WEBVTT - Judd Apatow 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:11.680 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Judd. 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:15.600 Apatow's films include The Forty year Old Virgin, Knocked Up 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.640 and Funny People, all of which feature emotionally immature men 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:25.480 forced to grow up after confronting, respectively, sex, responsibility, and death. 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:30.400 While his films are not autobiographical, they all attempt to 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.800 answer the same question, one that Apatow himself grapples with, 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:37.240 can you become a grown up and still enjoy your life? 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.440 Of all Apatow's movies, his most recent This is forty, 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.159 which opened the weekend before Christmas, may be his most personal. 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:49.400 It stars his wife, Leslie Mann, and his children Maude 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.720 and Iris, who play her kids in the movie. It's 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.640 here where Apatow's complicated and nuanced, comedic point of view 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:01.320 collides with marriage, work, and family. It sounds horrible, but 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:03.240 do you ever wonder what it would be like if 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:07.560 you your wife were separated by something bigger? Death? Like 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.319 her death? I have given it a fair amount of thought, 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.240 not any painful way, which is like a gentle floating off. 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.200 It's got to be peaceful. I mean, this is the 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.319 mother of your children. And then the new wife would 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:20.919 be great. God, I can't wait to meet my second wife. 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.080 I hope she likes me better than this one. Judd 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.440 Apatow began studying the art of making people laugh as 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:31.000 a kid when he would rush home from school to 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:34.959 watch TV from three thirty until after midnight All in 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:39.080 the Family, Rhoda, Mary Tyler Moore Taxi on the weekend. 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:42.399 He transcribed the bits he heard on Saturday Night Live. 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.000 You're listening to club comedy w k w Z and 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:50.040 Siancet with Judd Apatow. This is Jerry Seinfeld. In high school, 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.920 Apatow had a radio show in which he interviewed comedians 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.480 such as Jerry Seinfeld, Gary Shandling, and John Candy so 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:59.880 we could learn as much as he could about their craft. 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:02.800 I think to talk about era type of comedy that 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.639 you do, how do you describe it? It's sort of funny, 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.240 observational with like a twist at it. It's not some 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.720 people just tell the joke like an observation and that's it, 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:20.359 but you add a whole need to mention on it. Yeah. Well, 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:24.320 it's one thing to see something, you know, and I 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.360 think the next step is to do something with it. 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:32.200 You know, like, I'm like, I'm doing this routine that 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:34.959 but this guy that was on that's incredible as you 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.799 gotta caught a bullet between his teeth. It's like, you 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.720 see a thing like that and you go, what the 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:46.080 hell is that that? She's a bullet And now I 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:49.320 don't know what's funny about that, but I think to myself, 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.840 there's something funny about that, and that's what I like 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:56.760 to do now. Apataw was arguably at the top of 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.440 his game and seems to have his hand in nearly 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.760 every meeting success of the last seven years. He was 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:08.160 a producer of Anchorman, super Bad, Bridesmaids, and is currently 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.120 an executive producer of the hit HBO show Girls. But 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.760 even after the commercial and critical success he achieved, John 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:21.280 Apatow still craves reassurance. I need constant approval of my 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.639 writing as I'm doing it. So I will show people 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:30.840 the first scene, the first ten pages people, anybody. I 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.680 will show anybody. I literally will send it to friends. 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.040 You know. Jake Kazan, who directed and produced on Freaks 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.640 and Geeks and Undeclared, is one of the first people 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:43.160 I show things too. But I'll show it to the 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:45.920 studio because I don't like that moment when you have 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.320 a finished script and you go, I wonder if they'll 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:50.920 like it. So if I send them thousands of pages 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.840 over the course of two years, they're so confused that 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.040 there's not a moment of truth and to bury exactly 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.320 and when it when it really gets down to it. 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:03.760 Lena Dunham and I were working on Girls Uh with 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.600 a Jenny Connor who runs Girls, so that was happening 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:08.920 parallel to me making This is forty. So we would 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.320 literally spend two hours breaking Girls stories and then two 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:16.360 hours talking about this is forty and then near the 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.560 end I'll get the courage up to send it to 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.680 like Eric Roth and James L. Brooks and Camerons. Is 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.760 influence to you, Yeah, He's probably the biggest influence. I 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:32.039 think his whole approach to stories is just imprinted in 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.840 my mind from my childhood watching Mary Tyler Moore and Taxi. 