The day Jordan Feldstein, the brother of Jonah Hill, passed away unexpectedly, the actor visited his therapist.
In his new documentary, Hill confesses to his therapist Phil Stutz that he spends much of his time avoiding thinking about that particular day. “I entered your office. It was unquestionably the most stressful day of my life.”
Stutz, a new Hill documentary that is currently available on Netflix, is an experiment that feels like it shouldn’t work but does. Known for his roles in movies like Superbad, 21 Jump Street, and The Wolf of Wall Street, the 38-year-old A-list actor chose to create a film where he spoke with his therapist, the eminent psychiatrist Phil Stutz.
Hill first argues that the film isn’t about him; rather, it’s about Stutz and the cognitive-behavioral techniques that, according to Hill, helped him get through his darkest hour. Hill does, however, finally admit that the film is, at least in part, about him.
He forces himself to talk about his late brother, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 40 after suffering a heart attack. (While filming the story, Hill discovered that Stutz also lost a brother when the therapist was only 9 and his sibling was only 3 years old.)
Hill says that he visited Stutz for a session on the day he learned that his brother had passed away. Stutz asked Hill for his phone so he could capture a photo of the actor while they were there. Hill asks Stutz, “I wondered why you did that.”
Stutz responds, “It is exceedingly uncommon in life that you get a chance to record something at the climax, most essential time. And after that, you revisit it a week or a year later. You encounter the forces of healing and recovery throughout that period.”
Hill informs Stutz that he hasn’t looked at the picture in four years after nodding in agreement. However, he feels prepared to confront it now that he has gone through the process of processing his grief, in part by working on this film alongside Stutz.
He looks at the image with Stutz while holding a printed copy of it. Hill claims, “I look stripped of everything fake. My face has an incredibly tranquil expression that is quite strange. But perhaps because it destroyed everything unimportant.”
With regard to the image, Stutz says, “That’s the picture of somebody who’s gone through hell, come out the other side, and is OK.” Stutz’s words appear to have touched Hill, who then puts up the photo for the audience to view.
Hill continues by describing how Stutz’s “loss processing” methods have eased his sadness, but he makes it clear that they weren’t a quick remedy. “I still feel that pain every day,” he claims. “I continue to miss my brother.”
Hill also discussed his issue with growing up overweight and the years he spent fighting with his body image earlier in the film industry. It may seem like no big problem, or ‘poor you,’ or anything similar, but for him personally, it severely messed him up, he claims.
When Stutz was 33 years old, Hill first started visiting him because of that struggle. Hill, however, wants to truly confront this beast, just like he did with his brother. He stares at a cardboard cutout of himself when he was 14 years old.
“At 33, I was quite successful and in excellent physical condition. All of which ought to have eliminated this version of myself,” Hill remembers, pointing to the cardboard cutout. “I figured they wouldn’t notice if I become successful. Then I did, and all the folks did was keep repeating that.”
Hill reveals that he has worked hard to appreciate and accept the person he was 14 years ago. But he acknowledges that it’s challenging, particularly in the face of ridicule and cheap jabs from the media. The Wolf of Wall Street received an Oscar nomination, but his successful career didn’t provide the solace he had longed for.
“When success didn’t cure any of that stuff, it made me beyond depressed,” says Hill. “Meanwhile, the media continued to be quite critical of my weight. Anyone was welcome to strike me where it hurt. I got so protective as a result.”
Hill continues by claiming that he wasn’t able to successfully start ignoring the bad and build his own view of himself until he met Stutz.
Hill decided not to participate in a Stutz promotional tour as part of his efforts to take care of himself. He even deleted his social media accounts.
“You won’t see me out there promoting this movie or any of my upcoming movies while I take this crucial measure to protect myself,” Hill stated in a statement. “I wouldn’t be true to myself or the movie if I promoted it in a way that made me feel worse.”
“The work will speak for itself.”
