Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy

by Apatow, Judd

  Jeff: You worked with one of my heroes, Albert Brooks.

  Judd: Yes, I did.

  Jeff: So on the first day of shooting, he’s doing a scene and you’re directing, and you’ve got to give him a note.

  Judd: Yes.

  Jeff: What are you thinking? Because I know you love Albert like I love Albert.

  Judd: Well, it’s scary. But the process actually starts much earlier than that. You know, I wrote the part with him in mind and then gave it to him hoping he would do it. It would have been bad if he said no because I put in a lot of time thinking about him in the part, and then a lot of rehearsals so by the shoot, we’re comfortable. I mean, I was still nervous. But it’s not like I’m sweating it out.

  Jeff: Well, if I’m suddenly directing Albert Brooks, it’s going to be a bit freaky in my head.

  Judd: Yeah, well, that is why I do a lot of rehearsals.

  Jeff: Did you do rehearsals just to be calm with Albert?

  Judd: Well, I actually did a lot of rehearsals with Albert because I wanted him to rewrite all of his scenes. We would improvise. I would say throw out the script but get to the same information and then we would play and I would chuck out more ideas.

  Jeff: Did you videotape it?

  Judd: I did. And then he would email me better jokes at night. He’d start thinking about it, like, What I can say is this. And so there was a great six-month period of getting pitches from Albert—all of which were great.

  Jeff: So, let me see something here. Oh, you know what? We’re almost at an hour.

  Judd: How long are we supposed to talk?

  Jeff: There’s no “supposed to,” but you know.

  Judd: Like two?

  Jeff: By the way, that’s a question I want to ask you. What do you think about when you hear that Dane Cook or Dave Chappelle do like twelve-hour shows or whatever the hell it is? Have you heard about that?

  Judd: I have, yeah. Never seen it, though.

  Jeff: I haven’t seen it, either. You couldn’t pay—I mean, God bless both of them, but I don’t want to see—

  Judd: Actually, I saw Jim Carrey do that in like ’89 or ’88.

  Jeff: What did he do?

  Judd: We were at the Comedy Store. He’s not megastar Jim Carrey yet, but he’s solidly in the Living Color career Jim Carrey, and Sam Kinison comes in and does thirty or forty minutes—you know, an unannounced bump of Jim. “Jim, you have to go on later, Sam Kinison’s here.” And then Andrew Dice Clay comes in and does forty-five minutes and Jim is so mad that he keeps getting bumped and now it’s eleven, eleven-thirty at night and he was supposed to go on at like nine forty-five. So he decides that he is going to go onstage until they have to close the club. And so he does two hours straight, and the comedians are screaming because there are people who were supposed to go on after him.

  Jeff: That’s awesome.

  Judd: It was awesome. I think that was the night he came up with Fire Marshal Bill.

  Jeff: Yeah, because in those moments is where he’d come up with stuff.

  Judd: He started just doing the burnt-guy face and complaining about how all of the electrical outlets weren’t safe and he did that for thirty-five minutes to kill time. It was a great thing to witness.

  Jeff: You came over to my apartment one day, when I was living on Genesee, and you said, “You have to come down to Comedy Magic Club with me tonight, to see Jim Carrey.” And I go, “The guy who does Sammy Davis and stuff like that?” And you’re like, “Yes, but he’s changed everything. He’s going to blow your mind.” You were adamant and so I went and it was ridiculous how great it was and—what was the opening that he did? He did some sort of thing where he pretended to be opening and then kept going and going until—he was Andy Kaufman–like in what he was doing back then.

  Judd: Well, you know, he had done impressions for a long time and then decided that he didn’t want to be an impressionist—but he had no act. So he would go onstage with nothing, and do a set every night. After a year or two, he developed an act. But for a while, you would see Jim Carrey with nothing go onstage, searching. They were the best shows I’ve ever seen. He was just so interesting.

  Jeff: Okay, here’s the reason I said earlier, “We’ve been here for an hour,” was not to stop things but—

  Judd: I have nowhere to go.

  Jeff: You’re committed.

  Judd: I like to be here until people really want to leave. But that’s kind of how I am as a person. That’s why my movies are too long. That’s why I eat too much.

