Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy (31 page)

Judd:
I guess I’d like to experiment with having more drama and a little less comedy in some films. But I don’t sit around thinking,
I want to make a science fiction movie or a period drama.
It never occurs to me because I’m so confused by modern life already that I never feel satisfied that I have figured anything out. I don’t need a metaphor for what I do.

Lena:
What do you think about the trend of comedians being obsessed with the idea of becoming dramatic actors? I was just rewatching a Joan
Rivers documentary, and in it, she’s crying because she says no one’s ever going to take her seriously as an actress and being a comedian was just a thing to do. Do you relate to that?

Judd:
I think comedians are interesting when they have other facets. Sometimes I feel like a goofball—I just feel dumb and want to process all my thoughts through humor. Every once in a while, it’s a way to make things less painful. But then you begin to feel like you’re always trying to filter life through funny and you wonder: Is this insincere on some level? Sometimes I feel like I’m making jokes because I’m uncomfortable with my own thoughts and opinions. I feel this need to make it entertaining for you. I think that’s one of the reasons why so many comedians want to do dramatic acting. At some point, you get the urge to drop the cover and just be real.

Lena:
It’s less so now, but sometimes, when I had a serious thought, I would almost say it in a goofy way—like, I’d take on a weird voice so I’d be like (
in a weird voice
), “You know, I think women have to be able to get free access to abortions!” It was this strange defense mechanism. But as I’ve become more confident, I’m more comfortable having a serious thought and owning it as a serious thought.

Judd:
When you were in college or when you were making
Tiny Furniture
, did you have any thoughts about becoming a public person?

Lena:
As a teenager, I had a whole idea of what my life would look like. I wanted to live in Brooklyn. I wanted to have a dog. I wanted to have a cute boyfriend with glasses. But in college, I thought I was going to make weird movies, be a professor of women’s film at not that good of a college, and just have a cool, weird life where I met interesting people and organized events. I guess my model for a creative life was much more of an artist’s model and much less of a Hollywood model, if you will. So the past few years have been strange. I’m still navigating the difference between what’s happening now and what I thought my life would consist of.

Judd:
You don’t seem like you’re shutting down emotionally from it all, though. I’m sure a lot of it is that you’re happy and in a happy relationship so you’re not fully exposed, and some part of you remains intact.

Lena:
And I have a partner and a fun life and we are always working, so it feels like a safe place to be. But it definitely seems like this business gives people a weird chip on their shoulder:
I feel defensive and everyone wants something from me.
It can seem so corrosive and dark and divorced from reality. You’ve watched a lot of people get famous, so I’m sure you know what I mean.

Judd:
I’ve seen people burn out and people lose touch with why they work. I’ve also seen people who satisfy so many of their dreams that they just become lost. That’s what
Funny People
was about: a guy who didn’t have any substantial relationships and who has all of his movie and comedy stardom dreams come true, and he is left with this feeling of emptiness. Because he never figured out that other part of it. In a way, that character is almost the reverse of you. His experience is the exact polar opposite of yours.

Lena:
Something that strikes me about your work, every time I rewatch it, is that there’s a real morality to it, a sense that we’re all supposed to treat each other kindly. A sense that we’re all here to take care of each other and to serve a purpose in the world. There’s this real message of hope. I find it comforting.

Judd:
But you also notice the repetition of that at some point. And so lately, I’ve been thinking of writing about sacrifice. I’ve never written anything about people who are willing to sacrifice for other people. We’ll see if I can pull it off, but I’m very aware that I’ve been writing in a certain vein for a while now, and that I could keep rewriting those ideas in a million different ways.

Lena:
That’s why watching you reengage with stand-up is exciting. In a similar way, what writing the book did for me was allow me to—it’s not like I’m talking about experiences in the book that I haven’t talked about in the show. I’m talking about sex. I’m talking about growing up. I’m talking about being female. I’m talking about my body. I’m talking about my family. But now I get to talk about these things from this super-personal place. By reengaging with your stand-up at this point in your life, you’re getting to come at the topics that matter to you from a totally different angle.

