"Judd Apatow"

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Sorry, Sean, I just felt like... No, I just feel like you're taking yourself way too seriously.
It's not like you have to do that. It's not the first time ever, but I just thought like, wouldn't that be great if our podcast started like, welcome to an all new...
No? Does that sound... Sure.
Heavy-handed? Sure. Okay.
Can I... Do you mind if I...
It's just... Why don't you try something more upbeat because you're always so serious anyway.
I want to do upbeat. I want to be like, you know, SmartList is a podcast that Sean Hayes, Jason Bateman, and I do where we each bring on a guest and the other two don't know who it is and then, you know, fun ensues and blah, blah, blah, blah.
That's it. That's all you have to say.
I could do that or I could do

welcome to an all new episode of... We got it.
Smartless. Smartless.

Smartless. Smartless..
Smart. Less.
So when I was 21, I was in a gas station, and a guy comes up, and I'm not making this up. The guy comes up, and he says— By the way, it should be—I don't want to interrupt, but I do want to say, usually when people say, I'm not making this up— I swear to God, this is true.
I'm not making it up because this is how stupid I was. 20 years old, the guy comes up and he says, hey, you want some speakers? And I'm like, what kind of speakers? And I'm not kidding.
They're in the back of the stand. Wait, wait, sorry.
I interrupt again. This time to say, and the guy said, and he held up the work order.
He's like, we were supposed to deliver them, but the person didn't want. Is that what happened? No, that's not what guy says here look at come look at them i was a little apprehensive but it was only like a couple cars away so i go and look in the back and they're huge right these huge speakers and he's like they're only 200 bucks and that was tons of money but i was like god these brand new speakers for 200 bucks i should just do it and so i go would you take a check i don't have that cash he goes sure so we're on the check I took these two huge speakers in my car.
I get home and my brother's like, what are you, a fucking moron? And I go, why, what? And he goes, out of the back of a van, like this is the point when I learned that this is like not for real. And I was like, well, I wrote him a check.
He goes, we'll cancel it. So I canceled the check through the bank and I got to keep the speakers.
And were they real speakers? They were completely makeshift plywood speakers, and they worked, but they were like, you know, tiny, you know, $2 speakers. But that used to be a scam.
Guys would drive around the city in New York, and you'd be in the village, and they'd walk, and they'd go, hey, hey, man, do you know where, you know, West 3rd of Street is? And you're like, you're on it. And they're like, oh, no way.
We're trying to, we had these speakers. We're supposed to deliver them, but the guy didn't want them.
And he, like, holds out the work order, and he opens the back of the van, and he has these huge, you know, I mean, I don't know if you want them. I mean, I guess I could give you them for $100.
You're like, what, $100? Are you telling the exact same story I just told? Yeah, basically, but just better. Like, imagine.
He's punching it up. Like, more fun.
So it's like auditions go. Same dialogue, different dude.
Sure. Yeah.
Like less like sitting in a therapist's

office and more like just having fun, you know? Oh, okay. So our guests today are surprise guests.
I don't even know how to introduce him because A, he's super funny, but B, he has been part of creating or has created some of the greatest things, movies and TV shows that certainly that I've ever loved and that you have too.

And Norman Lear.

It's not Norman Lear. So now you got him feeling bad and I can't wait for him to lay into you for that.
But he's our Norman Lear. Think about it that way.
He's a super, super funny guy. I first got to meet him years ago and he was working with my ex at the time and it was

really exciting for me to hang out with him and got to know him a little bit over the years and

he has just created, I don't know, it's like you could just look down his resume and pick out

what are the things that you like that he produced? Do you like him producing the highest grossing

sort of R-rated female-driven comedy and Bridesmaids? Oh, I know who it is.

Do you like Anchorman? Do you like Larry Sanders' show that he wrote and produced on?