  Jeff: Where would you find that your movies are too long?

  Judd: Where would you find out?

  Jeff: Do your friends tell you, “Your movie was too long”?

  Judd: Oh yeah, everybody.

  Jeff: Well, a couple of things on that. First off, I remember going to see a screening, an early screening, of Talladega Nights. You were there, I think.

  Judd: Yes.

  Jeff: Okay. You were there. It was at Sony. Did you produce that movie?

  Judd: Yes.

  Jeff: Okay. So it’s one of those screenings that you guys do. I found a lot to laugh at, but I had to go to the bathroom at a certain point. So I walk in the bathroom, and there’s Adam McKay.

  Judd: Not watching his own movie.

  Jeff: Peeing. And I said to him, “What is with all these movies being so goddamn long?” And I didn’t realize, I mean I knew that he directed it but I forgot who I was—I was just speaking frankly. And he looked at me like, What? I think all these comedies should be ninety minutes. I remember when I saw a rough cut of 40-Year-Old Virgin. I saw like a two-hour-and-forty-minute cut.

  Judd: Yes.

  Jeff: No, I really did, though. I really did. I don’t know if you remember me saying to you, but I told you in no uncertain terms: “Cut it down to ninety and it’ll be a huge hit.”

  Judd: Yeah.

  Jeff: I still wish it was ninety. By the way, loved it. But I would have loved it more at ninety. You know, Groucho Marx came to see Second City one time and I said to him, “Groucho, what did you think of it?” And he goes, “Make it shorter, and make it funnier.” That’s sort of my attitude about comedies. All Woody Allen: ninety minutes or less. You can’t watch a fucking short movie anymore. I understand if—what’s his name, the guy who directed, like, Lawrence of Arabia? David Lean? If it’s a David Lean movie—all right, two and a half to three hours. But a comedy should be shorter.

  Judd: I don’t subscribe to that.

  Jeff: I know you don’t. And by the way, I love your movies, I really do. But I would love them more if they were shorter.

  Judd: You’re probably right. The 40-Year-Old Virgin, I think, was like an hour and forty-seven. And then I put seventeen minutes back on the DVD, which is a lot. But I like showing people the other things that we did that I was proud of. I feel like people’s attention spans are getting so short that I want to make them suffer.

  Jeff: I am with you on that. I remember going to your apartment once and watching that movie about the workers on strike. The train people—

  Judd: Matewan?

  Jeff: Matewan, yeah. You’re like, “You’ve got to see this movie, it’s amazing.” And that’s a long movie. By the way, I’m all for long movies, but—

  Judd: Not funny ones, right. You don’t think you can sustain joy or laughter over the long haul. See, when we were doing Funny People, I literally thought, I’d like to make this the longest comedy ever made. I wanted people to suffer through parts of it where you think it’s going to go happy, and then it goes to a more painful place, and the length is part of it. It’s like, Fuck, when will this end?

  Jeff: Fuck, when will this end? I love that as an aspiration for a filmmaker.

  Judd: You’re probably right, though, about length. But when things are good—you know, I’m not, like, upset that Pulp Fiction is so long.

  Jeff: I am.

  Judd: And there’s two Kill Bills. I’m excited.

  Jeff: I’m very u
pset. I’m not very upset but—

  Judd: Really?

  Jeff: I mean, I’m done. Because I feel like Lawrence of Arabia is about something. It’s filling me. Kill Bill is just too fucking whimsical to be nine hours long. You know, if something is really, really, you know, whoa, then yes, I’ll sit there for the whole fucking thing. But if it’s—

  Judd: What about Harry Potter?

  Jeff: I’ve never seen a Harry Potter movie. It all goes on too long.

  Judd: I get mad that people will sit through Harry Potter for two hours and forty minutes and not give me two hours and forty minutes.

  Jeff: By the way, I’m so with you. What makes you think that Harry Potter should be—

  Judd: You haven’t even seen the first one to judge the Potter movies. It’s not like you saw the first one and you went, “That sucks, fuck Harry Potter.” You’ve watched no Harry Potters.

  Jeff: I have never seen a Michael Bay movie, either.

  Judd: But maybe you would be the biggest Michael Bay fan in the world if you saw one.