Judd:
Yeah, and switching modes forces you to really slow down and think things through. Because you go through life in a haze, staring at your phone and watching
The Bachelor
and being reasonably happy, but you never really break it down. You never stop to think about what’s going on in your mind and what you’re struggling with. Early on, someone said to me, “The greatest gift you can give is your story,” and that, for me, was the turning point. That became the premise of my work. That’s when I realized that maybe the things that I think are boring about myself are interesting to other people. Hearing what’s in your mind truly makes people feel less alone and gives them hope for things that they want to do and get through things that are difficult.

Lena:
That’s the reason I make things. Some people make stuff because they want to provide escapist entertainment and blow up cars. Some people make stuff because they want to put out a message of social justice. For me, the seeds of what I do were planted by sitting in my room, reading confessional poetry, and listening to Alanis Morissette and thinking,
I need to find a way to translate all these feelings, which are so like explosive inside of me, into something else.
There are always people telling you that your experience doesn’t matter, that it’s navel gazing or unnecessary. “We don’t need to hear about twentysomething girls who feel like they’re ten pounds overweight. We don’t need to hear about forty-year-olds getting divorced.” But we do need to hear it, because that’s who so many people are! I mean, it can be the difference between someone feeling like they have a place in the world and someone feeling they don’t. I’m not saying we’re here to stop school shootings, but I am saying that art has a place in making people feel less alone—and that, to me, is what’s intoxicating about it.

Judd:
What about your work as a director? What has surprised you about doing so much of it, and directing so many different actors?

Lena:
I love it so much, and I came in thinking that my first two loves were writing and acting. Directing was the thing that I could take or leave, but now, after four years of doing the show, it’s like my fiendish obsession. I’ve had such a steep learning curve. Blocking, camera, lighting, and also getting
to engage with all these actors, who approach it in a totally different way. I’m realizing how malleable you have to be and how open you have to be, if you want to meet an actor on their level. I’m eager to direct something that I’m not in. The next step in honing the craft would be totally removing myself as an actor so I can get super-focused on someone else’s performance, to really get in there with them.

Judd:
What’s your relationship with Adam Driver like? Because, to me, in addition to building an incredible relationship with all the women on the show, you have stumbled into this magical pairing with this incredible actor. He’s truly headed toward world domination now, but, you know, it started with you and him together, and the work you guys did creating this bizarre, unique person, a character that I think is unprecedented on television. That relationship seems to keep morphing.

Lena:
I love Adam so much, and I know for a fact that I didn’t know what I was doing as an actor until I met him and he forced me. I’m not saying I’m brilliant now, but he forced me to stop and take stock of what was happening when I was in a scene. He forced me to slow down and pay attention.

Judd:
He’s so present.

Lena:
He’s so present, he won’t let you do anything else. If he thinks you’re not present, he’ll fucking slam his fist into a wall to elicit some adrenaline reaction within you. I feel, in many ways, that Adam was my teacher and also that we worked together to figure out what those first scripts
were.
It was such a powerful relationship. There’s almost something mystical about it, when you meet someone who brings that out in you. I wouldn’t presume to say that I bring anything out in him, but I would say we figured out a groove together.

Judd:
Do you think he connects to you in the same way, or is he having a different type of experience?

Lena:
I don’t know. I only know what he’s thinking when we’re working. When we’re in a scene, I feel like I have a really good sense of what he needs and where he’s coming from. But when we’re just like eating lunch and having a conversation? I have no fucking idea.

Judd:
You’ve had a similar relationship with the women of the show, and, you know, we talked before about how, in television shows sometimes, the cast gets crazy after a few years. At a certain point, everyone comes to dislike each other. But for you, it has evolved in such a positive way. I mean, you’ve known Jemima [Kirke] forever.

Lena:
Twenty years now.

Judd:
And Zosia [Mamet]. What’s that been like, having that bond with all of those women you work with now?