I'm sorry. Disgrossing, sort of R-rated, female-driven comedy.
Oh, I know who it is. Do you like Anchorman? Do you like Larry Sanders' show that he wrote and produced on over years? Judd Apatow.
Do you like The Old Virgin? Do you like Judd Apatow? Because he's here right now. Good Lord.
He's doing some light reading. He's reading Mary Trump's book.
Hello, Judd. That was a long wait.
I read 30 pages of Mary Trump's books. We apologize.
But it was worth it. You think that was a long time? You could probably watch the movie based on Mary Trump's book during one of Jason's questions because he's not known for his brevity.
But it just made me think like, what is going to happen? What is going to happen with the theater experience? Are Sean and Jason and I going to be able to get back into the movie theaters to watch one of your funny movies again? Desperately, please. Yes.
Yeah. Is that happening? I think we all don't want to get sick so we don't go to the movie theaters.
And then one day someone will say, it's good now. And then everyone will go to the movie theaters.
I mean, Russell Crowe had a movie this weekend, which I don't think I'm out of line saying it was probably a terrible movie, and it made $4 million, right? Now, a terrible Russell Crowe movie, not in a pandemic, might have made $8 million, right? Like a really bad, you know, not delivering on your revenge, rage, action movie. Now I could be wrong and maybe it's fantastic.
Nobody's going to the theaters right now. So that's $4 million that they've squeezed out of nothing.
It's six months from now. I think you're right, Judd.
I think six months from now, once somebody goes, you know, blows the whistle all clear, it's not like we all of a sudden, we've like changed who we are as people. I would also let you guys know that pre-pandemic walk hard made 3.9 million opening weekend no way so anyway you just have to understand is that true that is true and it's like an american classic that's crazy judd how important is box office to you i mean staten island was awesome that was that was uh i think that was just a streaming right? Because it was right in the teeth of the pandemic.
That was video on demand, yeah. And you got a great response for that.
But you have no idea, you know, how, like, the component of a box office success. There's no metrics.
Yeah, how important is that to you? It's obviously important for the people that are writing the checks. Is it nice to just make the movie, get it out there, and hope the people that are interested in seeing it can find it? Well, for me, I make most of my money on my lip balm.
Yeah. That's where the real cash comes in.
It's on back order. Root beer.
He has a lock on root beer lip balm. Not a lot of people know that.
I remember my daughter was home one night, and she's like, the Jenners are putting out a lip balm. There's only 20,000 of them and they're going to release them at one in the morning and I have to stay up.
And I'm like, I think there's more. I think that you'll be able to get it at a later date.
That's so funny. I mean, for me, I felt like I wanted King of Staten Island to come out because I thought, oh, this is about firemen and nurses and sudden loss.
And it felt like it related to what we were going through in some way. And luckily, I'm in a position where I can roll the dice and hope that that makes sense.
I certainly was happy that people got to see it. And the alternative would have been to say, why don't you wait a year to put it out? And just as somebody who wants to get it out of my system, I also felt like it would be weird to have something like that sitting on the shelf for a year that might make people happy in some way.
To hold back your joy machine, say, I know you're all suffering, but I'd like to wait a year to max out my profits. Like it really felt like a terrible choice.
But the success was predicated on its reception and on the merits. And the sort of validation of box office receipts is eliminated from this equation.
And so your work is just left to be judged for what it is. There's no other sort of nuanced thing in there or some hurricane going up the East Coast that screws everything up for your box office? Do you like that that part of it is taken out if you just do a streaming play? Well, it wasn't like a Netflix type of release.
There was a gross, you know, people rented it. And so there was a moment of like, I wonder if anyone will pay money to watch it right now.
So we did have some of that stress, but it's a lower budgeted movie. It's not the new Chris Nolan movie.
So the bar isn't that high. I can't wait for that Chris Nolan movie.
It looks so good. It's coming out last year.
I'm so excited, and I can't wait. I can't wait.
I've watched it in three of my other lives. It's so good.
No one has ever been more confident that their movie kicks ass than Christopher Nolan, right? Like everything that he's doing is just saying like, I got the motherfucking goods, people. No, and he's got like that for all his movies.
He's very confident. I don't know the guy at all, but he makes great movies.
And it's always that like, yeah yeah you you guys have great technology but if you really want to watch my movie you have to watch it on a 70 millimeter like you cannot watch it when you're like okay jesus man let me just watch the movie like no you're gonna watch it like this you're gonna be knee deep and muck and like jesus to watch it uh but he is he does have the goods jud, do you have any desire to play in that sort of scope and scale?

Or are you happy with the character-driven stuff that you do so well?

Well, this is how I do action, okay?

There's a sequence in The King of Staten Island where Pete Davidson is in a car and he's driving with his eyes closed. And it's showing you that he's somewhat suicidal as a character.
And then there's a car accident. And it's very complicated.
While we were shooting it, I was in the follow van watching the Federer-Nadal Wimbledon final. And let me say, I don't think I missed the point all day.
You know, I've got Bob Ellsworth, the guy who shot There Will Be Blood. So I'm not really like going, Bob, I think you got it wrong here.
You know, he did Mission Impossible. So I'm always proud when they come out, well, you know, scenes with any type of action.
But I remember like, you know, one of my friends was doing this, you know, this movie with tons of CGI shots. And he's just like, I'm just in a dark room with a laser pointer for six straight months looking for weird mistakes and CGI spots and I don't know if I have that in me I assume at some point I will have to do one of these like it'll just just because you've been offered one let me be honest with you I've been offered nothing my whole career you know you would think at some point like you know how like someone makes a great indie movie and then they offer them jurassic park and they're like well his movie costs a million dollars but he seems fantastic which i'm all for i've given people jobs like that i've made all sorts of movies i have never gotten a call to direct any movie now not just like Marvel movies, like movies.

Like no one ever thinks I would accept a movie.

No, they don't think

because they know you're good

and they're like,

they're like,

Judd's got his own thing going.

Like, we're not going to bother him.

We got this thing now.

The prettiest girl at the prom.

Yeah, exactly.

