THE FAN IS NOW THE MAN
Director and producer Judd Apatow turns obsession that started when he was a kid into a book about comedy,
Judd Apatow isn’t just a beloved comedic filmmaker, he’s a brand name.
Whether it’s through his TV work like Freaks and Geeks, the movies he’s directed such as Knocked Up, or projects he produced that created a generation’s worth of comedy stars like Anchorman, Superbad, Bridesmaids or Girls, the man has undoubtedly tickled your funny bone silly.
On Tuesday, his new book, Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy, hits shelves. The tome features conversations with comedians and filmmakers from contemporary stars such as Amy Schumer, Seth Rogen and Spike Jonze to elder statesmen like Steve Martin, Albert Brooks and the late Mike Nichols. It reads like a history of the last 50 years of comedy, outlining the struggles, neuroses and techniques required to build a career.
It could even be described as a book 30 years in the making, given that the earliest interviews were conducted by Apatow as a teenager.
“When I was a kid, there was no way to hear comedians speak about their work. I loved comedy but couldn’t even find one person to talk to about it,” Apatow told the Star. “That’s changed completely. There’s a whole nerd culture obsessed with comedy now. Back then I just was alone in my room watching The Merv Griffin Show and I certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone that. But I worked at my high school radio station and my friend would interview bands, so he suggested I interview comedians and I became obsessed.”
The teen Apatow was oddly fearless in his quest to interview his heroes, making him more freak than geek at the time.
“I’d hunt down their publicists but never told them I was from a high school radio station. I just told them it was a radio station in New York,” he admits.
“Then I would show up with a giant tape recorder from the AV squad and ask them everything I wanted to know about comedy. Most of the time, I wouldn’t even air the interviews. I just kept them for myself.”
The hungry Apatow’s quest to pick his idols’ brains got so extreme that he even tried to interview a young Jerry Seinfeld twice, earning a predictably flippant response.
“When I called the second time he said, ‘Why would I do it again?’ and I said, ‘Well, you’ve been on The Tonight Show more than once.’ I was a cocky kid,” Apatow recalls through a giggle.
Fortunately, once Apatow resumed the interviews a few years ago as a major comedy figure himself, he had more access, even nailing down that elusive second slot with Seinfeld three decades late.
“For some of these interviews, I used the book as an excuse to grind people with questions that I always wanted answered,” Apatow explains.
“You know, all of those questions that you couldn’t even ask people at dinner without being the weird guest. For years, I’ve wanted to talk to Chris Rock about joke writing or ask Jon Stewart how he keeps the quality so high on that show. But it’s also about our lives and why we decided to be creative and get into comedy. It’s the book that I always wished existed when I was a kid.”
The most endearing aspect of the book is seeing how the young Apatow’s enthusiasm remains to this day, despite becoming something of a legend himself.
“I was always appreciative that any comedian would talk to me for 15 seconds. My dream was that anyone would mentor me,” Apatow says. “So when people like Garry Shandling took time to teach me how to write and gave me opportunities, in my gut it felt like, ‘Oh that’s what you’re supposed to do.’ ”
Despite working in an industry defined by narcissism, Apatow stayed true to that mantra, helping the likes of Rogen, Lena Dunhamand Schumer (with their upcoming film Trainwreck) find careers that they may otherwise never have had.
“I just like working with people that I admire. Even if they’re young, in a lot of ways I look up to them,” says Apatow.
“It fills me up and inspires me. My entire sensibility was adjusted by working with Seth and I think it made me funnier. I never wanted to be alone in this. I would watch Saturday Night Live in 1977 and think, ‘I wish I could be a part of that.’ So I’ve always tried to create my own worlds.”