Lena:
I think I assumed just because girls can be so annoying, it was somehow going to devolve into one massive catfight. Like you said, that’s what you always hear about television shows: By the end, nobody’s speaking and everyone’s arguing about who gets the best hairdresser. But we all have been through this thing together and we’ve stayed connected. We’re all really different but we support each other’s decisions and there’s a real beauty to it—we’re not best friends, going out together every Friday night, but I know that if I needed something, they would be there in a second. There’s an essential net of support. I also have so much respect for like how each of them is navigating their career in a really different way but totally owning it. Each girl is totally carving her own destiny. Zosia’s writing a feature and Jemima’s making paintings and Allison [Williams]’s playing Peter Pan and they’re each doing their thing and it’s crazy. Allison’s getting married now. Jemima’s married and a mother of two. Zosia and I both bought homes with our boyfriends. It has been this weird journey to adulthood—and by the time the show’s done, we could all be carrying babies around.

Judd:
Maybe that’s when the show should end.

Lena:
Totally.

It’s always fun to do an interview with my wife, Leslie, because she’s always hilarous and we’re often right on the edge of getting into a real argument the entire time. It’s such a tightrope walk when you do personal work—let alone work that involves your wife and kids, and is inspired by your life—and then have to talk about it with journalists. The problem is, Leslie and I have different ideas about how we want to portray the level of truth involved in our movies. I probably lean—out of pure laziness—toward talking about it as if it mostly comes from our lives, or at least an emotionally truthful place. Leslie prefers to say that the majority of what we do has been fabricated. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but this does lead to some tricky moments when we try to talk about our work with other people.

Leslie is my muse in ways that people don’t fully understand. When I have an idea for a movie, she’s the person that I kick it around with. When I’m outlining a screenplay, she’s the one who says, Well if you’re going to do this scene, then why don’t you do that scene, too? Many of the scenes I’ve written were Leslie’s idea, but I won’t get more specific than that here because I want people to think they were all my idea. If any of our movies resonate with people in any way, Leslie’s courage to explore these difficult, emotional areas is the reason why. She never thought of herself as a comedian—comedy is just something that seemed to happen to her. Which I am eternally grateful for, because there is no one I love working with, or being with, more.

Empire
magazine:
How did you broach the idea of making a movie about—I was going to say ups and downs, but it’s really just downs—of marriage at forty?

Judd Apatow:
Well, there’s nothing funny about the ups. That’s the whole point.

Leslie Mann:
Every other movie is about the ups. Or the end.

Judd:
I was just thinking about doing something about family but I hadn’t thought of an idea. Then I thought about how I liked Pete and Debbie in
Knocked Up
and you could make a whole movie about them….So I told Leslie I was thinking about it while we were on vacation in Hawaii.

Leslie:
It was a tense day. The kids were being pains. So it was maybe not the best time to talk to me about it. But we talked about whether it would be a good idea, whether it would be good for the kids.

Judd:
You resisted the idea of using the kids.

Leslie:
No, I resisted that on
Knocked Up.
I knew we’d have to use Maude and Iris in this because they were our kids last time. I didn’t want to use them originally.

Empire:
What convinced you?

Leslie:
Nothing. Judd manipulated me, lied to me, and steamrolled me. He told me he was auditioning kid actors while I was busy doing something, then: (
stage whispers
) “If it doesn’t work out, maybe we could use the kids….” Three days before shooting he said, “We had no luck finding kids, so we’re using ours.”

Empire:
How do you establish what from your personal life can go in the film?

Judd:
I think naturally we steer it. There’s way more that could be in there….

Leslie:
But you would want to slit your wrists if you saw that version.

Empire:
Who decided there should be a scene in which Leslie fondles Megan Fox’s boobs?

Judd:
I don’t remember. At some point someone must have pitched the idea….Maybe Megan.

Leslie:
Oh, I doubt it. It was you, and you’re trying to put it on someone else. I’m sure Megan would not push the boob touching.

Judd:
I would not have pushed it.