They're going to be like,

but I will say,

so sort of to that,

one of the things that you do,

I think maybe better

than anybody's

or I'd stack it up

against anybody

is you really have a knack for finding new voices and new talent. And it's pretty remarkable how consistently you've done that for a long time.
And not just new voices who like fit into what you do, but you actually find new people and you, you're very sort of flexible and you allow those voices to kind of grow on their own which is really super awesome whether it's i mean i can name a million i mean you know the entire cast of freaks and geeks to you know all the guys in in whether it's super bad or 40 like all these consistently over the years is that something that you actively do or is it just something that you just kind of do and it just happens? You know, I was such a nerd growing up. You know, I just thought certain people were really funny and I would get very excited.
I can only compare it to like if you're a sports fan and you just go, I love, you know, Steve Garvey and you just can't get enough of him. I would watch like Jason Bateman in that show where he's mean to the guy dating his mom.
What was that show, Jason? It's Your Move. It's Your Move.
I mean, I would watch It's Your Move. I'm not joking.
And I would just go, that fucking kid is so funny. So funny.
I don't know what's happening on this show, but whatever that kid is doing. And so then I would just like, in my head, track them like you would track Dwight Gooden, you know? And you know, like with Amy Poehler, I watched her play Andy Richter's sister on Conan.
And I didn't know who she was. I just thought, I think that's the funniest person.
And then I did a pilot. I did all sorts of things.
I was like, I think it's Amy. Everything I did, I must have fucked up because nothing went.
No pilot went. But, like, that's how it works.
And it doesn't matter what they're doing. I just have, like, a nerd's feeling.
Like, I want to see more of that person. Like, I remember, so we first met.
It was with Amy. And you guys were doing North Holly with this pilot with Judge Reinhold and Amy.
And Kevin Hart. And Kevin Hart.
And Jason Segel. And Jason Segel.
So that was the cast. So we're all hanging out.
And then it's like January Jones was hanging out at the time. She was in it too.
And she was in it too. And we talked about it when Seth was on here, we were talking about who, and Brent Forrester was working with you on it or something, or he was hanging.
Remember we went over to his house one night in Malibu it was anyway crazy i have photos of this by the way i know there are photos there are photos of like all of us together this is in 2002 i think 2001 this is january 2001 is it anyway and it's all of us together there are the largest joints you've ever seen, like comical, like Cheech and Chong, someone must have done it as a joke, joints in the shots. I'd put them online, but there's so many, like, you know, Bob Marley joints.
But it's all legal now, though. It's all legal now.
But it is a funny group of people, too, because it's like, you know, January Jones and Amy and Kevin Hart and it's like it's a it's so crazy but i and and and seth sent me one of those a couple of those pictures and i was like and i said to him but i said that like there's a show that you had that you wrote that you were producing and you had all this incredible talent on there and like if you went in today and said i want to do a show with seth and amy and and j and Kevin Hart and Jenny, every network would be like, is a billion dollars enough? Can we give you two, you know what I mean? Like you had this ability. And I guess, I guess like you say, it is that thing.
But even still, like even guys like Seth, like Seth talked about how when, you know, for Freaks and Geeks that you basically found him off a tape, right? Outcouver yeah he was just on a tape so crazy we wrote up a generic freak scene and a generic geek scene and then we did open call auditions because i had this thought that anyone who would be right to star in the show would never think they could get a job as an actor or actress it would have to be someone that is like no one is going to let me be in show business yeah right and so seth who i guess you know had was he did a little stand-up when he was like 14 years old but he hadn't done anything and we're just watching the tape and then suddenly there's seth right and seth is reading a scene that's all about how his dream is to grow pot underground and have uh and a corn above it and then there's then there's a hole to the pot. And so if the cops come, you could just say, I'm just a corn farmer.
And it was just him explaining his marijuana business. And, uh, and it made us laugh so hard.
We were just like, who is this person? Uh, and so we put him on the show and then he turned out to be very sweet and emotional. And the more work we did with him, the more we realized, oh, this gruff, funny guy is just the tip of the iceberg.
This is very fascinating, kind person. Isn't it amazing when you know what you want to do at that young of an age? It's almost like you are then, no matter what, destined to succeed.
He already had a draft of Superbad in his back pocket. Yeah, I remember.
He was 16 years old at the time. So, yeah, that's really all it is.
And there was a moment where I was trying to cast big stars in an early movie. I was trying to get my first directing going.
And every time I would try to do it, they would either say no or we're not available for two and a half years. And at some point I thought, oh, I just have to find someone who's not working.
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Hey guys, everybody should have a support system, right? Who's your support system? My support system, as you well know, talk about all the time, is Scotty. And of course, my two besties, Will and Jason.
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That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash smartless. So this sort of your affinity for scouting and finding these young upstarts, is that how Leslie came onto your radar? And then you were like, well, I'll go one better.
I'm going to try to put a ring on this. You know, when we were doing The Cable Guy, that was like very early in my career.
Such a good movie. So I was totally, you know, in like Ben worlds, you know, Ben hired me on the Ben Stiller show, not really knowing I didn't know how to do anything, you know? So I met Ben online at Elvis Costello unplugged.
Right. And HBO had been asking him to do a sketch show and he just had an MTV show that was really kind of brilliant, but not many people watched.
And we met and started chatting about what would a modern sketch show be like. And then two weeks later, we sold this show and we were the executive producers and HBO sold it to Fox.
So now we've got a Fox show and neither of us have ever really made a professional show. We were in over our head.
So HBO was just operating as the studio at that point then? They said they were going to put it on HBO. And then one day they called us up and said, we sold it to Fox because they wanted to get in the producing game in some way.
And so then the show, you know, we did 13 episodes and it was so much work. And we got canceled suddenly.
We were on at 7.30 on Sundays up against 60 Minutes. It was a really weird place to put an edgy, innovative sketch show.
But I was in over my head. Ben knew exactly what he wanted to do and I learned everything from Ben.
He really had a vision. And if you look at a lot of modern comedy and cinematic comedy and what Saturday Night Live has turned into, a lot of it is what Ben wanted to do back in 1992.
He loved the idea of high production value cinematic comedy films. Yeah.
And obviously he was inspired by the Albert Brooks movies from Saturday Night Live and the Saturday Night Live parodies. And so then when we did the movie, it was a very similar situation, which was I was producing the movie.
I had never been the full producer of a movie. Jim Carrey's in it.
And we really didn't quite know what we were doing, which gave us the courage to make something super weird because we didn't know that they expect something more down the middle. And Jim was really excited to blow up the perception of him as just this silly guy.
So he wanted to go dark. and so we just tried to do it without watering it down and in any way and yeah and then we just worked with all the people that we loved the most jack black it was one of his first movies was owen wilson's second movie you know there were a lot of people populated and was leslie a piece of casting or did you guys know her before? Leslie had just come off a great show called Birdland that Walter Parks created with Scott Frank.
And, you know, she was doing, like, really well at that time. And then we also read everybody in town, every single person in town.
But you're also skipping a big piece in there, which was you had done Larry Sanders, right? That was kind of in between Ben Stiller show and cable guy is that right yeah and after and after cable guy yeah yeah right right right and so i mean that was a huge again like that was one of those like i felt like that really changed the whole sort of definition of what was funny yeah yeah i mean it was almost like gary saw like network or something and decided to do a