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.360 That's how I feel like stories work. Normal people with everyday, 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.200 normal problems, trying to get along, trying to make their jobs, 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.599 in their love and their life work. And his work 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:50.440 always ends with some beautiful grace note which is always 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:54.640 hopeful yet realistic, and I remember them from when I 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:56.359 was a kid. How you know. There was a taxi 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:00.400 episode where Louis d Pamo was dating a blind woman 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:02.320 and he was so in love, and then she was 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:04.320 having an operation to get her side back, and he 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.560 thought she's gonna dump me, which you can see, you 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:09.960 can see, and then of course she loves him and 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.280 thinks he's beautiful. And as he walks out of the room, 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.080 he throws something in the garbage and he says, I 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.600 guess I gotta get a real ring, and and I 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.000 love how he would pull that off. So he's very helpful. 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:25.240 And in the middle of this is for You, I 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:29.000 emailed James Brooks and I said, remind me what the 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:34.880 movie is about. Again I forgot, and he sent me 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.599 a long email saying, this is what your movie is about. 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:39.400 So you kind of I'll let you say this, but 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:41.440 it sounds to me like you swim in kind of 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.200 a pool or a stream with a lot of people 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:46.080 who make films, and you're and you're open to their 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.960 suggestions and you're open to their ideas. If you talk 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.600 to a multitude of people for their ideas, which ones 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:53.760 do you? I mean in the end, you decide. In 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:56.320 the end, you choose. I've always had faith in my 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.279 ability to make that call, so I don't mind a 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.840 lot of feedback. In doesn't confuse me if everyone says 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.560 something different. I mean, I come from television and rooms 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.840 of people arguing about story, and my formative years were 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.440 spent at the Larry Sanders Show, where you were a 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.599 great guest, and I one of the great early moments 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:16.760 of my career was I wrote a bunch of those 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:18.960 scenes and in the episode you were in, and I 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:20.880 just saw it on TV the other day I was home. 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.240 My favorite line, which was when Shandling goes to the 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:26.800 wings of the stage when I'm on the set and 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.880 I'm not quoting it properly, but rip says, what's the matter? 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.279 He says, I can't help it. I keep seeing him 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.159 having sex with my wife, and he says, and she's 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.840 on top, and Rips says, the lazy bastard. That's a 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:43.000 that is I wrote that joke. I know I wrote 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:45.640 that joke because I was so proud of that joke. 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.200 And I remember when you came in to the first 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:53.120 day of shooting and to do the quick rehearsal and 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.880 Gary was giving you ship from the second you walk 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:57.880 in the doors, like Alex, you need a lozenge. You 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.640 need a lozenge, and you said, right, that's how it's 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.760 gonna be, Gary, That's how it's gonna be. And it's 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.240 one of the great episodes. So so I think that 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.719 that was not your first job though. My first job 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.760 I used to write jokes for comedians. I wrote jokes 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.680 for Rosanne's nightclub act for one. Why did you did 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.160 you do stand up periodical? I did it for for 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.640 seven years. It's all I wanted to do. But I 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:25.600 very quickly realized I was better at creating sketches or 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.120 dramatic situations to get my point across. And as a 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:33.680 straight monologist, I wasn't interesting the way my roommate Adam 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.680 Sandler was or Jim Carey. I just as a fan, 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:40.120 I knew, oh, I'm not these guys you really felt 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.200 that were oh yeah? Because and then we were in 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:43.920 l A. At the time I was in l A, 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.560 I lived in North Hollywood with Sandler. And how long 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.720 did you live with Sandler? It was under two years, 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.720 And I mean it was the most fun time ever. 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:54.560 Every time we see each other were like that was 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.040 the best. You know, we were just so into doing 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:03.920 stand up and back then Sandler wasn't famous, so he 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:08.920 was really silly all the time and very obnoxious and 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:13.000 trying to make strangers laugh. He really engaged the world 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:16.360 for his own amusement, less to protect that he does now. Yeah, 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.600 he he just loved, you know, asking pulling people over 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:21.800 to ask for directions in the car and doing something 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:24.760 crazy to them. I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but he 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.960 was the guy that would fart in the elevator and go, Judd, 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:32.160 come on, we're in an elevator. Uh. And that disappears 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:33.920 when you get famous. So you brought this up there, 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.319 you know. Well, but you brought this up and I'm 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.360 I can't say I'm glad you did. But in your movie, 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.120 Paul Rudd is in bed with your wife. Yes, yes, 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.360 he's in bed with his wife, and to torment her, 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.160 he just rips off a series of well placed like 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.600 he's turning over cards in a game. He's like, he 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.880 rips a couple of parts there. But you that's not 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:58.000 how you live, right, Well, it's a that's a complicated scene. 