For most of their 21-year marriage, George Stephanopoulos and Ali Wentworth operated on separate career tracks. He is an Emmy-winning political host and commentator on ABC News and she is “Jerry Maguire” actress-turned-New York Times bestselling author and host of the hit iHeardRadio podcast “Go Ask Ali.” But those boundaries crumbled as they were stuck at home together during the COVID pandemic, with the pair deciding to team up in a joint venture: production company BedBy8.

“Let’s not deny that being empty nests kind of played a role,” says Wentworth, who is the mother of two grown daughters with Stephanopoulos. “We thought, ‘Wow, we have so many stories to tell.’ And we can kind of stay in our ways within the company.

Founded in 2021 with their partner Alyssa Mastromonaco, BedBy8 focuses on scripted television projects, limited series and documentaries. Two years later, Stephanopoulos and Wentworth have their first BedBy8 credit under their belt, the critically acclaimed docuseries “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields.” Hulu launched the two-hour series in January at the Sundance Film Festival and on its streaming service April 3, with “Pretty Baby” sparking a needed conversation about the sexualization and objectification of young girls told through the prism of Shields’ experience as a world-renowned child star.

Wentworth counts Shields among her closest friends (ironically, she frequently played Shields during the comedian’s two-year stint on “In Living Color” in the early ’90s). But with the Lana Wilson-directed “Pretty Baby,” Shields relinquished the reins of her life’s story and had no say in the final cut.

“She put a lot of trust in Ali,” says Stephanopoulos.

Wentworth, 58, and Stephanopoulos, 62, guests Variety at their two-story home office on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to discuss battling an icon like Shields and do justice to his remarkable life story, while avoiding sensationalism.

What was the mindset behind getting involved with ‘Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields”?

Wentworth: So I’ve been very good friends with Brooke for several years. And she would tell me these stories. And I was like, ‘I can’t believe you’re alive.’ She’s been pretty open about some things in her life, and I said, “You really should do a documentary about your life.” And we had talked about it over the years. And basically, when George and I started our production company, it was one of the first things we thought was a good project. Just kismet. She felt safe with us. We’re not going to turn this into something salacious.

Stephanopoulos: And she also did this knowing she had to let go of control.

Did she have any input?

Wentworth: She did interviews. And there are areas in the doc that George and I have protected it or certainly looked at at times where we thought, ‘You know, let’s edit. Let’s be careful with that. Even if her words, her life – she owns it.

Why did you decide to start a business together?

Stephanopoulos: At first [of the pandemic], I got a new deal with Disney, and that’s something Ali and I have always talked about. And I could do this [company] part of the agreement. We wanted to do a bunch of different things – documentaries and scripted projects – to merge our different worlds. And ‘Pretty Baby’ was one of the first to really take off. LAW.

Wentworth: I think George and I are both storytellers in different ways. I’m fascinated by some of the things he does under the George Stephanopoulos Productions banner, like [the Hulu documentary about a homegrown extremist group] “The Informant”, as I am about some of the comedic stuff that we develop.

As producer partners, how do you divide and conquer?

Wentworth: It’s as if we were synchronized swimmers. When you marry someone, you don’t know what kind of husband he’s going to be, what kind of father he’s going to be. So I’ve never worked with George before. For many of us, it’s the worst nightmare. But when we started working together, we naturally knew our way. I love seeing a cut of something he does with ABC for George Stephanopoulos Productions. But we share ideas, we share books.

Stephanopoulos: And Ali is that powerhouse for generating stuff.

Is Hulu the natural fit for anything you do at ABC that you want to expand or amplify?

Stephanopoulos: Alec Baldwin’s interview went immediately to Hulu. I think that was actually one of the reasons Alec wanted to do this interview because we would have this wide streaming reach.

How to differentiate a George Stephanopoulos Productions project from a BedBy8 production?

Stephanopoulos: Brooke was a very special case because Ali brought it up. At GSP, we have another one coming out in [April]our first collaboration with the AP, which deals with a different sort of informant story where a guy uncovered a murder plot by KKK prison guards in Florida.

Wentworth: Brooke certainly fell under a lot more BedBy8 production.

Stephanopoulos: I don’t think GSP would do a documentary on Brooke Shields. That is not exactly correct. New documentaries are supposed to be inside [ABC]but they made an exception because of the relationship.

What do you think people will be most surprised to learn about Brooke Shields after “Pretty Baby”?

Wentworth: Our generation is going to remember the things that people forgot – that they had a fight with Tom Cruise about antidepressants, [her marriage to] Andre Agassi, Michael Jackson! When you see the kind of breadth of his experiences, you’re like, “Wow. This woman’s life has been one huge thing after another. And there is the biggest umbrella of this. This woman was sexualized at a young age. And [that trend] go on and on and on and on. This is happening now with social media. We’re all thinking, “She posted a cute pic in a bikini, and she’s 12.” We’re there now, and we don’t realize the ramifications of how this whole younger generation is sexualizing themselves, do we? Back then, of course, people were going to see “Pretty Baby” [in 1978] and were like, ‘Oh yeah, what a great Louis Malle movie.’ You could never make this movie now. It’s actually disgusting and revolting to watch. (On the other hand, Shields has mixed feelings about the film, but says she stays proud of the movie).

Stephanopoulos: And those interviews when you see the male interviewers even eyeing her.

What else did you find fascinating about Brooke?

Stephanopoulos: The extent of his fame is something you cannot even imagine today.

Wentworth: In the doc, I tell Brooke, “You should either be in rehab or dead.” I mean, not just sexualization. Everything that was against her – an alcoholic mother who wasn’t there on set when people asked her to do all kinds of things. And when you meet Brooke and get to know her, she’s not “Brooke Shields” to me. She’s an ordinary mother, like, “Oh my God, where are you going for spring break?” This kind of things.

Stephanopoulos: In “Pretty Baby,” you sort of see how she did it. She never stopped working. She had an incredible work ethic. She’s a bit fearless in the choices she makes in her career. She’s willing to try just about anything to keep the job going. And she came out the other side about as normal as she could get.

What’s next for BedBy8?

Stephanopoulos: We’re working on a great scripted project with Jenni Konner from ‘Girls.’ I found this novel by Grant Ginder called “Don’t do that anymore”. It’s a New York story about a woman running for the Senate, but it’s really a family story. And Jenni was incredibly drawn in immediately. She is now developing this.

Wentworth: This is a series that will have a kind of ‘Big Little Lies’ vibe.