her and said, “Stormy, you know, Erin and I just made a film about Britney Spears and the justice system not working for her. And if you’re interested in telling your story about how the justice system has failed you, we’re here for you, just say when.” She said, “I just saw your Britney film. Let’s do it.”

Daniels has been very outspoken on both traditional and social media about what happened between her and Trump. What made it different for her to speak to you and do this documentary?

Carr: A point we make is that she was looked at as this one-dimensional character by the media. I’m a journalist, but seeing it from her perspective — which is what I tried to do every day — was intense. She has put her trust in a lot of men that failed her, and an opportunity to work with a documentarian like Sarah and myself, we were going to show up for her and we did.

Q. A portion of your footage was captured by journalist Denver Nicks, who profiled Daniels in 2018 for Rolling Stone. How did that footage come into your hands, and why did you choose to use it?

Carr: Anytime that you can have contemporaneous footage inside a film that you’re doing, it is a literal gold mine. Stormy Daniels actually had ended up having a friendship with Denver Nicks. When we first got the project started, we said, “Is there footage of you that was happening during this time?” Denver was one of four people that gave us footage. We decided to put it in because it really showed what was happening [and] what it was like when it was happening.

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