by Apatow, Judd
Miranda: I think I have some of that, too, for similar reasons. I guess that’s a little bit of a director thing. I feel like it’s in overdrive for me right now but it’s like, Oh, wow, this really has a purpose now that I’m a parent. This idea of being on the lookout for calamity at all times.
Judd: (Laughs) As a parent, you become obsessed with anything dangerous that could happen. I remember once my mom, who’s no longer with us, was babysitting my daughter and we saw her on a very busy street, and my mom was paying no attention to her whatsoever. We were like, “You’re never watching our kids again.” When you first have a kid and you have to make a will and you literally have to decide who gets your kids if something happens to you, that’s when you realize how little you think of everyone in your world. That’s a good way to get yourself to stay healthy. Put down the worst person you can think of to take care of your kids as motivation for staying alive. Okay, I have my next question. Do you have faith in humanity?
Miranda: My first instinct is to say yes and that I wouldn’t be able to do what I do if I didn’t. I’m counting on everyone to catch my heart, you know, to be able to understand in the deepest way that I can get it across, so in that way it’s like I’m practicing that faith. But on the other hand, I was listening to the radio and it seemed that literally every day there would be a new gun violence thing. At the same time I was struggling with problematic friends and struggling with the part of myself that sometimes wants to just get rid of a friend. Like, I’m overwhelmed, I can’t figure out how to deal with it, and I just think in my head, That’s it! Let’s just not be friends and never talk to each other again! I realized that I was feeling that same tendency about humanity. I was like, It’s too much of a mess—let’s just end it now. And then I told myself, No, you’re piling on the way you do with other things, and surely there’s something that can be done—it’s not all a waste. Okay, next question for you. What are the top three things that make you feel guilty?
Judd: You’ve hit the mother lode! You live in a fantasyland where I can make it just three things. I am built for guilt, and if a person in my life doesn’t try to guilt me to get their way, I will unconsciously train them to use guilt to manipulate me. Everything about how my family worked was based on guilt. From going to the mall with my elderly grandmother—if I had to run in and grab something, she would say, “It’s okay, you can just leave me in the car.” I remember as a kid my mom used to tell us who she liked best out of me and my brother and sister. We were just totally wired to please, and if we didn’t please we’d feel terrible. It’s a horrible thing.
Miranda: But what about right now? Top three things you feel guilty about right now.
Judd: I always feel guilty about whether or not I’m being a good enough husband and parent. I’m always guilty about not taking better care of myself. And I’m usually guilty about not being helpful enough to people in my extended family who need assistance. Because no matter what you do it’s not enough. And people resent you the moment they ask for help, so it changes your relationship instantly. You have problems but then you become part of an ecosystem of their problems.
Miranda: Okay. In your experience, is it true that men are more visual and women are more mental in terms of what turns them on? I didn’t make this up—this is, like, a thing. Men are more visual; just looking at a woman’s body can turn them on. Whereas women, they’d rather think about sex to be turned on.
Judd: Oh, I’ve never thought about that before.
Miranda: Really? What do you think about? Or are you too busy being guilty?
Judd: Yeah, I’m too guilty to think about any of these issues. (Laughs) I’m trying to think of me. Am I visual or mental? Isn’t everybody both? Well, the male figure is not pleasing. Like, the penis is weird and sloppy-looking. It’s like something on the inside of your body is now on the outside and it should be on the inside. Most people don’t look like David Beckham. So women need men to have a good personality because most of us don’t look good.
Miranda: Even in the best of circumstances, if the man is David Beckham, Victoria is still not…it doesn’t do anything for her. She has to pretend that she just met David for the first time, or that she’s David’s secretary, or…
Judd: Or that he’s a Jewish comedy writer.
Miranda: (Laughs) Yeah, exactly.
Judd: She’s probably bored. He has the abs. But it gets repetitive. There’s only so much you can do with rock-hard abs, because there’s not enough skin to work with. It’s like making love to a piece of slate.
Miranda: So you don’t really have anything to say about this? That’s fine.
Judd: You’ve seen The 40-Year-Old Virgin, right? (Laughs) I’m not the guy to go to about this stuff. I’m usually just hiding in a corner, shaking. I look away when a pretty girl walks by—I feel like it’s an invasion to stare at somebody. I let my eyes look up real fast and then hope that I retain some memory of it. My next question is: Who do you reach out to for guidance?
Miranda: Not too many people. I always have close women friends. There’s my friend Sheila Heti, she’s a writer. In fact, I sent her these questions and she just answered them all. (Laughs) And I have a really good therapist—which is the first time I’ve ever had a therapist I admire….
Judd: Admire? I need her phone number. I just always think, Oh my gosh, they look so bored. I can’t believe I’m not getting better and I’m just boring them to tears.
