Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow
Judd Apatowis an American producer, writer, director, actor, and comedian. He is the founder of Apatow Productions, through which he produced and developed the cult television series Freaks and Geeks and directed and produced The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Funny People, This Is 40, and Trainwreck...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFilm Producer
Date of Birth6 December 1967
CitySyosset, NY
CountryUnited States of America
writing risk performing
I loved the idea that I could write a joke and someone else would have to take the risk of performing it.
thinking people comedian
I did get good enough to get on HBO's Young Comedians Special, but I certainly wasn't the person who got launched off of HBO's Young Comedians Special. That would be Ray Romano that year. I had some semi-intelligent jokes, but when people would see me, they would think, "Oh, that's a good writer." No one would ever have said, "Oh, that's a good performer."
guy political imagine
I worshipped guys like Bill Maher, Jay Leno, and Jerry Seinfeld, and was doing my variation of that. But as a young person with no political point of view or life experience, it was as funny as you can imagine.
smart remember really-smart
I remember the review from Michael Wilmington in Chicago, and Gene Siskel wrote really smart reviews where I thought, "Oh, they totally get what we're attempting to do."
fun thinking house
It was always the most fun thing in the world to think of a joke area and talk about it with someone like Jim Carrey, and then he would get on stage fearlessly and tear the house down. That's something I always enjoyed. It also allowed me to not be terrified.
special helping
I used to tour a little bit with Jim Carrey and help him out on his first Showtime special.
I wrote for Roseanne. I wrote her stand-up act with her. I wrote with Tom Arnold. There was a period when I was working with them pretty steadily. But I would take brief gigs here and there.
writing laughing people
I wrote on the Grammys, and a few times for Garry Shandling when he was hosting. I couldn't have enjoyed those gigs more, because I would get to collaborate and try to make people I looked up to laugh, but for the most part, when you're as talented as they are, what they really want is someone who can type fast and whose presence makes them feel in the mood to write and spew and be creative, and I was a good person to have in the room.
fun people creative
I bring people on to the movies to type and to help punch up and look at things. But a lot of it is, you want fun people to be around, to put you in a good mood, to try and access your creative place.
people humiliated
Every time I perform in front of people, no matter how well it goes, the next day, I feel humiliated.
beautiful long people
For a long time, TV was just the land of handsome, beautiful people, and now it's the opposite.
running laughing remember
I remember the Time review [on the Hit and Run]said that there wasn't one laugh in it. And I had watched the movie 50 times with audiences, and it always played great. There was certainly a moment where you could tell the audience was like, "Wow, this is really getting weird."
dream writing
[My] dream writers room: "'Taxi.' I need to write for someone named Judd."
forever
"'Deadwood.' I could have watched that forever."