Remember Faye Dunaway as the wild-eyed Bonnie to Warren Beatty’s Clyde in 1967 movie? Or her chilling moment-of-truth confession to Jack Nicholson in Chinatown? Or perhaps her sleek, 70s-glam role as a fashion photographer in the terrifying Eyes of Laura Mars? Or perhaps how her co-star Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair lauded her as the brightest talent of her generation?

Those are just a few of the iconic roles that this Oscar-winner is known for, in addition to her stunning beauty and her reputation for being one of Hollywood’s more difficult actors.

In the new documentary Faye on MAX, all this and more is laid bare as Faye Dunaway’s life story is unspooled. We see Ms. Dunaway, now in her 80s, sharing her life story with the camera. Strutting around lower Manhattan and primping for the camera, it’s clear she is still a commanding presence yet eager to share what it was like coming of age in the movies.

How a Hard Childhood Shaped Her

Her childhood in Florida, by her own account, was not a totally happy or carefree one, with her father’s alcoholism leading to the end of her parents’ marriage. But her mother groomed her for greatness, and a young Faye sought refuge in acting, starting out in local theater when still in junior high school. Photos in the documentary show a surprisingly mature-looking teenage Faye, with those cut-glass cheekbones evident, performing on stage.

“Become a person” is Faye Dunaway’s advice to aspiring actors.

New York-bound at a young age, she soon leapfrogged into Broadway roles in the early 1960s and then major motion pictures, as they were known in the day. As today’s Faye recounts her story, she talks about what it takes to be an actor. “Become a person,” is her succinct mandate, reflecting the need to experience the full gamut of emotions and channel those into one’s work. We learn (and see) how she dissolved into roles, becoming her characters, as shockingly disparate from her real persona as they may have been.

Her work ethic and personal discipline is revealed to be intense. The slaps that Jack Nicholson delivers in that hair-raising Chinatown scene were real, egged on by Faye herself, to communicate how fraught the moment was for her character. Her slender form in her blockbuster movies reflected the need to fit into the costumes of the era, even if it meant Faye Dunaway had to be “done away” with to an extent, shunning meals to wear tiny, figure-revealing outfits.

Faye Dunaway’s Life as Hollywood’s Ultimate A-Lister

“Talented and difficult” was the term that dogged her throughout her long career. She needed to control her scenes, from the minor (having just the right amount of lip balm applied multiple times while shooting), to the major, stating her ideas about how things should roll. Faye documents the “jump the shark” moment when she melted into the persona of an imperious and abusive Joan Crawford in 1981’s Mommie Dearest, now a cult classic but one that was so over-the-top that it marked her career for all the wrong (scenery-chewing) reasons.

“Talented but difficult” was the term that dogged her throughout her long career.

What none of the filmdom pundits in Faye can deny is the wild talent of this actor, who won not just an Oscar but also a Primetime Emmy, a trio of Golden Globes, and a BAFTA Award. In 2011, the government of France made her an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters.

And about that Oscar for 1976’s insider look at the TV news industry, Network: Dunaway agreed to turn up at the Beverly Hills Hotel at the crack of dawn the next morning, to sit by the pool, surrounded by the newspapers trumpeting her win, with a somewhat bored, “Is that all there is?” expression on her face. It’s an iconic image in Tinseltown and globally, snapped by one of her husbands, photographer Terry O’Neill (she married him after her union with Peter Wolf, lead singer of the J. Geils Band, ended).

Her Surprising Favorite Role

Perhaps the most moving moment of the documentary, however, has nothing to do with her recounting her silver-screen or Broadway exploits. Rather, it’s when she talks about her path to motherhood.

Her son Liam Dunaway O’Neill (adopted in 1980, as she says she was too old to bear children) is her absolute pride and joy, though she seems regretful that his status as a non-biological child was trumpeted in the media of the day. He joins her on camera, and when talking about raising him, Dunaway becomes visibly moved and teary. She says that being a mom has been her finest experience, bar none. When discussing past co-stars and romantic partners, whether dead of alive, no such emotion flickers across her face.

The only time Dunaway becomes visibly moved and teary is when she talks about being a mom to her only son, Liam.

What a rare and poignant surprise to see this fine, fierce actor so transformed by parenthood. She positively glows when seated so happily next to her only child.

Navigating Life in Her 80s

In the documentary, she goes on to recount some of her more recent projects, which range from successful to not so much. She and Warren Beatty famously flubbed an award at the Oscars, announcing that the wrong film had won moviedom’s highest honor. And she was axed from a one-woman show about an elderly Katherine Hepburn a few years ago, with reports circulating of her acting out (and throwing things) during rehearsals.

We see an intimate portrait of a woman with steely perfectionism but also a tender heart.

Faye delivers an intimate glimpse of a woman at perhaps the darkening twilight of her career. A woman with steely perfectionism and a tender heart, who came of age during an era where women’s power and sense of agency was not at all what it is today. One thing this illuminating documentary makes clear: Faye Dunaway has never, and will never, back down from what she feels is worth fighting for.