Photo by Phil Regandanz

Something was wrong. On the second night in Prague shooting the documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil, cinematographer Chris Soos approached director Sacha Gervasi looking deadly serious.

The subjects of the film, the semi-legendary Canadian heavy-metal band Anvil, had just gotten lost driving the rinky-dink RV they'd rented for the Czech leg of their 2005 European tour. Unable to read the road signs, they showed up two hours late to a gig, which led to a shoving match with the owner of the club, who tried to pay the band in bowls of goulash. Then a lawyer emerged from the crowd and handed his card to Anvil's lead singer, Lips, and drummer, Robbo, declaring, "Anvil should be playing before a thousand people, minimum, given your reputation. And you are not. And you can ask yourself, 'Why are we not doing that?' "

"I've been asking myself that for 20 years," Lips said.

"I could answer that in one word," Robbo added. "Two words...three words: We haven't got good management."

It had been a sad, hilarious day. And then Soos pulled Gervasi aside for a heart-to-heart.

"He had the look of a man who was dying of cancer," Gervasi recalls. "He said, 'My crew doesn't have to know, but tell me: Are they actors?' That's all he wanted to know. My own cameraman couldn't believe it was completely real."

The 42-year-old London-born Gervasi is a good storyteller, a screenwriter (The Big Tease, The Terminal) who has plied his trade in Hollywood for more than a decade. He recounts the tale over lunch in the Brooklyn Marriott, after which the members of Anvil -- Steve "Lips" Kudlow, 52, Robb "Robbo" Reiner, 50, and bassist Glenn "Glenn Five" Gyorffy, 38 -- will head to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for a screening of the documentary. When the movie ends, they'll play in the theater's café.

"Everything in that movie is 100 percent natural and real," Robbo says. "We could have cameras going right here, filming what's happening now. That's all that that was."

And then, as if on cue, Lips interjects with some commentary that could be culled from the stoner-wisdom dialogue in the film. "I am not an actor," he says. "When I walk out of the movie, I'm still me." He stares down at the dish of coleslaw before him, trying to get a grip on his train of thought. (Indeed, several people present have just gone downstairs to smoke pot.)

Lips regains his footing: "So when I find myself speaking and I hear my voice and act like I do in the movie, it's very odd." He pauses for a few beats. "It's really weird, man. Very odd."

"You're freaking yourself out," says Gervasi, trying to bring Lips back to earth.