satire of eagle mania i think gary was just fascinated by his own need to be successful and famous and have everyone like him so it's almost like he created a character that had his worst qualities and then he tried to humiliate it yeah but there was no winking on that show you You know, it was incredibly dry and there was broadness at times, but no one was trying to help the audience know that this line is funny. This moment is funny.
It was, there was a darkness to it in the same way the cable guy was as well. That I just think that that just changed things a little bit in the industry in a great way that, that things a little bit less obvious in the comedic space.
You almost could say it was more inspired by Hill Street Blues and that world of where television was going than what was happening in comedy. Obviously, we were all fans of everything Norman Lear did and James Brooks and people like that, Larry Gelbart.
But Gary also must have been, there was a great movie called The Hospital. You ever see The Hospital, this Patty Chayefsky movie starring George C.
Scott? And it was all about how a hospital really worked and that it was kind of terrifying and scary. And it was like the network of hospitals.
But it was before Chayefsky wrote Network? I think it came out before Network. And I always thought St.
Elsewhere must have been inspired a little bit by it uh right and i think that's the space he was in it was a little bit more of that uh bruce paltrow and and that generation of the mtm hour-long people who did all those great shows was gary as hard on you guys when you were making that show with or on everybody i don't mean hard in a sticky way, but just was he as demanding as Larry Sanders was in the show? Because I know there were a lot of things, like you said, I love that. It's such an interesting idea that he was kind of highlighting his worst attributes and then punishing himself for it.
Was there that? I think it was way worse, like way worse Because, like, we all loved him and knew he was a genius,

but we also knew that the show was set up in the worst way to bury him

because no one had ever done, you know,

there wasn't a lot of single-camera comedy at that time,

other than the wonder years.

I forgot what year that started, but there really wasn't much of it.

So people didn't know how to do it.

