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
became clear cut early joke notes people
What became clear very early is that people wanted the story, ... They didn't want a joke fest. All the notes were: You can cut the jokes.
cutting shoes together
I like to shoot scenes where I can see the beginning, middle and end of the entire scene. But, when you edit a movie together, you can just cut right into the middle. You don't need to see them walk into the room and put their jacket on the chair. There's always a lot of shoe leather that you can remove.
cutting long three
All my cuts are always about three hours, at the start, mainly because any scene in the movie that's 90 seconds, I probably shot a five-minute version of. If you just extrapolate that through the whole movie, I have a very long version of every scene, usually because, if there's one funny joke, I'll shoot five because I don't know if the one I like is going to work. I'll get back-ups because my biggest fear is to be in previews, testing the movie, and a joke doesn't work, but I have no way to fix it because I have no other line.
successful cutting stories
I don't really get attached to anything. I'm pretty brutal about cutting stuff. With each successful movie, I've discovered anything that's not connected to the immediate story is going to be cut out of it.
cute believe years
I've come to believe that the simpler the title, the better. Whenever I try to get cute with it, it seems to be a problem but if it's just The 40-Year-Old Virgin, people seem to know what they're in for.
comedy freaks geeks since worked
I've worked with him since he was 16 on Freaks and Geeks and always thought he could be a big comedy star.
chance comedy nice premise shows since strong studios worked
I've worked with him since he was 16 on 'Freaks and Geeks' and always thought he could be a big comedy star. The nice thing about 'Virgin' is that it shows the studios that if the premise is a strong one, you can take a chance on a new actor in the lead.
ask audience helpful incredibly laughing movies screen screwed testing
The thing that is incredibly helpful is that we screen the movies and we ask the audience if they like it or not and we ask a lot of questions and do testing on the movies. For comedies, at least, it's very helpful. If they're not laughing and they don't say that they loved it, then I have screwed up.
chance comedy nice premise shows strong studios
I've ... always thought he could be a big comedy star. The nice thing about 'Virgin' is that it shows the studios that if the premise is a strong one, you can take a chance on a new actor in the lead.
ended
My first thought when 'Wedding Crashers' ended was, 'Oh, my God. We are so much dirtier than they are,'
audience audiences head terrified
We wanted to show how over his head he is, ... We were always terrified of that scene. The audience is so uncomfortable.
asked ideas movies obvious shooting star stealing steve
It was obvious while shooting 'Anchorman' that Steve was stealing many a scene. So being a wily producer, I asked him if he had any ideas for movies that he could star in.
It just frees you to be more honest.
afraid andy armstrong guy hope
Ultimately, it's about a guy who's afraid to take a risk. Our hope is that Andy will be an inspiration to others. He's like the Lance Armstrong of virgins.