"I f-----g hated that."
José Mourinho had just finished an interview for his upcoming titular Netflix docuseries and he wasn't pleased with the line of questioning.
He got up when it was done and left the room. But just 10 minutes later, on the ferry back to mainland Portugal, Mourinho spotted some of the crew and began waving and smiling at them.
"We were being manipulated constantly as well, and we knew that. But going into a show with someone like José Mourinho, if you're not being manipulated, then we're not doing our job right," director Joe Pearlman told ESPN.
The production process, which began two and a half years ago, when Mourinho had been fired by Roma, culminated this week with the release of the three-part docuseries on Netflix. In this period, Mourinho had brief stints at Fenerbahce and Benfica before sealing a sensational return to Real Madrid this summer.
The docuseries has been produced by Ventureland, the makers of the acclaimed Beckham documentary as well as the increasingly relevant FIFA Uncovered, which unpacks the governing body's malaise and malpractice.
It was in the Ventureland offices where ESPN sat down with Pearlman and Miles Coleman, the producer of Mourinho.
Coleman says it wasn't a "galaxy-brained" idea to make a documentary on the Portuguese manager, and Ventureland certainly weren't the first ones to approach him about it. Their pitch worked due to it being the right timing and the clincher was Ventureland Managing Director John Battsek's line to Mourinho that was crafted to his sensitivities.
"If you want one of the bottle, go with one of the others. But if you want a special one, go with us."
From the outset, Ventureland made clear to Mourinho that this won't be a hagiography and they will challenge him in it. He agreed, but didn't take well to it.
Pearlman's voice is a recurring presence in the series and there's a moment in it where he asks Mourinho about his 'third-season syndrome' -- a reference to the manager's tendency to crash out in his third season at a club. Mourinho's death-stare pierces through the screen and he sidesteps the question. Similarly, when Pearlman asks him about his father's death during his time at Man United, he shuts down the line of questioning and appears visibly emotional.
This was one of the first interviews Mourinho did for the docuseries and watching him tear up, Pearlman was amazed but also wondered if it could mean the end of the project.
"I think what surprised me the most was for someone who, so obviously, is that old school burying emotion deep, how surface-level his vulnerability was," Pearlman says.
"I think that it came up so quickly and so early in the process of working with him that you were like, you're either ready to cry or you're at a place where all of these things are actually things you're thinking about now."
Packaging a storied career that extends beyond two decades into three episodes that are roughly an hour each isn't an easy task. And, the makers have chosen to distill the period following his second stint at Chelsea. Mourinho hasn't won a league title since leaving Stamford Bridge, but Coleman pushes back against suggestions that the docuseries is focused on the good times.
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"One of the things that works about the timeline that we really focused on is you kind of have Jose and a microcosm across all of it, which means that you possibly don't have to look at the Fenerbahce season in depth to understand in a macro sense what happened there," Coleman says.
"Because if you watch the years that we've focused on, you get him, you get who he is, you get what happens."
To break down a character as complex as Mourinho, the docuseries features interviews with a host of his former players, assistants and adversaries. The standout interviewee is former Spain and Madrid captain Iker Casillas, who had a public and bitter falling out with Mourinho during his first stint at the Bernabéu. The Portuguese felt the goalkeeper was leaking stories from the dressing room to the media and his decision to drop him fractured his relationship with the squad.
Coleman says getting Casillas on the docuseries was challenging and gives him enormous credit for talking about his side of the feud.
"I think it was just one of those things that happened so organically that once it was done, once we had the interview in the can and he walked off set, we were all kind of pinching ourselves. Did we really just interview Iker Casillas for the José Mourinho documentary?" he says.
Pep Guardiola is a notable absentee in the docuseries, but it wasn't for a lack of trying. The Spaniard had, in fact, agreed to appear on it but on the condition that Mourinho asked him personally. And, he didn't.
"It says everything about both characters to me and it was perfect. And also when you get that answer, you're like 'cool that's not happening,'" Pearlman says.
Mourinho's epic rivalry with Guardiola hit its peak when they stood on either side of the Clásico divide in the early 2010s. More than a decade on, Mourinho will be renewing his rivalry with Barcelona following his return to the Bernabéu touchline.
The news of Mourinho 2.0 began to filter through when the docuseries was still in the editing process. The opportunity to pivot and make it all about his return was tantalising but Coleman notes it went against their aim of it being "evergreen."
"It would be tempting or it would be understandable to try and make that moment a very sort of newsy piece that is designed for the release in August 2026," Coleman says.
"But then the trick with this is to make it something that it's not actually really about him going back. If in five years' time he's back at Chelsea or Man United, that the documentary still reveals his psychology as if he'd never gone to Real Madrid. It's both very relevant and entirely irrelevant to the film that Joe's made."
Mourinho is many things, but primarily he is relevant. Since winning the Champions League with Porto in 2004, he has been a permanent fixture in our consciousness and headlines. And yet, there are new revelations and anecdotes that the Netflix docuseries unearths.
Like how Mourinho turned down the chance to replace Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United in 2013. Or how during his first stint at Chelsea, he procured training-ground footage of Sam Allardyce giving his team tactical instructions before their league match against Bolton. It's a scene that feels especially startling given the recent 'Spygate' scandal involving Southampton that gripped English football.
But to Coleman, it isn't incidents like this but something else entirely that viewers will learn about Mourinho from the docuseries.
"The paradox that one of the greatest man managers in the history of sport is not interested in people, their backgrounds, or indeed his own. That's pretty surprising," he says.
Coleman and Pearlman both worked closely with Mourinho for nearly three years on this docuseries. Yet, both of them can't say with certainty that he knows their names.