And you guys almost did a hybrid. There was almost this sort of the proscenium kind of multi-camera elements, at least when you were doing the show.
And then when you went backstage, then it's all single camera and kind of verite. And it was really, really cool.
It was too many elements. Like, you know, when you do a sitcom, you know, you read it on Monday, and then you rehearse for like, you know, a few days, and then you tape in front of an audience on Friday, maybe you pre-tape some of it.
And so there's a logical structure. With this show, we would read it on Monday, usually toss a ton of it out Monday night.
They'd rehearse Tuesday and Wednesday and then Thursday and Friday, like a movie, they would shoot at 17 pages a day. And it didn't feel like a TV sitcom taping.
It felt like a movie if instead of shooting four pages a day, you'd shot 17 pages. Wow.
No way. But the week was basically treated in the same schedule.
Like a sitcom. Yeah, wow.
That's crazy. I never knew that.
I didn't know that. Yeah, it made no sense.
And then the other two things was that they would have to shoot an actual talk show friday night so you'd finish at like midnight with the show and then suddenly for the next two hours you'd have like sugar ray leonard and ellen degenerates on shooting talk show segments for all these episodes and then you know we're writing him monologues and we're doing pre-interviews with carol burnett and so for gary it he just didn't have enough hours in the day to act it write it and edit it and as a result and i'm sure you guys have been there you know when you go you know this script isn't good i have nothing in the tank you don't know how to fix it without me so i want to kill you right right i heard a great story when we were uh jeffrey uh tambor who played our dad as you know on arrest development he told me this great story that um in the last season of larry sanders um he was trying to get everybody together to buy to get a thank you gift for gary and so he just he had decided, or somebody did decide they were going to get him a car. And he says, so we go, I'm going to tell everybody.
And he says, he goes to Rip Torrin's dressing room and he knocks on, and which a dressing room that I had for two years, Sean, when we were over there on the Radford lot with Rip's dressing room upstairs or any comes in, he knocks on the door and Rip answers the door. Yeah.
And Jeffrey said, hey, so we're thinking about getting Gary a present for the end of the series. He goes, yeah.
He goes, and we're thinking of getting a car. And Rip looks at him and goes, a car? And he goes, yeah.
And he goes, fuck you. And slams the door in his face.
That kind of thing would happen all the time at the show.

You know, the show was also very hair-triggered because you had all these personalities who were brilliant but also would snap a little bit, right? And so, there was one day where Jeffrey and Rip have a scene together at the table. And in the scene, Rip's character, Artie, you know, calls Hank a fucking idiot.
Right? And then afterwards, Jeffrey's very upset. And he's just like, Rip, I really don't think you should call my character a fucking idiot.
My character is not a fucking idiot. He is disingenuous.
So this is Jeffrey talking

to Rip, not Hank talking to Artie.

Yeah, no, it's Jeffrey talking to Rip. He's like,

Rip, seriously, he's disingenuous. He's not a

fucking idiot. And Rip Tord looks

at Jeffrey and goes, well, my

character thinks your character

is a fucking idiot.

And so

they get into this, you know, fight about it and then uh rip storms off and uh one of the producers follows after him and he's like you know fuck this place fuck this i don't work here this is fucking bullshit and then he goes into his dressing room he goes i'm getting the fuck out of here and then he picks up the phone and he goes like uh, yes, can I speak to my agent Bob Gersh, please? Okay, can you tell him Rip Torn called? And then he just walked back to the set. I left work.
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Judd, the documentary you did about Gary was one of the best documentaries I've ever seen in my entire life. Incredible.
I wrote you an email and I meant every word of it. It was just incredible.
I never knew that side of Gary. I knew he was brilliant.
I knew he was funny and sweet. But I never knew all of that.
Yeah, he was just a complicated person. I mean, and I didn't understand him.
Even by the end, when I was making the documentary, I would find out aspects about his life that I didn't understand before. How do you decide where to point your time? There's so many things that you're great at, so many things you're asked to do, so many things I'm sure you're curious about doing, you know, and then you've got this incredible family too.
How do you, what's the trick? Usually something kind of bubbles up and then you have to decide if you have the passion and the energy to hang with it for years. And so, you know, for instance, I had talked to Pete Davidson about a movie for a long time.
I gave him an idea for a movie that wasn't very good, and I sent him down a blind alley for a couple of years with a very silly idea. And then we started talking about doing something more serious about his family.
And then we started writing it together. I had a sense, like, I think I should be in the writing of this.
It's very complicated. And he's so honest.
He'll give me everything. And his best friend, Dave Cyrus, wrote on it too.
But I felt like my experience would help shape it and find the tone. And then there was just a day where I just thought, I think I have to direct this.
I don't think anyone else would know how to follow through. And that's kind of it.
Because it had a specific resonance for you in your own life? I think on some level, and this is so strange, for years I've been trying to figure out what can I make a movie about that would be fresh for me and that people wouldn't expect me to write about. And I kept thinking of the word sacrifice.
I was trying to think, what do I not write about? I write about immature people and selfish people. What's the opposite of that? Oh, it's people who sacrifice to help other people.
So that might be an interesting area. And I tried to write two or three things on the subject, didn't pull it off.
And then when I was talking to Pete one day, and he was talking his dad and what it feels like to have a parent be willing to die for other people, to save other people, I realized, oh, I must have been mentally preparing for this for the last five years. Just on some unconscious level, I knew this was what I was going to write.
And I'm not spiritual generally, but I do sometimes get a sense of, oh, everything that happened brought me to the moment to meet Pete, to try to help figure this out with him. And with everything, I feel that, I think.
But you do kind of have that sacrificial, somewhat philanthropic instinct with what it is that you do in that you find these young voices, these people that wouldn't otherwise have access and extend that to them. So you've kind of been doing it, but you haven't been making stories about it.
So I'll bet that's what clicked for you. I think it's, I have like my own sense of, and this is how I relate to Gary, is that life is really painful for most people, or at least a fair amount of the time.
And Gary was very interested in Buddhism, and the first idea of Buddhism is, life is really painful for most people or at least a fair amount of the time. And Gary was very interested in Buddhism and the first idea of Buddhism is life is suffering.
And then you soldier on and try to make the best of it and try to be a kind person and evolve. Yeah, I remember, Sean, you told me, one time you went to the Rolex store and it was closed and they were like, come back in an hour.
And you waited. I wrote a poem about suffering, yeah.
Yeah. And you went back an hour later.
You said, is an hour all you need or you guys want to take some more time at lunch because I can come back maybe tomorrow? Yeah. And I came back and it was closed.
They lied. Well, the heroes come in all shapes.
And so- Wait, I want to ask something really quick. Because almost everything you do or everything you do, Judd, is so real and human and grounded.
And I think the most important thing when it comes to comedy, relatable. And so does that mean that you're not as big of a fan of like big, silly, physical comedy? Or you are, but you just don't focus your work on that, but you enjoy it? Or do you just like, yeah, it's not for me because so many sitcoms are not real or grounded.
They're all kind of in a fantasy world that a lot of times doesn't exist. But what about those big physical comedy actors and actresses that we know? You know, for me, I love that also.
I think it's, in a lot of ways, harder to do. You know, me and Adam Sandler, we talk about this all the time, that when we were making funny people, Adam was like, you know, everyone's going to want me to do more things like this, but they don't understand how hard it is to just make people piss their pants laughing.
Yeah. And, you know, we all know that, you know, when you look at something like Airplane, you realize it is a fucking miracle.
You know, when there's a movie like Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles or something, there's nothing harder to do a joke-for-joke, rip-down-the-house, no-weak-sections comedy. And I've worked on a few.
I co-wrote You Don't Mess With the Zohan with Spiegel and Sandler and Walk Hard. And I produced some movies like that, like Popstar.
And I love them. But usually I'm trying to find the emotion.
You know, I think in my head I always think, can you tear down the house and at some point in the movie make someone cry and it's the same movie and it's all organic and credible and you get there and it's not bullshit you didn't

