Paul Reubens knew he was dying, and the director didn’t, as they were making “Pee-wee as Himself,” an extraordinary documentary that pulls back the curtain on the man known to the world as Pee-wee Herman. While the HBO two-part project is in ways unique, it also represents what might be called the Celebrity Exit Interview, where public figures take control of their stories while there’s still time to do so.

Through that lens, “Pee-wee as Himself” joins a small but rich roster of relatively recent documentaries, including “Val,” Amazon’s 2021 look at Val Kilmer, who died earlier this year after battling throat cancer; and “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” an emotional tribute to the actor’s life and career amid his three-decade struggle with Parkinson’s disease.

Each of these films has been not only deeply personal but unusually moving, so much so that it’s easy to come away hoping this becomes even more of a trend, in a “Why wait until after the obituary?” fashion.

“My world is getting smaller,” Fox said explaining his decision to participate in the 2023 documentary, which deftly mixed nostalgia for all he represented in the 1980s with all that he has done and accomplished since, including becoming an outspoken advocate.

Such projects haven’t been confined to Hollywood. Legislators John McCain and John Lewis both cooperated extensively with the documentaries “John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” released in 2018 and 2020, respectively, in each case, a few months before they died.

“I wanted to do something while he was living,” “Good Trouble” director Dawn Porter said after Lewis’ death. “I wanted to do something where I could ask him the questions I wanted to ask him. And, of course, as we all know, he passed away soon after the movie was released, which was a total shock.”

Of course, McCain and Lewis were both octogenarians, which is part of the beauty of this particular strata of documentaries — hearing from famous people in their own words, when they have to know that they’re nearing the end of their lives and needn’t pull their punches.

Even by that standard, there’s something uniquely fascinating about “Pee-wee as Himself,” since, as director Matt Wolf told TheWrap at Sundance in January, “I had no idea that Paul had been battling cancer for six years.” Unbeknownst to Wolf, who worked Reubens’ persistent attempts to micro-manage the production into the film, he had been diagnosed with leukemia and lung cancer.

With the benefit of hindsight, all that makes perfect sense, including Reubens’ skepticism about whether he can trust Wolf, given the media firestorm he survived after his arrest in an adult movie theater in 1991. The actor knows, but the director doesn’t, that he likely won’t be around to see the finished product.

Then again, Reubens — who died at the age of 70 — provided with Wolf with an inordinately rich palette to paint this three hour-and-20-minute portrait. The raw material included more than 40 hours of interviews conducted before his death in 2023 — exchanges that find him funny, playful and extremely frank all at once — and thousands of hours of archival and personal video footage.

That dynamic is also surely enhanced by the fact Reubens felt compelled to keep secrets his entire life, among them being gay. That off-screen life made his persona as the star of a popular kids show (albeit one watched and enjoyed by lots of adults, as much of the humor sailed over children’s heads) especially vulnerable during his TV heyday in the late 1980s.

“Pee-wee as Himself” incorporates plenty of fascinating footage, from Reubens appearing as an early incarnation of the character on “The Dating Game” (spoiler alert: He was picked) to his frequent guest spots on David Letterman’s show, where his off-kilter sensibility meshed with the host’s irreverent brand of comedy.

“I was being a performance artist in mainstream pop culture,” Reubens says.

At its best, the documentary not only heightens appreciation of Reubens’ quirky genius — while documenting how it broke through against all odds — but creates a sharper picture of the man behind it, and how he grudgingly agreed to tell his side of the story, in what feels like both a time-capsule item and a genuine gift to his fans.

In that sense, Reubens was right about one thing, and wrong about another: His instinct to leave behind such a document didn’t just work, but it provides a sort-of model for other celebrities who might be thinking about how to say goodbye; and in terms of entrusting Wolf to tell his story, based on the finished product, he absolutely put his faith, and occasional lack thereof, in the right hands.

“Pee-wee as Himself” premieres Friday at 8 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.

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