Faye Dunaway Has No Love for ‘Mommie Dearest’ in HBO’s ‘Faye’ Documentary: “Why Did I Ever Do That?”

If Mommie Dearest fans are hoping that star Faye Dunaway might finally be ready to embrace the 1981’s film’s campy cult-classic status in her new documentary, they will be sorely disspointed. In Faye , the new documentary airing on HBO tonight, the 83-year-old Dunaway denounces her infamous Joan Crawford performance as a “mistake.”

“There are moments in your life where things make sense, and it did at that time,” Dunaway tells the documentary’s director, Laurent Bouzereau. “I’d just been married to Terry [O’Neill], just had a baby. Somehow, that was, financially, a good prospect. It wasn’t really. It was the wrong thing for me to do. But it was one of the mistakes.”

Directed by Frank Perry, Mommie Dearest was adapted from Christina Crawford’s 1978 tell-all autobiography about the abuse she endured at the hands of her mother, Golden Era Hollywood actress Joan Crawford (played by Dunaway). The film was a critical and box office flop, earning scathing pans from top critics at the time. Though it was intended as a deadly serious portrayal of psychological and physical abuse, audiences were laughing at the over-the-top, melodramatic tone. Mommie Dearest soon gained a new reputation as a fun, campy cult classic, especially among the gay community. Rocky Horror- esque screenings of the movie where staged. Drag queens reenacted Dunaway’s infamous monologues.

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In Faye , Dunaway hints that director Frank Perry is to blame for the film’s reputation. “Frank Perry didn’t help me shape the scene,” Dunaway says. “I wish he had come in and said, ‘Come on Faye, that’s too far. Pull it back.’ I mean, I’m a professional. I would have done that.”

The Oscar-winning actress, who also speaks openly about her bipolar diagnosis in the documentary, added that her disorder was also a factor in her perforamnce. “I got engrossed in trying to achieve what the script seemed to be requiring of me, and it might have kicked into my bipolar—this mania, this irritation. This mood swing.”

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Dunaway’s Mommie Dearest costar, Rutanya Alda, who is also interviewed in the documentary, says she was afraid of Dunaway on set. “She was scary. She was frightening,” Alda said, adding that Perry allegedly told her she might be fired if she upset Dunaway in any way. “I mean, it’s a terrible way to work, thinking you’re gonna get fired any time.”

Dunaway’s repsonse? “Rutanya Alda said there was like a fearfulness of me on the set? Well, that’s because the character was written fearful, I suppose. I don’t recall bad things with Rutanya. Sometimes, I guess, I’ve been unkind to people, or seemingly cruel. I haven’t meant to be.”

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Alda went on to say that while she was surprised audiences found the film funny, she appreciates that Mommie Dearest has found a following. “They loved it in a whole other way, that what it’s become.”

But for Dunaway, the film was a disaster. She had gone from one of the most respected actors of the ’60s and ’70s to, at least for one movie, a laughing stock. Some might argue that her career never fully recovered. One can understand why, then, she can’t appreciate the films cult status, even over 40 years later.

“You’re not always going to be up there, making the right choices, being perfect,” Dunaway tells the camera. “You’re gonna have moments where you think, ‘Why did I ever do that?’”

Mara Hobel, who played the young Christina Crawford in the movie, is also featured in the documentary. She tears up when she hears that Dunaway still regrets Mommie Dearest. “She was incredible to me. It makes me sad that she doesn’t have fond memories of doing Mommie Dearest , because I loved it.”

Faye debuts on Saturday, July 14  at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO, and will be available to stream on Max .

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