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:01.439 And what's funny about that? Says you know, they're having 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:05.040 a very serious conversation about their finances, which are not good, 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.000 and they're watching security camera footage waiting, trying to figure 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.240 out who's stealing from them, and they see Megan Fox 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.960 fooling around with someone at work, and then Leslie says, 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:17.320 at least she's getting some and his reaction, after a 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.920 few moments of feeling attacked is to just fart. It's 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:22.960 like a monkey. It's kind of like saying, you know, 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.400 screw you. And Rudd did it as an improv. It 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:28.920 wasn't in the script. Yeah, it wasn't in the script. 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.520 And Leslie knows, okay, if anything happens off page, I 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:34.120 need to go with it. And she's furious and you 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.160 see it in her eyes and she's really genuinely disgusted, 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:39.440 and you get kind of a real sense of what 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:44.240 marriage is like off of just a stupid yeah marriages. 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.000 You watch security footage to see if Megan Fox is 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.960 stealing money from your company, and she's banging her boyfriend 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.720 on the desk, and you get your wife gets horny 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:56.520 and you feel fretted with us. You fart on her exactly. 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:59.920 That's how marriage is. Yeah. Now, the other question I 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.480 have apropos of the movie was so I'm thinking, Rudd, 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:07.120 it's either the highest honor or he's the goat, because 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:08.960 you're you know, you're lying in bed with your wife, 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.000 who has made a lot of great films and funny films, 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.160 and you say, uh, what's your nickname for your wife? 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.240 I asked, just called les Is it le Leslie? Well, 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.200 the funny thing is I always call it Leslie And 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.079 then she's like, Judd, my name is Leslie Leslie. It's 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:28.160 not less Leslie. Literally say her name, it's Leslie. Leslie 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.880 is when I'm in Cambridge now exactly. So you're there 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:33.880 with her and you say to her, I'm just envisioning 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.959 this scene where you look at her and you say, baby, 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.960 who's the guy that you like most want to have 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.760 sex with? It was like, and just be honest with me. 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:44.680 We've been together while we have two kids. You know 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.360 it's me. I'm making a film. And she says, God, 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.280 Paul Rudd, and I mean that you crossed his name 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.319 off the list. I know he's never doing my film. 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:54.480 Or is it like you put him in or do 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:56.200 you say to her, baby, who's the guy that you 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.720 view as like a brother, Like if you had sex 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:00.839 scenes with him, But this wouldn't mean you'd be like 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.719 like fooling around with your brother, Paul Rudd. That's where 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:08.040 you gonna hire him. She's disgusted, uh, and and that 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.480 makes it okay to watch them fool around. I I'm 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:13.800 always disgusted when she feels around with anyone. I remember 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:16.280 when we shot the Cable Guy, she kissed Matthew Broderick 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.120 and then when they parted, I saw in the dailies 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.800 there was like a spit string that connected them for 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:26.520 like a foot and lady in the and so yes, 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.320 I'm glad that unless they're lying about being disgusted by 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:31.800 each other, because I may be the fool they are lyned. 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:35.319 That's terrible because I know because I've heard that before. 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:39.000 I've had my ex wife has got you know, Russell 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:43.079 Crowe's got his tongue into her spinal fluid and she's like, no, no, 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:45.320 it was just nothing, it's nothing. Well, the day I 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.720 had back surgery for a herniated disc back in the 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:54.240 year two thousand, Leslie couldn't be there because shest Leslie, 0:11:54.280 --> 0:12:00.440 Sorry Leslie, I couldn't be there because she was Mrs 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.839 apt She was shooting a scene where she was making 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.439 love with Jeff Goldbloom, and you just know he's all 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:10.720 handsy in between takes. You know, he's just for pushing 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.000 buttons and a woman and you don't even know we're there. 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:17.680 Exactly What does the director Jodd Apatau do when Leslie 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.560 Man passes? You know, when you know people so intimately, 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:24.000 you knew she was in. I asked her before I 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.239 write the script. You know, I'll say, are you comfortable, 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.040 you know, doing a fictionalized version of how we feel 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.080 about this time in our lives. And I'll start telling 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.560 her some of the story and then she starts pitching 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.120 me Debbie's point of view and scenes. A lot of 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.080 scenes in the movie here Leslie standing up for her character. 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:43.120 So it's balanced. It's it's not like I write a 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:45.400 script and handed to it is a collaboration. She help 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.880 you with it. Get a good woman's perspective, Oh yeah, 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:52.040 because I have no woman's perspective at all. This is 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.080 fifteen years of marriage and her explaining what I do 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.480 wrong put into a movie and knocked up. There's a 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:01.880 line she has which we took from her life, which 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:06.840 was just because you don't yell doesn't mean you're not mean. 