D. Wade: Life Unexpected, a documentary directed and executive produced by Wade’s long-time friend and cinematographer Bob Metelus, chronicles three-time NBA champion Dwyane Wade’s experience on and off the court as he enters into his final year in the league, and reflects on personal and professional victories and set-backs throughout his legendary career.

The film includes scenes from hundreds of hours of never-before-seen home movies, exclusive video diaries, and all-access verité footage shot over the last decade. Imagine Documentaries’ President Justin Wilkes and EVP Sara Bernstein produced the film alongside Imagine Entertainment Chairmen Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, as well as with Academy-Award nominated and Emmy Winning producer, Sam Pollard.

We caught up with Wade during NBA All-Star Weekend to ask about the film and more.

How transparent will you be in this film and why have you decided to lift up the veil on your life in this way?

Wade: “Great question. I think I'm already transparent in life period. I don't know if I'm going to be any more [transparent] than I've been. I think you see some raw and real emotions. You will see some family moments, which is cool. But I'm transparent; me, my wife, my family, we’re already transparent. It's just a continuation of how we already live.”

I was told that the opening scene you're in bed, and you're crying….

Wade: “I was sniffling a little bit.” *laughs* 

How important is it to show that imagery to the culture especially Black men that aren’t often emotional enough?

Wade: “Vulnerability is sexy. So for me it’s about trying to be as authentic as possible. You know, we all put on masks for certain people but for me in his documentary, I just wanted to be authentic and be who I am and not have to code myself because of me trying to live up to some kind of macho dream. So hopefully it comes off just real and just authentic.”

You were recently on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. You talked about your daughter and you're very open about that. What do you think that adds to our society by being open in that way because not a lot of Black people are.

Wade: “I think the one thing I understand about my family is we understand that one, we are voices for our community. Whether you want to be or not, we’re put in this position. God gave us this platform to be some form of a voice for our community. So everything that we've dealt with as a family, we've come out and talked about. We talked about my daughter being born via surrogacy. We talk about issues that we know families are dealing with. Not everybody has the platform to talk about it with everybody, or you know, maybe you’re afraid to. So for me, let's have this conversation together. We all are learning the way of life together. We all do not have the answers at all, even though we'd like to seem like we do. So for me, it’s like listen, we're dealing with this, we're vulnerable to this, let's have a conversation and let's see how we can continue to grow as not only a community, but all of us together.”