Leslie:
What is wrong with you? You’re like a dirty man.

Judd:
Is that scene dirty?

Leslie:
No, I don’t care. But a lot of people seem interested in it….It was your idea. Admit it.

Empire:
You two met when Leslie came in to read for
The Cable Guy.
Judd, you said you liked her straightaway. Leslie, were you aware?

Leslie:
Nuh-uh. Jim Carrey wasn’t there, so Judd was reading Jim’s part. I don’t remember Judd at all.

Judd:
I had little birds and hearts floating round my head and she didn’t even notice.

Leslie:
I had a bit of a crush on Ben Stiller, so maybe that’s why. I was focused on my work. I’m professional. Also, Judd was talking like
The Cable Guy.
He had a lisp. It wouldn’t have been very sexy….He would send his sister—

Judd:
This is a lie!

Leslie:
It’s true. He would send his sister to my trailer to tell me about all these dates he was going on.

Judd:
She just likes me, so she says nice things. I didn’t send her.

Leslie:
He
sent
her. What was your move?

Judd:
I just forced you to be around me more than you wanted to be. It was subtle stalking.

Empire:
Do you find the same things funny?

Judd:
No.

Leslie:
Yes we do! Are you serious?

Judd:
We’ll agree on some things. But there’s some comedy I’ll love that—

Leslie:
Like what?

Judd:
You wouldn’t sit and watch Monty Python movies with me.

Leslie:
I love Monty Python movies. What are you talking about?

Judd:
But I’ll watch weird comedy all day long and you’ll want to watch
Dateline Mystery
….I think maybe it’s not that we like different things but I have a higher tolerance for mass quantity. Leslie might want to watch one episode of
Louie
, but I’ll happily watch nine more. She’ll want to switch to
Psychic Kids.

Leslie:
That is a good show.

Empire:
Is there any comedy you vehemently disagree on?

Judd:
I don’t think so.

Leslie:
I thought you said we didn’t have the same sense of humor?

Judd:
I think maybe you’re not drawn to spend as much time with it as I am. I’m fascinated by how it works or
why
something’s funny. I watch endlessly. Leslie is faster to switch off.

Leslie:
You don’t know me at all. You seriously do not know me. You are so self-involved that you have no clue who I am.

Empire:
What are your favorite comedy movies?

Leslie:
Harold and Maude.

Judd:
I thought you hated that. I’m joking! Come on, our daughter’s named Maude. So we’re in tune there.

Leslie:
Are we in tune or out of tune? You keep changing
your
tune.

Judd:
I’m trying to make this interesting! I’m shaking it up.

Leslie:
Shake it up by leaving.

Judd:
What are your favorites?

Leslie:
I have three:
Harold and Maude, Broadcast News, Terms of Endearment.

Judd:
Okay, we’re in tune.

Empire:
Paul Feig, co-producer on
Freaks and Geeks
, described you as “a shouter,” Judd. When did that change?

Leslie:
Right after that. It was his back.

Judd:
I herniated my disk right after
Freaks and Geeks
, due to bad posture, a car accident, and general stress. Then when
Undeclared
went down, I was fighting the studio because they wouldn’t let me direct a pilot I wrote….But I realized I was treating this executive like my mother and the other person who wouldn’t let me do it like my father, and I was projecting all my issues onto them. As soon as I made that connection, everything changed.

Empire:
You had rave reviews for
Freaks and Geeks
and
Undeclared
but terrible ratings. How do you deal with the knowledge that you’re making something good that nobody wants to watch?

Judd:
It felt so bad. I had a rebellious streak that it was better to be a cool, indie geek than a mainstream rock star.
The Ben Stiller Show
was canceled after twelve episodes.
Cable Guy
didn’t do well. I was doing punch-ups on some movies that were successful, working uncredited on a lot of things that were doing well. I knew what it took, but I didn’t necessarily want to do it in my own work. I got really depressed and kept switching back and forth between [TV and movies] when I wasn’t succeeding commercially in either. At the end of
Undeclared
, I asked Will Ferrell to play a meth addict who will write your term paper for money. He hadn’t had a big movie yet, just some supporting parts. I thought,
This guy should be a movie star but I can’t get a movie made with him, so let’s just put him in an episode.
He had a good time, so he brought us
Anchorman
, which he wrote with Adam McKay.