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.760 And that's the kind of insight I would never have 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.000 my daughter. She goes, Mommy yells at me ten times 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.280 more than you do. But when you do it, it's different, 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.680 she said, exactly. And also the whole idea of how 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.520 I can be detached and shut down and not want 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.560 to connect with anybody, and how it's a you know, 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:31.079 an emotional abandonment to people when you do that too much. 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.720 But you know some people, like for me, I get 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.120 just overwhelmed. I got a numb out for a while. 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:38.840 You gotta have a little Walden time exactly. And sometimes 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.560 it's in the bathroom with an iPad, and you gotta 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.640 have to read those scenes when when she's coming to 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.080 the bathroom and Rudd is sitting there with you, that's you. 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.240 It is except him as a sanctuary. But she would 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.240 never ever knock on the door or open the door. 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:55.920 But when I walk out, she'll say, what were you doing? 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.040 And I'm like, I'm going to the bathroom. She's like, 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.160 you were tweeting, and I'll say, I isn't. I wasn't tweeting. 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.200 She's like, I can see your feed if I was 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.680 going to the bathroom, and I was tweeting about it exactly, 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.240 don't doesn't everyone. I'm marketing our movie from the toilet, 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:12.720 but so you know, it's very fictionalized in a story, 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.600 but the emotional things that we're arguing about make their 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.840 way into the movie. Now, when you start a film 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.040 like this, and you've had tremendous success in the last 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.600 couple of years and in movies, which is tough in movies, 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:28.960 in my mind is the toughest of them all. And 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:31.120 so you step up and you do this movie, and 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:33.600 is there a fear when you begin? Do you think 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:35.720 to yourself, Oh God, this is the one. All the 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.760 wheels are going to fall off, Like what's your disposition 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:42.080 when you start shooting? You know, I have both sides. 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:44.080 You know. I want to succeed because I just want 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.760 to be allowed to continue making movies. I also have 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.600 a rebellious streak, which is I do have some sense 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.760 of what makes a very commercial movie, and I'm working 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.200 partially against that. Like, as the attention span of the 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.440 audience gets shorter, I want to make longer movies to 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:02.800 say there's something wrong with you that you can't sit 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.080 for two that with this film, I deliberately do it 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.640 with all of them because I feel like, you know, 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:10.320 this is the only time we're going to get with 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.080 these people. Why do you need to rush to get home? 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.400 And I like movies like Jerry McGuire and in terms 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:18.360 of endearment and movies that were over two hours. It 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.600 takes an extra twenty minutes to explore, you know, more 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:24.160 dimensions of people. And no one says anything that you're 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.040 out there with the studio is not I mean, because 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:28.480 those guys, that's pretty much the first thing out of 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:30.520 their mouth is Jed, can't we we need a hundred minutes? 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.640 Bab Yeah. The funny thing is they're all like I 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.800 think maybe Knocked Up was to ten. So I've set 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.880 this pace, this very slow pace. It's funny because the 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.800 Hobbit and all these limits, they're all to forty five. 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.600 They're all like a half hour past me, and I 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:51.440 feel like, you know, my characters. Uh. Someone said to me, 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.600 you're basically saying, these people are worth your time. And 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:56.160 sometimes I watched the movie because I have to watch 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:58.240 it hundreds of times, I think, wow, this is long. 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.200 I'm really putting people through it. But there is a 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.560 part of me that feels like good experienced this. This 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.280 is life and it's funny and it's difficult and and 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:10.920 I need the time to do the full ride of that. 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.800 So on day one, I'm both trying to figure out, 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.600 like marketing wise and concept wise, a way to make 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:24.240 it sell while thinking I'm sneaking some John Cassavetti's Robert 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:28.680 Altman aspect into a mainstream comedy. When when when you 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.960 do a film like this as Knocked Up begets this film, 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.120 does this film does right away? Do you start thinking 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:38.320 of other ideas whether you do them or not, do 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:40.920 you like One of my favorite moments in the film 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:42.920 is when it's towards the end of the film and 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.400 they're at the party and the guy the Life Coach 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:49.640 is hitting on Megan Jason Jason Siegel is saying, what's 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:54.480 his character's name, Jason Jason. He's saying to her, you know, yes, 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:56.600 I will Jason. What over the line is? He demands 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.440 that she repeat Now that would be a funny character 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:02.320 in a movie. Life Coach is just h Absolutely. I 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.879 think I think that about most of the characters I 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.199 especially coming from TV. I love that there was Rhoda 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.600 after Mary Tyler Moore or Frasier after Cheers. So anytime 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.440 a character works, I could watch it, you know, I 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:19.080 could watch, uh, either of the leads of super Bad 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.399 go off on their own, Michael Sarah's character or Jonah 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:25.960 Hills or the Cops. Once it exists, I'm kind of 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.800 more depressed that we're not doing more stories. And that's 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:31.360 just my whole thing. I don't like to let go. 