Director hits the stage as a ‘standup’ guy
Judd Apatow joins the cast for Amy Schumer’s tour that plays Massey Hall
With her delightfully filthy movie Trainwreck about to hit screens, comedian Amy Schumer has gathered a collection of her co-stars for an all-star standup tour that hits Massey Hall on Wednesday.
Surrounding Schumer onstage will be beloved weirdos and legends such as Dave Attell, Colin Quinn, Mike Birbiglia and Vanessa Bayer. The name that will likely surprise most people shuffling into the show is Judd Apatow. The connection between Apatow and Schumer isn’t necessarily surprising, given that he directed Schumer’s film. However, the guy isn’t really a standup. Or at least he hasn’t been one for decades.
“I’ve been doing standup since last year, which I enjoy mostly because I took a break for 22 years,” Apatow tells the Star.
“I first did it between the ages17 and 24, so I was a kid. I didn’t have any life experience and I didn’t have some innovative approach like Steven Wright. I wanted to do it again now I have more to talk about.
“Now that I’m 47, I actually have stories and problems to communicate and, generally, I haven’t figured much out. So that’s what I talk about: the fact that I can’t believe that I still can’t figure out how to do anything, whether it’s raising my kids or being a human on Earth. I’m still confused.” The filmmaker-turned-comic briefly returned to the stage in preparation for his 2009 film about comedians, Funny People, but didn’t really get back into the craft until he was working on Trainwreck with Schumer at the peak of her powers.
“So much of my comedy life is me alone in editing rooms suffering. I felt like, ‘Where’s the fun part? Where’s the joy in this?’ ” he says. “Then I saw Amy come back from all of these concerts and got jealous and thought, ‘OK, I guess I have to get off my ass and do this.’ ”
Beyond the brain-tingling high that comes from making audiences keel over with little more than a microphone, Apatow found that performing improved his overall craft.
“It keeps you sharp,” he explains. “There are a lot of people who are really funny, but when they stop performing live you can feel it in their work because they aren’t fully engaged with their audience anymore.”
A little healthy competition also played a role, given that performing alongside Schumer and her friends shoved Apatow into the middle of the most intimidatingly funny minds in standup and he had to deliver.
“My only goal was that when I take the stage, the show doesn’t slow down. I want it to feel like, ‘Oh, I just saw another comedian,’ ” Apatow quips. “I just try to seem like I deserve to be there, but I certainly won’t be going on last, I can assure you.”
The Trainwreck Comedy Tour represents the culmination of a few years of collaboration between Apatow and Schumer.
As he’s done for so many others, Apatow came to the comedian as a fan and ended up directing the movie Trainwreck, written by and starring Schumer, due in July.
“It started when I heard her on The Howard Stern Show,” says Apatow. “She was talking about her life and her struggles with her dad, who has MS, but in such a warm, hilarious and brutally frank way that I thought, ‘Oh, she’s a real storyteller. She should be in a movie.’ ”