To watch this documentary about the one-time comedian’s astonishing journey to statesmanship is to feel that you’re witnessing the birth of a hero

It’s such an astonishing story that you wouldn’t dare make it up. And yet someone already had, which is part of what makes the story so astonishing. From 2015 to 2019, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a popular comic film and TV actor, starred in Servant of the People – a political satire about an ordinary man suddenly made president of Ukraine who gradually proves himself to be the incorruptible leader the country needed. In 2019, Zelenskiy began serving as president in real life; barely three years after that, he found himself president in a time of war, when Vladimir Putin did what he had long wanted to do and invaded the country.

The Zelensky Story, directed by Michael Waldman, is told in three hour-long parts filmed over several trips to Ukraine. It comprises interviews with Zelenskiy, his wife, Olena, and friends and colleagues, mixed with footage of his entertainment career and his life as a statesman, diplomat and war leader. The first episode covers Zelenskiy’s rise to fame; the second his move into politics and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine; and the third his experience as the head of a country convulsed by conflict.