Interview — Judd Apatow
To cap off the run-up to the release of his latest writing-directing effort Funny People, today’s interview is with Judd Apatow. I normally spotlight our interviewee’s writing credits, but what’s equally impressive about Apatow is that he is a successful producer as well with producing credits on The Cable Guy (1996), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Kicking & Screaming (2005), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Superbad (2007), Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Drillbit Taylor (2008), Step Brothers (2008), Pineapple Express (2008), and Year One (2009).
Here are a few excerpts from the interview which appears in the “Boston Phoenix”:
How much of you is in there when it comes to being a lonely, friendless kajillionaire?
Adam and I always say, “This is the guy we could’ve become if we didn’t meet our wives and attempt to become normal family men.” At some point, all of us had that epiphany that it’s time to grow up and we can’t sleep till noon and be completely self-indulgent egomaniacs — as fun as that was. This is about somebody that’s having a hard time learning that lesson. When he gets sick, he realizes, “Oh, was it worth the trade to be this guy? I’m famous, but I actually don’t have any people that I’m close to in the world.” And when he gets sick, he literally has no one to call that he wants to share the news with and get support from.
Were you ever an Ira to somebody else?
I was an Ira to everybody — I just loved comedians — I couldn’t believe they would talk to me. So I wrote for dozens of comics when I first started out — it was a great way to pay my rent. I wasn’t making money doing stand-up — I made much better money writing jokes for other people. I wrote Roseanne’s act for a year with Roseanne. I used to sell jokes to people: I wrote the Grammys for Gary Shandling one year, I wrote jokes for Jeff Dunham’s puppet Walter, the old-man puppet, when I first started out. I wrote for a TV special for Colin Quinn and jokes for George Wallace, and it was always really fun. Those times were great. No one was miserable like George, so it took me a long time to think of a character that would make this relationship interesting. But what is very truthful is how excited I was to be with my heroes.
None of the comedians was George-like?
People were all a little George-like. But everyone who does comedy is really needy and has some relationship issues. Anyone who needs the world to love them and goes out in the middle of the night to get up on stage and hear laughs from 30 to 200 people, multiple times a week, is working through something.
Why is that? Why are comedians such dicks?
You have to be very angry to be a comedian — you have to see the world as unfair, and you want to rant and rail against it. But there are quirky, funny guys — smart guys — who aren’t damaged, and they’re just really funny, like Seinfeld, and Steve Carell, and Will Ferrell. And there’s another group of guys who just think the system isn’t fair and they want to tell you why. George Carlin would be the best example. A lot of great comedy is rage-driven.
For two years, I supported myself by doing something on stage that could be perceived to be something akin to stand-up comedy. The watered-down condition of that comment is directly due to the fact that I was never, no way, no how anywhere even in sniffing range of the league of talent Apatow and his cronies exhibit. I had an act. I sometimes made people laugh. I got paid. That about sums it up.
Apatow, on the other hand, is at the center of the galaxy of comic actors and writers who rule the comedy moviemaking world in Hwood nowadays . And if you ever get the chance to see him live, even at something like this year’s WGA “Beyond Words” event which Apatow moderated, and you catch his comic timing and sensibilities in the moment… well, what can you say other than the guy’s just got it.
For more of the “Boston Phoenix” interview with Apatow, go here.
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