Having dropped all that weight he gained in Super Size Me, the New York documentary filmmaker was in fighting shape to take on his biggest challenge yet: finding the architect of the 9/11 attacks. To make Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? Spurlock spent five months in the Middle East, following bin Laden’s trail from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan and Pakistan. (The director makes stops in Jordan and Morocco, too.) His mission is given greater urgency by the fact that his wife Alex is about to give birth back at home. As Spurlock explained in an interview in a downtown hotel last month, his situation got him thinking about more than just the whereabouts of a certain terrorist.

How did the news that you were going to be a daddy change your quest to find the big guy?
We were probably about two or three months away from shooting when we found that Alex was pregnant. It really did shift my personal focus — when you find out your wife’s gonna have a kid, it should change your outlook. It really did bring up this question of “What kind of world am I bringing a kid into?” It did take on a larger scope than just being about this one guy. And as we went on this journey, we started to see there’s so much more beyond Osama bin Laden. There are so many other things that helped create an Osama bin Laden and continue to push people toward an Osama bin Laden. If we can find him a thousand times over, it doesn’t fix all these other things. I think the film is a great primer into those kinds of topics.

Do you think that it better serves the u.s. government to have bin Laden on the loose?
In post-Cold War America, the Russians are gone, so who are we going to be afraid of? Who should we be afraid of? By keeping this guy out there, there is a sense that there’s always a danger, always a threat. The boogeyman is always somewhere — we don’t know where. He’s the person people whisper about in dark corners. He’s more of an entity than a person.

In the movie, you like to adopt local attire wherever you go – were you worried you could seem patronizing?
When I was doing my language training, my tutor said, “Everywhere you go, you should try to dress in local garb — people will like it.” And he was absolutely spot-on. When we got to countries, we would ask the local producers and fixers about this because we never wanted to be disrespectful. And all of them were like, “No, you should, definitely. It would make a big difference.” Because then you’re not coming in as if you’re saying, “I’m a Westerner.” You’re coming in as someone who clearly wants to understand.

Did you ever fear you were going too far by treating the subject with so much humour?
We’ve become so apathetic and complacent about this material, we’ve basically checked out. And you have to engage people. There’s a world of people who don’t read the paper and don’t watch the news every night and this is really a chance to get them into a dialogue that’s been missing. There’s an incredibly bright woman I know — she is the kind of person who reads the paper every day — who took her 14-year-old son to the movie. And he doesn’t have any clue what’s going on — he plays video games and he plays in a band with his friends. Afterwards, the two of them got into a real fantastic and heated political discussion. She said to me, “This never happens. I just want to thank you for that.” I think there’s a demographic bridge that can happen with a movie. I think Super Size Me did that. Part of the goal with the movie was to have it do that as well. There’s a chance for parents and kids to see the movie and both get something out of it.

Email us at: LETTERS@EYEWEEKLY.COM or send your questions to EYEWEEKLY.COM
625 Church St, 6th Floor, Toronto M4Y 2G1