Judd Apatow is tugging on a long-sleeved plaid shirt, pulling at
his buzzing phone and reaching out for a handshake all at the same time. This
is how I meet him — endlessly multitasking.
I tell him he’s the George Lucas of comedy. “Is that a good
thing?” he says. Sure, because your films take place within the same universe
and often star the same characters, and you also write, produce and direct way
more than people realize, from your own movies (40-Year-Old Virgin) to web shorts (Funny or Die clips) to TV shows
(Freaks and Geeks, and this year’s
endlessly debated HBO series Girls). Isn’t it exhausting?
“Not yet,” he says.
Apatow was in
Here is our chat:
Volume: Your phone isn’t far from your
reach. Is that a Twitter addiction? You seem to have embraced it (@JuddApatow)
more and more over the last several months.
Judd Apatow: I like
it. In a weird way it has the immediacy of stand-up comedy. Twitter is hard to
resist for someone who likes to get reactions out of people. So in the middle
of the night, if I think of something provocative or funny I can tweet it and
watch as a hundred or so people respond — you can start fighting or laughing
with them. I find that to be an irresistible idea. My wife doesn’t like it
because it’s a whole new distraction.
Volume: It’s interesting as a viewer to
watch your children grow up from movie to movie.
JA: I hoped people
would like that aspect. I got such a positive feedback from Knocked Up and Funny People about them. I mean, there was that scene in Knocked up where Maude explains how
babies are made. [Actual quote from the
movie: “Well I think the stork, he, um, he drops it down, and then a hole goes
in your body and there’s blood everywhere, coming out of your head, and then
you push your bellybutton, and then your butt falls off, and then you hold your
butt, and you have to dig, and you find the little baby.”] She came up with
that herself. And then she sings “Memory” from Cats in Funny People. And
then Iris is very funny as well. It seemed like a very honest thing to do, to
show them at every stage, especially when you consider that Maude didn’t
understand how babies were made several years ago and now she’s struggling with
young adult problems in this film. It felt like it would be a powerful
experience for people, and funny too.
Volume: Will she star in her own movie
eventually? Maybe This is 16?
JA: She can do
whatever she wants to do. She has a lot of interests, and also a lot of
homework right now, so it is a balance of her pursuing things like acting and
her writing, blogging and tweeting [@MaudeApatow] and not failing biology.
Volume: Could this be a trilogy?
JA: It could be seven
films. I like the idea of revisiting people in stages. There’s no part of me
that wouldn’t make This is 50, This is 60 or beyond. It’s a fascinating
opportunity. When I listen to music, I’m always moved by people who share their
lives within their songs, people like Loudon Wainwright.
Volume: Paul Rudd has always been great,
but he was always misunderstood before your collaborations together.
JA: Paul is a
brilliant actor. I just recently saw him on stage in New York and he’s terrific. He has a really
strong chemistry with Leslie, and he can convey these deep issues that Leslie
and I deal with within our relationship in a way that’s funny. His character is
a Frankenstein monster made of his worst traits and my worst traits.
Volume: Was there ever any push to have
the original Knocked Up characters,
Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl, appear?
No, because I felt that Seth and Katherine were so charismatic
and funny that if they walked through the movie you would just want to follow
them. You couldn’t have them in one scene because you would get frustrated that
they weren’t on screen more.
Volume: My wife and I have been married
just over a year, so I’m excited to see it with her to get her take on it. The
jokes were very honest.
JA: It’s all very
relatable material. And what’s so weird about that is the more specific I got
the more universal it became. Things that I thought I only did — like taking
the iPad to the bathroom for some peace and quiet — are actually quite common,
so that’s been exciting because I never thought that people would see that and
see their own habits.
Volume: Did you ever worry you were
making the film too personal?
JA: Not really. It’s
about a third from our life, a third observed from friends’ lives and third
made up to make the movie interesting. It is like a soup of ideas. If you came
to our house you wouldn’t think you were living the movie right now. It does
represent our emotional issues and things we’re concerned about, including
aging and communication problems.
Volume: The men in this movie are crazy,
whereas the women appear to ground them. Was that a conscious decision to show
that?
JA: I didn’t
necessarily want to show how irresponsible men were, just how they kind of
always had their own agenda, like in Knocked
Up when Paul’s character sneaks out for fantasy baseball or here in This is 40 where he sneaks into the
bathroom to play iPad games, or sneaks cupcakes even though he’s gaining weight.
I wanted to show how men drive women crazy and how that disconnects the
relationship. A lot of my relationship with Leslie is me learning lessons that
I wouldn’t have learned if she wasn’t around. Without her I would just be
eating McDonalds for every meal and sleeping on my couch 16 hours a day.