Empire:
Leslie, what was your point of view, watching your husband go through that?

Leslie:
It was awful. He was really stressed out and that put a lot of pressure on me. We had a new baby. He was such a nightmare. Just kind of on
another planet, stressed-out and unavailable. Obsessing about work…But he’s kind of still like that. I’m really tired of it.

Judd:
I could talk for hours about
her
being miserable about work.

Leslie:
Do you know what I did? When his back went out, I went to New York and did this little film with Jeff Goldblum and I had my first love scene with him. So I was really enjoying myself and I felt terrible about it. Judd was literally being operated on—

Judd:
On my spine.

Leslie:
And I was in bed with Jeff Goldblum! And Jeff is very Method and he wants to rehearse—

Judd:
But this as a business can just consume everything. When you have a family, you’re worried. And for Leslie, you’re always auditioning and waiting to see if people like you. Eventually we thought,
We should just create our own work.

Empire:
So tell us about
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
and finally getting that success.

Judd:
We got shut down after two days. They thought Steve Carell looked like a serial killer.

Leslie:
They thought Paul Rudd was fat.

Judd:
They thought I was lighting it like an indie. They literally shut it down in the middle of the day. They didn’t even wait….I decided not to yell. That was a turning point. I decided just to listen and not react at all. I didn’t tell them it was insane to shut down a production and cost themselves half a million dollars when they could just call me at night and discuss it. Because I didn’t yell, it resolved itself much quicker.

Empire:
How did it resolve?

Judd:
We started up again two days later. It was really silly.

Leslie:
You made some adjustments. Paul went on a diet. He literally stopped eating. What did you change with Steve?

Judd:
Nothing. Steve decided the character would be a little more Buster Keaton–esque. He was low-energy and everyone else was spinning around him. Everything we shot in those first two days became some of the funniest stuff in the movie. It was the speed-dating sequence. So there was no purpose to it.

Leslie:
If you look at Paul Rudd in the speed-dating sequence compared to the rest, he’s, like, ten pounds heavier. Then in the rest of the movie his hair looks cute and he’s thinner.

Empire:
Then
Knocked Up
happened….

Leslie:
Knocked Up
is the story of when our daughter Iris was born.

Judd:
Almost beat for beat. From the doctor not showing up to getting the doctor you rejected earlier and asking him to deliver the baby and him being mean to you. We knew it was a crazy story. The last third is almost exactly what happened. Leslie goes into labor and I call my doctor but he’s out of town.

Leslie:
But we saw him about three hours before that and my water broke. He said, “No, your water didn’t break, you can go home.” He wanted to leave town and go to a bar mitzvah in San Francisco. So I think he lied to me and said my water didn’t break, which is really dangerous. But he’s such a stupid fucking asshole and I hate him. So we wound up with this guy who had giant hands, like Shrek. And there were complications and he was mad at us and he reeked of cigarettes and it was just horrible. But it made a good movie.

Empire:
When did you both first realize that you could make people laugh?

Leslie:
I would audition for dramatic parts and people would laugh at me—not ideal at the time—so slowly I realized the comedy world is where I belonged.

Judd:
I wanted to be funny more than I was. I realized, when I worked with people, that I could write in their voices. So I could write jokes for
Roseanne
or
Larry Sanders
, but I didn’t have my own voice.

Empire:
You started as a stand-up. Was your intention to become a performer or writer?

Judd:
I probably thought I could become Eddie Murphy….But I didn’t do any of the acting side because I was confident that I was terrible. Even when I did stand-up, I was smart enough to know that I had no life experience or real opinions. So it was more fun for me to write for people who had really strong opinions, because I didn’t care about anything but being a comedian.