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:33.920 So if someone said they're gonna make a movie about 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.920 what happened to Albert Brooks's character from broadcast News, I'd 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.880 be the happiest man in the world. Had you known Brooks, 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.720 had you been acquainted with him and had worked with 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.120 him before, and you did this movie with him. I 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:48.520 met him in the early nineties when I was working 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:50.800 at the Larry Sanders Show. I had dinner with him 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.080 a couple of times with Gary, and I was just 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:57.360 in awe to be around him because his Saturday night 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:59.840 live movies were really big influence on everything we did 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.240 at the Ben Steeler's Show. And obviously, you know, defending 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:08.800 your life in modern romance and real life, you know, was, Yeah, 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.320 it's the template for a certain type of you can 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:15.560 never see And in the same sentence again, although my 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:17.600 daughter watched Laws in America for the first time the 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.560 other day. She's fifteen, and at the end, she said 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.159 to me, what's the nest egg? She goes, She's like, 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:26.920 I literally thought the money was in an egg. Uh. 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.720 And I was so excited to meet Albert that afterwards 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.159 I went home and I wrote down every joke he 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.240 said at dinner, like I still have like the journal 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:39.159 entry where he's making jokes about the Menendez case. You 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.200 don't kill your parents and buy a rolex. You don't 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:45.200 do that. So I wrote the part just for him, 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.320 hoping it could be good enough. I never want to 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.359 ask anyone that I look up to to be in 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:51.560 my movie if I don't think it could be as 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:53.639 good as their movies. You know, I don't want to 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.640 be their crappy movie. And so that's why I tend 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:59.760 to work with young people, because they have no no, no, 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.160 they don't I won't be their worst standards aren't set 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.840 in stone yet. Yeah. Now, when with Brooks, when you 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.960 work with people like that who are veteran, if you 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:12.840 will are very experienced and have a bed tremendous success, 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.080 what's that experience like for you as a director, meaning 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.000 do you do they come in and they just start riffing, 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.760 and are they rewriting and improvising and you just let 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.080 it go? Or do you sit there and you do 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:26.440 find a way, a politic way to sit him. I'd 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.600 rather to confine ourselves to this what's on the page, 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:30.520 not specifically with him, but with any of them that 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:34.480 come in. Well, I precious, are you about what you've written? Well, 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:38.320 I'm never precious about anything other than my intention. So 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.280 I know what I'm trying to accomplish with the character, 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:43.800 but I'm very open to it morphing based on the 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.679 interaction with the with all the actors. So with Albert, obviously, 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.080 I'm terrified because I'm working with someone who's clearly more 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:52.640 talented than me. So I'm trying to figure out how 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:56.760 to manage my idea for the story and tap him 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.919 for everything that he's worth. So I want him writing 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.800 and thinking and pitching me. I mean, I spent a 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.080 year in a room trying to think of an original 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:08.840 character that he hadn't done before, but I would still use, 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.240 you know, his great comic sensibilities. And then I brought 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.359 him into a rehearsal and we did the scene has written. 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:17.680 We did ideas that I had, and then I just 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.560 let him play and improvise and pitch me things. And obviously, 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:22.440 at the end of the day, if you were to 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.119 like write down which are those lines are Albert's, you know, 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.840 it becomes the majority, which is the intention to give 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.159 him a space where he's comfortable enough to you know, 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.600 to email me at night a better line which you 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:36.920 would do with that died. Before any scene, I get 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.359 a little email from Albert what if he said, did it? 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.359 And it's always better than my joke And as long 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.280 as you're comfortable. Oh, I'm thrilled. It's not because I'm 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:47.920 coming off from an experience with the television show I did. 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:52.480 There was there was a very strident, very unbending rule 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:54.280 that we had to shoot everything has written, and there 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.680 was no you couldn't change a word, or we could 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.240 do alternate takes and change things, but we had to 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:01.960 shoot everything has written with no exceptions. Pretty much. Well, 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:04.919 I definitely start that way when we shoot. I like 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:08.919