Metro

‘Real-life’ Elmo

When Elmo sits for interviews, reporters often make the mistake of putting the microphone on the Muppet instead of the man actually doing the talking.

But in the new documentary “Being Elmo,” premiering this month at the Sundance Film Festival, the filmmakers instead train their focus on Kevin Clash, the little red monster’s internationally famous yet largely incognito puppeteer.

Spending six years observing the iconic puppet and his Geppetto, Upper West Side husband-wife documentarians James Miller and Constance Marks discovered that it’s sometimes hard to say where Clash ends and Elmo begins.

“We followed Kevin as Kevin, but his life really revolves around his puppetry in a really big way,” said Miller, a former cameraman on “Sesame Street.”

Clash, 50, even narrates his home movies as Elmo. In one hilarious clip, Elmo provides the play-by-play of the trip to the hospital when Clash’s wife went into labor — a development that does not seem to amuse his wife and mother-in-law.

The film chronicles Clash from his youth in suburban Baltimore fashioning puppets out of socks to his rise to elder statesman of “Sesame Street.”

“I don’t think anybody else could have made Elmo into the tour de force he is. How did Kevin do that? That’s what we’re showing in the documentary,” Marks said.

Clash, a protégé of Muppet founding fathers Jim Henson and Frank Oz, says he agreed to make the documentary to preserve their art.

“Jim left us the baton, and wanted us to keep going. Even with all of today’s CGI [computer-generated imagery], there’s a place for this magic,” Clash said.

To bring the Muppets to life, puppeteers contort themselves into tiny spaces while lying on their backs, with monitors showing how their performances appear.

“We were given incredible access to footage no one has ever seen before,” Miller said.

“Everyone sees the puppets, but no one really thinks who does this, and what makes one more popular than another.”

The documentary may bring Clash more attention than he’s used to.

“The first day of shooting, we were at a big gala event — Oprah and Desmond Tutu were there — and Kevin was on the red carpet with Diane Sawyer and the paparazzi descended,” Marks said.

“How do you do that?” Clash said to Sawyer. “That’s why I am glad I am a puppet.”

jeremy.olshan@nypost.com