A: Oh, it's Tommy. What I love about him is his work ethic. My philosophy is similar to his in that every day I'm aspiring to be a better version of me. I don't ever want to be the fat Elvis. So Tommy was always someone I looked up to even though he's 15, 16 years younger than me.

Q: You call him Tommy.

A: I do. I don't know if anyone else does.

Q: Do people call you JBJ?

A: [Matthew] McConaughey started that. I love it.

Q: Seems important that the subject of a documentary not be the person in control of it.

A: I have nothing to hide. If I got punched in the nose by band members in the film, the sting puts you back on your heels and then you come out of it and you go, "I understand that." So I lived with some of that, and I'm good with it. There's a lot of warts in this film — things I might not even agree with, where one of the guys said they didn't know if I was coming back [after starting a solo career]. I don't know how you could say I wasn't coming back — I'm the guy whose name is on the marquee. But I can live with all the truths in this picture. And I can promise you I didn't take any of it out.

Q: If Richie hadn't agreed to be interviewed for the series, do you think you still could've done it?

A: Certainly.

Q: I kind of think not.

...continued

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