Sheltering at Home With the Apatows
Judd Apatow found the perfect actor to co-star in his new comedy: his daughter Maude
Judd Apatow found the perfect actor to co-star in his new comedy: his daughter Maude.
Maude apatow, the eldest daughter of writer-directorproducer Judd Apatow and actress Leslie Mann, got an early taste of the indignities of showbiz. As a grade-schooler, she shot small roles for Kicking and Screaming, Talladega Nights, and The 40-YearOld Virgin, only to see herself sliced out of all three. By the time it happened on the last of those films, she was fed up. “I’m sick and tired,” she told her dad at age eight, “of just being in the DVD extras!”
Maude more than earned her screen time at age 14, on 2012’s This Is 40, throwing hilariously authentic adolescent tantrums, fighting convincingly with her real-life younger sister, Iris, and nailing her first tearful monologue. (“What I think was so great about Maude is she really could get in the head of what a teenage meltdown looks like, do it on film, kick ass — and then go home and have a real one, two hours later,” says her dad.) After that, she had a fairly normal high school experience, if you don’t count burgeoning social media stardom thanks to her precociously witty feed. As soon as she graduated, her
UP IN THE AIR
Judd and Maude at home in Los Angeles
parents let her start auditioning, and she started winning role after role outside the Apatow-sphere, including her part as Lexi, the least messed-up teen on HBO’s Euphoria, memorably introduced as a supplier of drug-free urine to Zendaya’s Rue.
Among other talents, Maude has inherited her mom’s endlessly entertaining ability to vibrate with palpable anxiety onscreen, a skill she puts to use as the put-upon, overachieving younger sister of Pete Davidson’s aimless man-child character in her dad’s excellent new movie, The King of Staten Island (based loosely on Davidson’s own life). Originally set for a theatrical run, the film ended up going straight to a June home release after the pandemic shut movie theaters. For their first-ever joint interview, Judd and Maude talked to Rolling Stone via Zoom from their L.A. home, where they were sheltering in place. (If not for the pandemic, Judd would’ve been off producing a Billy Eichner romantic comedy, while Maude was supposed to be shooting Season Two of Euphoria.) After extensive familial negotiations, they opted to speak from separate rooms, in part, Maude halfjoked, “because my nightmare is having to compliment my dad to his face.”
So who has been handling lockdown worse?
Maude: You’re definitely handling it worse!
Judd: I’m handling it worse? How so? How would you describe how I’m handling it?
Maude: Oh, my gosh, the first three weeks of lockdown you were losing it. But now you’re doing a lot better. I think we’ve all settled in.
Judd: I decided to take a two-hour walk every morning around the house. I just circle the neighborhood, and that seems to level me out. It took me a while to figure out what to do to get positive chemicals in my body.
Maude, you’re working on a movie script right now. Your dad has given countless young actors advice on becoming screenwriters; how does that work for you?
Maude: My dad gives me a lot of advice that I pretend that I don’t listen to, but I actually listened to most of his advice about writing. And he’s probably taught me most things I know. And he’s really helpful to me, even though sometimes it causes fights.
Judd: We battle about it. We go to war when we talk about story structure and script, because there’s nothing anyone wants less in the world than to be taught something by their father. So I always have to try to figure out how to sneak any information in — but as a father, you’re always irritating. And I’m always shocked by how irritating I am. Other people don’t have to spend the entire day with me. So if I’m sitting with Pete Holmes or Amy Schumer, they just have to spend that 45 minutes with me, not the next 22 hours. I think the other 22 hours is what makes it so hard to listen to the 45 minutes.
Maude, you already co-wrote and co-directed a short film when you were a teenager. Is that a clue to your ultimate ambitions?
Maude: I mean, I love acting, and I’m really lucky right now that I’m getting work and can do that. But I think my dad’s always told me my whole life that it’s really important to learn how to produce and how to direct and write. If you can write for yourself, that’s a gift, and when you can’t get acting work, you’ll have that and it’s just a big advantage. I met Lena Dunham when I was 12, so I saw that she could do that. And I always looked up to her and thought she was very inspirational — seeing that someone can do that and write and direct themselves and act in that project is really cool to me. So
hopefully I can do more of that. But I think I’m just gonna see how it all plays out. . . . I’m really into dark comedy, and I’m a big thriller-horror fan. I’d like to try to mix them if I can.
Judd, did you have any compunctions about letting your kids into show business?
Judd: For me, as a kid, I always wanted to work in movies and television. I couldn’t think of why anyone else wouldn’t want to [ laughs]. And so there have been times when I thought, “Maybe if I talked about other professions all the time, maybe my kids would have more interest in those professions.” Like, if I always talked about international law, they’d want to be lawyers. There’s something demented about how we’re so focused on storytelling and drama and comedy in our house. But also, I felt like Maude and Iris are the two most amusing people I’ve ever met — and why would I ever put anyone else in these projects? And then we did things together, and I was proven correct, at least in my mind.
Are you both kind of relieved that Lexi on Euphoria is the best-behaved character on one of the most decadent teen shows ever made?
Judd: [ Laughs] For now! I always say to her, “Usually the good girl does not remain so over the course of a long series.”
Maude: There definitely is some evolution in the coming season. Obviously, I’m sworn to secrecy, but . . .
The part Maude plays in The King of Staten Island wasn’t written for her, and you actually did audition other actors for that role, right?
Judd: We were wide open about who would play that part. It was so important that there was chemistry with Pete and it would feel like a family. I wanted to make sure that he felt that every part we cast was exactly right for him, because the story is so personal, and I hesitated about pulling the trigger on Maude. Pete was getting irritated with me! Because he’s like, “That was my first idea! Why did we even do auditions?” But I wanted to make sure it felt right, and once it did, it got very fun and exciting, you know, watching her be the one person in the movie who could challenge him. A lot of what Maude brought to her character was love and concern for Pete, and also anger over how much air he had taken out of the house the whole time she was growing up. There’s a complexity to that, because she’s definitely torn between worrying about him, caring about him, and being really angry with him.
This is the first time the two of you have worked extensively together since Maude was a little kid. Now, she’s an experienced actor. How was it different?
Maude: I really trust my dad’s judgment of how I’m doing, and I think he knows — I don’t know how to say this without sounding so cringe! — my potential, and so I really felt comfortable. On sets, I get really nervous. I’m nervous in general. I felt comfortable knowing that he had my back, and he wasn’t gonna let me fall or do anything stupid, and then I could kind of go for it. . . . I’ve been in TV and indie movies where there’s not a lot of time or freedom to improvise and take your time with it. This felt like the ideal way to work, having that time and letting the scenes sort of grow into something.
Finally, Judd, you’ve been very outspoken against Donald Trump and his followers on Twitter. Do those moments of political outrage spill over into the house at all?
Judd: I don’t bother everybody in the house too much about it. . . .
Maude: If we bring it up, you’ll definitely start talking about it! [ Laughs.] I mean, every day is horrible, but on an especially bad Trump day, it’ll definitely affect the mood in the house. I mean, it hurts, these days.
Judd: [Trump’s behavior] is too shocking on a daily basis and on an hourly basis. It’s worse than my worst nightmares I’ve had, and I feel like I’ve been ranting about it for years. I think it’s everything that I had a sense might happen, just a combination of corruption and ineptitude. And heartlessness. But I think we’re all just looking for ways to be positive and put something good out into the world in spite of it.