Judd Apatow: 20Q

Q1

PLAYBOY: Your new movie, Funny People, is about a middleaged, highly successful comic dying from a rare blood disorder who mentors an up-and-coming young comic played by Seth Rogen. Coincidentally, you’re a middle-aged, highly successful comedy writer and director who has mentored a young comic named Seth Rogen. Are you trying to tell us something?
APATOW: No. Luckily that part of the movie is all from my imagination. I can say with full confidence that I’m not dying from a rare blood disorder. I had always wanted to make a movie about the relationship between two comics. The problem was I didn’t have a great story. Nobody wants to watch a two-hour movie about a hilarious older comic being kind to a young man. That’s just a terrible idea. But then it turned into a demented-mentor movie with a father-son aspect. I find that fascinating.

Q2

PLAYBOY: Your characters suffer through failed marriages, fractured relationships, the slow conviction that everything they’ve done is crap and, eventually, dying young. Is that what success as a comedian means to you?
APATOW: There’s a fine line between what’s healthy about being a comedian and what’s sick and twisted about it. When I’m doing good work, a part of me feels as though it’s a contribution to society. I’m making people laugh and helping them think about their lives in a positive and life-affirming way. At the same time, a sick, wounded part of me just wants to know somebody out there likes me. I serve both gods simultaneously.

Q3

PLAYBOY: How is making a comedy film different from being in therapy?
APATOW: It’s different because you don’t have a therapist to interpret your babblings for you. Just before I started shooting Funny People I stopped going to therapy. And now that I’ve finished the movie I have this weird instinct to avoid going back. I think it’s my responsibility to work through all the issues the movie raised for me. In a weird way, it seems as though talking about it with a therapist would be cheating.

Q4

PLAYBOY: Men cry a lot in your movies. Are you a naturally weepy sort?
APATOW:Absolutely. I’m a big crier. Sometimes when my wife and I are watching a movie we’ll both start to cry at the same time, and then we’ll slowly turn toward each other to acknowledge that it got both of us. That’s great and funny when we’re both crying, but it’s not so wonderful when I’m the only one in tears.

Q5

PLAYBOY: Your movies are so popular your first name has become a verb: “Judd it up” has become a familiar refrain on Hollywood movie sets. Is it humbling to realize you’ve spawned your own comedy genre?
APATOW: I don’t think I’m doing anything particularly different or original. There’s nothing new about comedies about underdogs who make an enormous number of mistakes and learn from them. That goes back to Buster Keaton. We’re just doing our generation’s version of Buster Keaton.

Q6

PLAYBOY: When you were growing up, you used to transcribe Saturday Night Live scenes. In hindsight, was that time well spent?
APATOW: Back when I was watching Saturday Night Live for the first time, VCRs hadn’t been invented yet. So whenever the show aired, I thought to myself, If I don’t watch this now, I may never get to see it again for the rest of my life! I would put a tape recorder right next to the TV, and then I’d sit up all night and transcribe the skits that amused me the most. I don’t know why I did it. I did the same thing with Twilight Zone episodes.

Q7

PLAYBOY: As a teenager, you interviewed dozens of your comedy idols, including Garry Shandling and Jerry Seinfeld, for a high school radio station. Did you ever listen to any of them and think, I’m a thousand times funnier than this guy?
APATOW: Not really. I always tried to interview people I respected. Some were nicer than others. Some of them taught me lessons that proved to be invaluable. When I interviewed Seinfeld, he said, “It takes seven years to find your voice as a stand-up comic.” So when I started doing stand-up, I didn’t think I was awesome after being onstage just a few years. It gave me a patience I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Q8

PLAYBOY: After your first two network TV shows—Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared—were canceled, you sent an angry letter to the responsible TV executive, wondering how “can you fuck me in the ass when your dick is still in there from last time.” Has time healed all wounds, or is his penis still in you, figuratively speaking?
APATOW: Nothing is more painful than being canceled. But sometimes it just ends out of nowhere and everyone has to go home. I tend to take cancellation particularly hard: I cry, I have back surgeries, and I’m bitter for decades.

Q9

PLAYBOY: Do you ever attempt to get revenge?
APATOW: I go so far as to attempt to turn every single person who ever acted on any show I’ve ever been involved with into a feature-film star just so I can prove I was right about the TV show. Sometimes the actors will say to me, “Wow, you must really think I’m good.” No, I don’t think you’re good at all. I just have to prove to that goddamn TV executive that he made a mistake. It’s not a sign of my support; it’s a sign of how insane I am. I’m the most arrogant man on earth, and I always need to be right.

Q10

PLAYBOY: From Freaks and Geeks to Funny People, you and Seth Rogen have been collaborating for more than a decade. At what point do the two of you become common-law spouses?
APATOW: I don’t know if we should be married or if I should become his adoptive grandfather. Seth has said he thinks of me as his creepy uncle. [laughs] I like that.