you know jump over some logic that it's it's organic you connect with it yeah that's my favorite thing to do but also i'll tell you there's nothing funnier than sandler you know pouring champagne on all of the uh older women's ladies hairdos yeah or just the yeah the big broad laughs that you get from a Farrell or a Sasha or, you know, Melissa. I mean, it is a real high wire act and it takes an enormous amount of acting talent to take those big swings and still not leave earth.
You know, not be so wacky that it's like, oh, I'm getting a headache. And, you know, when it works, it's your favorite thing in the world.
Yeah. and how rare is it that someone makes you laugh to the point where you're screaming i remember there was like a scene in extras where it was so simple it's just ricky gervais giving a homeless guy maybe gave a guy like 20 pounds or something and he just didn't think the guy appreciated it enough and then slowly started talking to him about it and by the end he takes it back from him and it just for some reason made me laugh like really hard just how it was written or improvised and i started laughing really hard like losing it in bed and at fleabag there was a moment where they all punched each other in the face in the opening episode of the second season but it was real and it was emotional but they found a way to suddenly snap on each other.
And one by one, every person punched another person in the table in the face. And I thought that is the most difficult moment I've ever seen in a TV show.
You're right. I think that that was one of the great things about that show.
It's a great example because that show accomplished something. And I think one of the reasons, apart from it just being hysterically funny consistently, but for people who do this as your job, you understand what a high wire act it was that she did.
Like what, how many narrow targets she hit one after the other, after the other on that show. It was pretty remarkable from my, at least from where I was sitting, I was like, fuck, this is high quality, you know, gamesmanship happening nonstop.
It was, I was blown away by it, frankly. Yeah, no, I mean, I, and I go back and forth, you know, sometimes you make something that's like heavier and then you think, I just want to do like boner jokes for a year or two you know for a while i was producing things for will ferrell and adam mckay and uh so i would direct a movie and then work with them as a producer on their movies and it was just such a wonderful rhythm to you know watch them do something like stepbrothers just as a, you know, to watch how they worked.

And it was, you know, it was like getting to watch the Marx Brothers, you know, to just sit at the monitor and watch, you know, Rudd and Will and Carell and Keckner and Christina

do a scene.

And I felt like no one even gets to see this.

Like all the stuff that's not making in the movie is the best thing I've ever seen in

my life.

