John Candy’s Son Was ‘Shocked to See How Interviewers’ Pestered His Dad About His Weight: ‘Heart-Wrenching’

John Candy’s son Chris Candy is opening up about how making the new documentary John Candy: I Like Me taught him new things about his dad.

Chris appeared at a special screening of the documentary on Wednesday, Oct. 8, alongside director Colin Hanks, producer Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, N.Y. During a discussion after the film, Jackman, 57, asked Chris to name “one piece of the puzzle” of his dad’s life that making the movie gave him.

“I was kind of shocked to see how interviewers treat him,” Chris, 41, said. “That was just kind of heart-wrenching. And I also could see how he got more frustrated and he found ways to deal with that.” John was often questioned about his weight in interviews and in the media.

“I learned through the process of this that he was so nervous about eating in front of people because of paparazzi,” Chris said. He said that fear led his dad to disordered eating patterns. “He developed a poor eating habit where he’d be like, ‘Alright, well I’m not going to eat all day. I’m going to eat at night.’ ” 

Chris explained, “When I hear stories like that I just felt so bad for him because it’s like, ‘How cornered are you?’ And you really want in those moments, as his son or as his friend, to be able to grab him by his shoulders and say, ‘Why the f— do you have to do this? Just who cares? Have a sandwich and get mad about it.’ ” 

John died from a heart attack in 1994 while filming Wagons East in Durango, Mexico. 

In an essay published last month for The Toronto Star, Chris reflected on his dad’s life and making the documentary. Chris wrote that while working on the doc, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, he learned he and his dad had “so much in common,” including, “most poignant was something I already knew, but this time it hit a little harder: He lost his dad when he was 5; I lost mine when I was 8.”

Speaking to PEOPLE on Oct. 3, Chris noted that he didn’t think his dad would absolutely love the doc. “I think he would be uncomfortable, but this is a guy that didn’t like to go to his own movie premieres,” Chris said.

But he wondered, if his dad had lived, if he would have become more comfortable over time. “I would hope though, the John Candy of 2025, he would’ve worked on himself enough to be okay with himself, and then I know that he did love himself,” he said, “but yeah, I think in that early phase, he probably would’ve felt a bit uncomfortable about the whole thing nowadays.”

John Candy: I Like Me, which began streaming on Amazon Prime Video on Oct. 10, weaves together archival footage of John with interviews from some of his former costars and friends, including Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Martin Short, Mel Brooks, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy and Dan Aykroyd.

Chris told PEOPLE, “I think the thing that stood out the most to me was the influence that his comedy had on comedians that I grew up [watching]. . . . To hear Conan O’Brien talk about how he was such a direct influence, my dad onto him, and then for me to be such a fan of his — to kind of see the connective tissue that my dad had within the realm of comedy was really an overwhelming feeling.”

John Candy: I Like Me is streaming now on Prime Video.