  Jeff: No I wouldn’t.

  Judd: How do you know?

  Jeff: I just know. I know it’s a difficult place to argue from, I know.

  Judd: You don’t enjoy action and comedy hybrids?

  Jeff: I love action and comedy hybrids, yes, but not Michael Bay’s. I’ll never see his—it’s a matter of pride.

  Judd: Okay, well, who’s the funniest person that made you laugh? Who made you laugh the hardest?

  Jeff: Let me think about that. Watching their work?

  Judd: Yeah, not just hanging out. But their work.

  Jeff: Can I do both?

  Judd: Yes.

  Jeff: All right, so their work: I guess Peter Sellers, The Party. I laughed harder with him than anyone. And then on a personal level: Amy Sedaris.

  Judd: I was also thinking of stand-up. You’re talking about movies.

  Jeff: Stand-up? You know who used to kill me when he was at his peak? Kevin Meaney. He used to destroy me. Night after night, the same exact act would kill me.

  Judd: Chris Farley, in person, was one of the funniest people ever.

  Jeff: Yeah, but he’s not a stand-up.

  Judd: I’m changing the rules. When I think about stand-up, there’s so many that it just becomes ridiculous. I mean, my favorite thing used to be watching people write their acts onstage, free-form associating to come up with the next thing. There were days, when I first started, when I really used to laugh. I don’t laugh anymore. I’m dead inside.

  Jeff: It’s much harder now, stand-up-wise, to get a laugh out of me. Even after someone’s done, I’ll go, “That was a good set.” You know, and I’ll mean it but I didn’t laugh once.

  Judd: Yeah, that’s sad. I mean, Chris Rock’s act is crazy. Like, to see him really on his game?

  Jeff: You know what’s sad? When you see Chris Rock at midnight at the Comedy Store working out his act and what he’s working out is better than anything you’ve ever written. It’s just so sad and frustrating and you’re laughing, and you’re going, You fucker. You’re that good.

  Judd: There were so many people, when we used to go on the road, who would just kill so hard. I never did. I was never that good.

  Jeff: When we were on the road together—one thing, by the way, somebody said they saw our names up on the wall at the Improv in Addison or Dallas, you know, wherever it was, and everyone’s names and the date they played there are on the wall. And it was you and I opening for someone. I’m not going to say who it was because they haven’t gone on to anything and they—well, they weren’t a nice person but, uh, they weren’t so fuck them but I’m not going to say their name. It’s just mean.

  Judd: But you’ll slam a guy like Michael Bay? Who you’ve never met?

  Jeff: Yes.

  Judd: But the guy who was mean to you, you will not call out?

  Jeff: Yes.

  Judd: Is that because he doesn’t have Michael Bay’s money? Like where, what’s your line?

  Jeff: My line is Michael Bay better be able to take it. Not even because of money. Fuck him for making those shitty movies. Fuck him for wasting America’s time. Fuck him. Fuck him. And by the way, Albert Brooks’s speech in Broadcast News about lowering our standards: Michael Bay does it at a rapid pace. He’s not like slowly chipping away with each movie. Immediately upon first movie it’s a punch in our face to make us stupid. I’m sorry. You just got me on a rant. I apologize.

  Judd: You say this and you’ve never seen any of his movies. What are the top three or four jokes that, even for you, are uncomfortable?

  Jeff: I never—generally, I’m thinking about what’s for lunch. Uh, the only time that I am offended is when something is not funny. Trying to be shocking, and if it’s not funny, you know, like whatchamacallit, who played Kramer?

  Judd: Michael Richards.

  Jeff: Michael Richards. You know, I’ve seen things worse than that, and you have, too. Horrible, horrible things. And if he was funny that night, nobody would have been pissed. But he wasn’t funny. Hall of Fame not funny.

  Judd: But was it offensive?

  Jeff: What? Him saying what he said about the fork and shit like that? Yeah!

  Judd: I’ve seen people do things like that. I felt bad because I felt I kind of knew what he was trying to do.

  Jeff: He was trying to provoke a response. Do you know that when he came offstage, he said—I think it was Tom Papa, who was going up next. He walked over to Tom and goes, “Yeah, weird crowd.” Having no idea that his life was about to change. People freak out like that. Not every night, but it happens. Anyway, we’re done. And thank you. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with you. You’re a good man. You should take more credit for being a great guy.