You know, there was a scene where Will

gets punched by Paul Rudd in Anchorman 2. And the joke was, what is the reaction going to be to him getting hit this hard? And take after take, Adam and Will would come up with new reactions.
And, you know, so in one reaction, he got hit so hard, he started speaking another language. And then in another one, in another one, he gets hit so hard that he regresses and he's like four years old.
And he's like, and he's just like acting like a little kid. And I was watching them run through like every way you could react to a hard punch.
And I thought, this is my dream. Like, I feel like I only make movies so that i'm allowed to witness this as a fan yeah just watching somebody like will be able to pull off each of those enormously different choices so believably and then beyond that actually making you laugh it's just he's just a remarkable actor will and adam have that thing of like it's and will's like a, there's like a danger there.
Like you don't know what's coming next. And I remember him telling me a story that he and McKay, when they were working at SNL, would call from the 17th floor, like on a Tuesday, would call Lauren's office and say, hey, you've got Joe Torre on the line here.
They just had Jeter on the show. So they call.
So McKay calls. He goes, I've got Joe Torre here for Lauren.
And so they get put through to Lauren's office. And from Lauren's perspective, he's like, oh, Joe Torre.
So it's McKay basically doing like, hey, listen, I didn't like the way you had Jeter on the show on the last week, and it didn't make us look good. And of course, it doesn't sound like, but in Lauren's defense, he's like, I can't hang up in case it is Joe Tori.
And so they go through and so he and Will give them shit, right? And then they hang up. But this is what makes those guys so like kind of what you're describing.
They're like, nah, let's call them back. And they call back.
They do it a second time. That's so, you know, and it's like, yeah, when you have people like that who who are willing to and when you get to work with stuff like that it's pretty remarkable i i have to admit to you something that um so years ago we were doing we were just maybe just finishing arrested development and uh and we had met before a couple of times and then i was like uh we were gonna have a lunch together do you remember this we went to the You probably don't remember, but in Santa Monica years, years ago.
And we went and you're like, Hey, we're doing all this great stuff. You should come and hang out.
And I was such a young, I'm not that much different, but I was such an idiot. I'm still kind of an idiot.
And I was like, eh, I'm kind of busy. And you were like, come on over and hang out.
I was like, I don't know, Jed, I'm kind of busy. And I sort of was like that.
Right. So I go and you're like, uh, I think you were probably like, okay, man, or don't.
You know? And I don't give a shit if you come over and hang with me and Seth and stuff. So I didn't.
And then I walked out, and I was like, I had also just made, like, a little bit of money. And I had, like, my first expensive car, and I was embarrassed because I thought you were cool.
And I was like, fuck this. And so I went into the bathroom and I waited as long as I thought you would valet to get your car so that you wouldn't see me get in my fancy car.
What kind of car was it? It was a Mercedes. It was the first time I ever bought a Mercedes.
And I was like, you know, whatever. I was, and I wasn't young.
I was like 36 at the time. Like it wasn't like a 21 year old., no, I did this after a four-year-old virgin.
I leased a Porsche, you know, because I thought, well, this is what you do. You get the 911.
This is why we've been working. And it was a stick and I was not good at driving it.
And it only seemed to drive well and be fun if you were going 90 miles an hour on the freeway. And so every time I drove

