How Britney Spears and the ‘Cannibal Cop’ Left Erin Lee Carr Forever Changed

Few documentary filmmakers are as prolific as Erin Lee Carr.

In the last five years alone, the in-demand director has helmed the controversial Netflix doc “Britney vs Spears,” “The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring,” “Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara,” the docuseries “I Am Not a Monster: The Lois Riess Murders” and scripted series “Murdaugh: Death in the Family.” She’s also produced “Stormy,” a doc on embattled Trump accuser Stormy Daniels, “Trophy Wife: Murder on Safari” and “Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini.” If you see a throughline there — centering the stories of women — that is by design, and something Carr chalks up to a terrifying encounter with the “Cannibal Cop” Gilberto Valle, the subject of her 2015 film “Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop,” that turned her world upside down (more on that later).

Her latest is “The Swan: Behind the Mirror.” Premiering Sept. 29 on Hulu, the feature-length documentary explores Nely Galán’s notorious 2004 Fox reality-competition series “The Swan,” where 16 women — so-called “ugly ducklings” — subjected themselves to extreme plastic surgery, dentistry, training, dieting and a little bit of therapy to transform themselves into what a panel of experts deemed more “attractive” versions of themselves. They would then compete against one another in a beauty pageant, which had a lingerie portion for God knows what reason, for the ultimate prize of being crowned The Swan. It is considered one of the worst reality TV shows ever produced, and the doc features eye-opening testimonials for a dozen former contestants, many of whom were left traumatized by the experience, as well as series producers and even one of its plastic surgeons, who comes off particularly bad.

“On a personal level, I didn’t like my body and what I looked like and always wanted to look like somebody else,” Carr tells Variety about making the doc. “But in many ways, ‘The Swan’ was a harbinger of what was to come.”

Carr, 38, is the daughter of late, great New York Times columnist David Carr, and managed to find a window in her packed schedule to fit in “The Swan: Behind the Mirror,” nestling it between “a feature for Netflix that I’m going to finish in the next couple of months” and some more “scripted things” she’s cooking up.

But for now, we’re here to talk about “The Swan” — and her “Britney vs Spears” ordeal.

Did you watch “The Swan” when it was on TV?

I wasn’t allowed to watch TV on the weekdays — my father was very intense — but I ended up sneaking it and found out about the show. At the time, I was a huge Britney Spears person and I was like, OK, what am I trying to look like? I just remember seeing a clip of this really intense dentistry and plastic surgery that haunted me, and I don’t think I watched the rest of the show. When Hulu contacted me saying that Expectation TV, this U.K. production company, had this I was like, I gotta do it! I didn’t even have room in my schedule but figured it out.

How long did the process take to make “The Swan: Behind the Mirror?”

I was not given a lot of time. I will say it was under a year. Typically, the films that I make take 18 months, and I do it to protect the editorial process and develop access in a way that feels deeply meaningful. In this case, a lot of the access had been figured out. Some of the Swans were onboard, Dr. Terry [Dubrow] was a maybe, Dr. Haworth was a maybe, Nely [Galán] I’d had many conversations with. What I immediately knew at the beginning was: I’m not going to cast inside this documentary. Typically, you pick three people and that’s all a feature has room for; you don’t have 12 participants. But I wasn’t going to do the same thing that happened to these women where they got chosen whose story was best. I needed to interview everyone for 2-3 hours and we’d figure it out in the edit.

What happened with trying to convince Terry Dubrow and Nely Galán to be in the doc?

I’ll let you in on a little secret: Terry wanted a sum of money that would never make sense for a documentary expert. It was under $100,000 for one interview. And with Nely, it’s her show and it’s her footage so if anyone was going to do a “Swan” documentary, it was going to be her. Plus, she wanted to be an executive producer on it and that wasn’t going to work. So then we were in discussions about licensing the footage and we did not end up licensing the footage — it was fair use, so that had to be carefully constructed. When you see the iPad inside the interview scenes it was because they had to comment on the parts of the show.

How do you feel about the Terry Dubrow of it all, who now features on “The Real Housewives of Orange County?” He’s had some harsh comments about the women who’ve expressed sadness over appearing on “The Swan.”