  Judd: Thank you, Jeff.

  Jeff: You’re welcome.

  Judd: And I’m going to tell that to my good friend, Michael Bay, when I see him.

  Jeff: You can tell Michael Bay. Michael Bay, by the way, I wish him nothing but happiness. I really do. I want him to be happy, have a good meal. I hope that all things are good for Michael Bay, but I want him to stop making movies. That I do. If it brings him joy, let him make movies—but don’t put film in the camera.

  This interview originally took place in front of a live audience at the Largo in Los Angeles for Jeff’s podcast.

  JERRY SEINFELD

  (2014)

  I couldn’t wait to talk to Jerry Seinfeld again for this book, thirty years after our first interview. Jerry is someone I have known a little bit for a long time. Whenever I’m around him, though, I usually don’t speak much. I’m still a little bit intimidated. The truth is, most comedians don’t understand why he’s so happy when they’re so tortured. But I look up to him more than ever, and every conversation with him is an opportunity to learn. You’d be a fool not to take advantage of what Jerry Seinfeld has to offer.

  When we did this interview, I had just started doing stand-up again, after a twenty-year hiatus, and it seemed like a perfect moment to grill him about his current joke-writing process, and to soak up some of his stand-up wisdom. And, once again, he lit a fire under my ass—no one else has his work ethic or his clarity of vision, his passion for the craft. But I also had the opportunity to ask him questions about how he raises his children and his spiritual life, which is something I always wanted to do. Also, this being a few decades after our first interview, it was fun to remind him of what his dreams were back then, and to ask him how it feels to have made every single one of them come true.

  Judd Apatow: You know how, back in the day, I interviewed you for my high school radio show?

  Jerry Seinfeld: Yes, it’s still resonating.

  Judd: Well, I thought I’d start out by talking about that interview, back in 1983—which I remember and you shouldn’t.

  Jerry: No, I do remember. I do. It was an odd thing.

  Judd: We did it at your apartment in Santa Monica. Do you remember that?

  Jerry: I mean, I’d n
ever had a kid come to interview me with a tape recorder before.

  Judd: I remember you had a funny look on your face because I don’t think you knew a child was coming. The tape recorder I used was literally straight from the AV squad at Syosset High School—this huge green cassette recorder.

  Jerry: How old were you when we did this?

  Judd: I was fifteen. But I was aware of you, I think, from your earliest TV performances. I was watching way too much Merv Griffin Show for a kid my age. I saw you on TV before you ever did The Tonight Show.

  Jerry: Wow. Boy, those were the days.

  Judd: Is that the greatest moment in a comedian’s life, doing The Tonight Show for the first time?

  Jerry: Yeah.

  Judd: Do you remember it?

  Jerry: Well, Leno recently told me that he came to my first Tonight Show—which I didn’t even remember.

  Judd: The other thing that I remember about our interview is that your apartment had nothing in it. Like, it was not decorated.

  Jerry: Oh, I was a minimalist from the beginning. I think that’s why I’ve done well as a comedian.

  Judd: No distractions.

  Jerry: If you always want less, in words as well as things, you’ll do well as a writer.

  Judd: That whole high school radio show thing happened because a friend of mine decided he wanted to interview rock bands—we were like fifteen or sixteen years old—and then he goes off and interviews R.E.M. one day. And it occurred to me: Maybe I could use this high school radio station to meet my heroes and ask them, like, “How do you become a comedian? How do you write jokes?”

  Jerry: Wow, that’s great. Not to take you off track here, but I heard that you were doing some stand-up at the Cellar recently. Is that true?

  Judd: It is true.

  Jerry: I want to know what that was like.

  Judd: Well, I was interviewing Pearl Jam for their last record and as I was writing questions—you know, I think about them a lot because they’re my age and they’ve had, in a way, a similar experience to us in the arc of their careers. And I just kept thinking, These guys get to write songs, and they spend their lives singing them and enjoying themselves. But I make these movies, and there’s all this stress and then, when the thing comes out, I’m not a part of the experience at all.