it on the freeway, I was terrified that I was going to die. And I thought, well, this really isn't any fun at all.
And then I left it in my driveway for two years till the lease ran out. Jason used to call those guys Johnny Gotta Show.
Every time you'd see somebody, I remember Jason on the lot, somebody would be going, look at Johnny Gotta Show with his fancy car. Judd, I want to switch gears to family.
How are you liking being able to share everything that you know and that you've learned to your girls? Well, I don't know. Is Iris getting into it? Because Maude certainly is.
She was fantastic in the film. Is she listening to the helpful advice you can give? She's really fun for me to work with Maude.
I mean, she's very similar to Leslie. She's super honest and real and fierce and funny at the same time.
And then Iris was on that TV show we did for Netflix called Love, and she played a spoiled child star and was really funny. So sometimes I wonder, am I ruining them by never mentioning any other possible occupation other than this? It's not like we talk about dentistry at the house or the legal profession.
Like, I mean, if she ever walked up to me and said like, you know, Dad, I'd really like to get into accounting, I'd be like, where'd the fuck that come from? You know, it's fun. I feel like we all have fun, and if you can do it, and I always encourage them to write and learn how to direct.
And hopefully they'll do that. I mean, it's, you know, it's enjoyable.
Are they listening, though? Can they admit the fact that you've been crushing this for a long time and you might have something smart to say? They never will to my face. Right.
But then, you know, like Maud had to do press for the King of Staten Island. So I could read interviews with her where she'll reluctantly say nice things about me.
So that's the only way, you know, I guess she does love me because she told the vulture at New York Magazine. But we had a chance to co-mingle when you and Leslie were doing a change-up when my kids were little.
And we were pulling them around the hotel. And that was, like, super fun get to watch you guys work together and you guys are so funny.
Oh, I had so much fun with Leslie. Oh my gosh.
Well, you know, Judd, listen, I, you know, whenever I, and this is the truth, whenever I see her, I'm a comedy nerd like you are. I know, I've done the documentaries over and over.
I know, thank you for that, by the way. And I, you know, when I get giddy whenever I see your name on something, because I know it's going to be great, and I get super excited, like it's fucking Christmas, and I'm like, oh, my God, I can't wait.
It says Judd Apatow on it, and I'm so excited. What are you excited about that's coming up next that you can talk about? Well, we're producing a movie for Billy Eichner that he wrote with Nick Stoller.
Oh, yeah, I with nick stoller oh yeah you turned me on to him first yeah so we were right about to shoot that when everything shut down we were all headed to buffalo okay so that'll get going when they allow us to get going and then i'm starting a george carlin documentary uh right now and i felt like well with everything that's happening in the world, he's only been proven correct about everything. It's fucking crazy, isn't it? Yeah.
Yeah. Mike Judge, too, with Idiocracy.
He had it pretty much mapped out. Both those guys.
But Carlin's stand-up, there are so many bits that you listen to now, and you're like, was he looking through a fucking portal? Like, it's crazy. Well, he had a pretty clear point of view which is you're getting screwed yeah and and and that was his thing he's like if you don't think you're getting screwed you're not paying attention and it really was a philosophy that you know the masses are being sedated so rich people can steal all your money uh and there was a great routine that goes around where he says like you have no rights you only have the rights that they want you to think you have and it it's pretty incredible because at the time people thought he had lost it a little bit people were like wow he's a crank and he's really dark and there's not even laughs anymore this is too rough and now we look at it and go oh it's it may not even be dark enough but he he lived a long time and he lived hard yeah did he was he a hard liver i you know i think he certainly had his his drug period and i think he had a fair amount of you know heart problems in his life the thing that's come up already which is kind of amazing is how many people have contacted me to say that he was really cool them? And so I'll just get emails out of the blue from a comedian who'll say, I bumped into him when I was an open-miker.
He took my number. He would call me to check how I was doing.
No way. And would give me advice.
Multiple people saying, out of the blue, my phone would ring and George Carlin would go, how's the set going? Wow. Just like a real giver to the comedy community.
And people keep telling me, oh, I interviewed him for this. How many people have said they interviewed him for their school paper or whatever? So many people have said, I have a tape.
You know, Paul Reiser emailed me the other day. He's like, in 1972, my sister interviewed him for her school paper.

He's like, I got the tape.

I mean, it's a lot of that.

No way.

Yeah, so I'm excited.

So you're just starting that now?

So that's like a year away, yeah? Because I'm dying to see that.

I want to learn about him.

Yeah, easy, easy a year.

Really cool, really cool.

Jesus, Judd, I can't thank you enough for coming on here today, man.

Yeah, very nice of you.

My pleasure.

I'm a giant fan of all of you.

I hope we get to do it together. I hope we get to make some comedy together.
Incredible. Let's do it.
It's about fucking time. It is about fucking time.
Enough of Pete Davidson already, right? Enough of Pete. Enough of Pete Davidson.
He had his minute with you. Pete Davidson, Pete Holmes, too many Peets.
Let's move on. And Pete Holmes, that's right.
Anyway, Judd, thank you. We've taken up way too much of your time.
Dude, such a pleasure. You're a giant and a really great dude and super funny.
And we thank you for your time, man. It was an honor.
Yeah, thank you very much. Say hi to your ladies.
I will. Be well.
Take care. Thanks, Judd.
All right. Bye, Judd.
Bye, buddy. See you guys.
That was fun, huh? And one of you guys, we were talking about Judd recently. And I was like, he's going to be on the show.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
You had him cooking? Because when I do my laugh inside, I go, hee, hee, hee to myself. My internal laugh.
Huh. Yeah.
As masculine as your voice. Thank you, Sean, if you mean it.
Yeah. I really look up to that fellow.
He's doing a lot of what I've been trying to do. It's amazing how prolific he is.
I mean, it's incredible. The length of his career, the quality of his stuff, the philanthropy, as I said, you know, with the way he goes about his work, it's really, it's really impressive.
There's not a lot of people that work like him in that he kind of gathers a troop, but then it's not sort of like a closed door that people come in, people, people leave. But there's always sort of this caretaking thing.
You get the sense that he covers it all with in a nurturing way. It's pretty rad.
I think, yeah, like you were saying, you like the length and you also like the girth, like the width. How much of his career? So you like the length and the girth.
Sometimes the length is the best part. And then other times

just the width

of what he can do.

Well, it's thick.

Sure.

It's thick.

He's exploding with talent.

Yeah.

Because you've been really,

you're woozy.

Well, I mean,

yeah, sure.

Metaphorically speaking.

Of course.

Those are all compliments.

Of course, dude.

Of course these are compliments.

All right.

All right.

I love you guys.

I love you too.

I love you guys too. Bye.
Smart. Less.
Smart. Less.
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