He said it was “all a bunch of BS,” and I wrote back to him, and I was like, “I’m excited to hear what you think.” I think he’s a reasonable and rational man, and when he sees this, he’ll understand. Maybe his recollection was that he helped people, but that’s not the case. And I was actually really surprised that he was dismissing the experiences of the women so publicly. When I looked into the women and their time on the show, Dr. Dubrow was very well-liked. So, I think it’s puzzling that that is the stance he would take before even watching [the film].

One of the more startling revelations in the documentary concerns a nude photo shoot Dr. Haworth subjected the Season 2 contestants to that seemed incredibly sketchy.

He ended up giving the photos to production to give back to the women, but there would be no agreement about deleting or destroying the photos. He said it was for an “art book” and I think the story checked out that it actually was for that, but the circumstances of the women not knowing why they were taking these photos and the fact that production people weren’t at the photo shoot, in a story about exploitation it’s important to include those details.

There seemed to be a turning point in your career about a decade ago where you really started focusing on women’s stories. What changed?

Do you want to know the craziest reason why that happened? I did “Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop,” and my male subject [Gilberto Valle] would not stop messaging me. I felt harassed and stalked, and I said, I’m never making a film about a man again. I’m not going to fear for my physical safety, I care about women and I’m a long-term feminist. I even advocated for Gil Valle in my film that it had been thought crimes! I ultimately found my path but it’s because this early thing happened to me. I later met an FBI officer in Manhattan who was like, “That guy was absolutely going to kill people so you shouldn’t live where you live.”

So you moved because of the “Cannibal Cop?”

Because of the “Cannibal Cop” and I had to move in with a cutie in Astoria.

Another prominent documentary filmmaker, Alex Gibney, is dealing with legal threats right now from the richest man in the world over his “Musk” doc. How worried are you about legal risk?

It’s a scary time to be a documentary filmmaker when it comes to legal risk. I did the “Stormy” film with Sarah Gibson and Judd Apatow, and there was Trump legal risk associated with it. Who I am before that and who I am after makes me feel differently about risk. They tried to file an injunction, the Southern District of New York didn’t want the film coming out, we got legal letters while we were making it and it was a painful experience on all sides. I also got legal letters while I was making the Britney Spears doc and pressure from somebody at an agency saying not to do it. And Stormy Daniels lives as a hunted person. We premiered the film at South by Southwest and there had to be a bomb sweep before the film by security. So, all the hats I have off to Alex Gibney for saying, “I’m going to take on the richest and most litigious person in the world.”

You mentioned your Britney Spears doc “Britney vs Spears,” and it did receive a good amount of pushback. There were critics who found it exploitive.

Yes. I would say the Britney Spears thing was a very punishing experience in my life because I spent two years where every single moment of my life was dedicated to this person and trying to get her out of this unlawful conservatorship. Ultimately, she disavowed the film and said that people were exploiting her. There were very intense tactics taken by the filmmaking team to not do that. There was no showing of those photos that every doc that’s ever been about her has shown of the incident with the umbrella and her own mental health crisis. So, what I decided was: What other people think of my work can’t be a part of my opinion because then it will ruin how I make films.

A part of me was extremely hurt by the process and the accusations, and it was dark days. Now, when I think about the work I am making and want to make, it’s about enthusiastic participation — people who want to do this and want their story to be out. That has been extremely healing for me as it relates to doing this with Hulu and the Swans. But Britney Spears is out of the conservatorship. Certain people think Britney’s not doing well, but she’s not being financially taken advantage of by her father anymore, so that’s a win.

Given the work that you do now shining a light on women’s stories, how do you feel about starting your filmmaking career at a place like Vice that had an awful culture when it came to its treatment of women?

I was a very strange kid in a bedroom shooting things that no one saw, and then I was a strange kid at an organization shooting things that people saw. I got to have a launchpad to my career. I made this film called “Click. Print. Gun.” about a guy who was printing AR-15s, and that got Andrew Rossi to notice me, and then I got into a room with Sheila Nevins. Would I be here sitting and talking to you and making films about the empowerment of women if that didn’t happen? No. Is it lost on me that the themes and values that I hold dear are incongruent [with Vice]?

During one of the last fights I had with my father before he died, he said, “You are incredibly ungrateful when it comes to Vice. They made you a part of who you are.” He ended up really liking Vice. And I said, “Try being a woman working there.” We couldn’t see eye to eye on that.