Miranda: Yeah, I do a certain amount of saying, “Well, this is boring,” or “Here’s something insignificant I want to talk about.” I usually try and preface it with some sort of diminishing thing.
Judd: Do you cry during therapy?
Miranda: Not as much as I did with the old, bad therapists. I feel like I’m just a better person with this new one so I don’t need to cry as much.
Judd: I don’t like to cry, because then every session when I don’t cry, he thinks, Oh, he’s not actually opening up. Once I’ve showed them that’s there, then it’s like I’m always hiding it.
Miranda: With this therapist, the first session I ever had with her was really terrible. I was really angry with her but I forced myself to go back and tell her how she’d fucked up. It was an amazing way to start because it got to the important stuff right away and how she dealt with that was, like, really smart. I don’t think in the past I would have been willing to come back. I would have quit.
Judd: I just disappear. Then I feel guilty for years that I didn’t tell the doctor why I stopped coming and I assume that they’re haunted by it. But they’re not haunted by it.
Miranda: The therapist I left this therapist for, I’ve still never told her. I figure she just thinks I’m busy with the baby.
Judd: Just send a card: “Doing great! Don’t need any mental health support—thank you for fixing me!”
Miranda: I really want the old therapist to know how much better this new one is.
Judd: Send them another note: “Why did you waste seven years of my life?” Okay, next question: Do you have any food issues?
Miranda: I’ve never had, like, “I’m going to get fat” food issues—which I have to say I credit my mom for. She just never picked up on the fact that she was supposed to worry about those things and was always like, “Let’s go get a doughnut!” in a really benign way. But I love different kinds of restrictive diets. If I’m meeting a new person, and hear that they’re on some kind of new restrictive diet, I want to hear all about it and possibly get on it myself. I like different forms of self-discipline. Like, I had no reason to be gluten-free, but then someone said, “Oh, you know it’s not great for your breast milk.” I was like, “Great! I’ll go off gluten!”
Judd: We went to an allergist and it turns out our kids have no allergies to gluten. But our house is totally gluten-free. Every time we go to the supermarket my child is desperately sneaking a loaf of white bread into our cart like it’s Oreos! I couldn’t have more food issues. For me food is such a reward. It’s al
l about fun. For me to think of food as fuel is extremely difficult. Food is happiness. I like being stuffed. I like being so stuffed I can’t get up. Like when you’re in that haze of exhaustion.
Miranda: Haze—like a drug.
Judd: How has having a child changed the way you think about your pre-child life? How has it changed you?
Miranda: I’m kind of amazed to see that the massive amount of time I spent thinking about my feelings turned out not to be vital to my existence. In fact, having less time to think and having to simply do is just fine. For my whole life before, I thought I needed the maximum amount of freedom, but as it turns out what I really need is to feel free for a limited amount of time and then crawl around the floor saying “I’mgonnagetcha, I’mgonnagetcha” while a very, very cute little boy squeals with glee. Before it was easy to feel alienated from most people; now I feel like I have something sizable in common with nearly every single person in the grocery store. Also, my son had a really rough start so I went through a level of trauma and fear that forever changed my relationship to catastrophe. It’s more real now, so I’m more afraid of it. I suppose I’m braver, too.
Judd: I was forced to realize how self-centered I was. I found it hard to shut my brain down so I could just hang out in my kids’ reality. It’s easier now because my kids’ realities are more like my own. We can talk about Breaking Bad episodes and why we think it is a bad idea to take Ecstasy. How would you like to spend your old age?
Miranda: I’d like it to be just like now—writing and surrounded by people I love—except I want there to be zero anxiety. I want to feel like I’m sitting in a Jacuzzi all the time.
Judd: I want to be like Mel Brooks. A great memory, a lot of energy, still making people laugh. I do not want to be like Jack LaLanne, pulling fifty boats as I swim across a lake. Do you have a conception of the afterlife? Are you a spiritual person?
Miranda: You know, it’s funny. I just wrote that I was spiritual and then sat here for about ten minutes trying to put words to that feeling. Everything I came up with seemed made up or like some idea I’d had when I was fifteen. It all felt distasteful to me so I erased it. I think I’m less entranced by amorphous things at this moment.
Judd: I have some friends who had near-death experiences who felt a presence tell them to go back. It was not their time. That is all I can hold on to. When I am creative I think something more is going on, so maybe it does not end. I don’t think I am going to get ninety virgins or hang out in a beautiful kingdom. My biggest fear is that I will become a ghost and be forced to hang out in some house watching a bunch of jackasses live their lives. I don’t want to be a tree. I know that is supposed to be a beautiful thing, to become a tree or a beetle. I am not into that. I would like to stay me.
Miranda: What are the top three times you’ve been most freaked out in your life so far?
Judd: One, when I was in sixth grade my friend’s brother grew pot in his room. One day my friend got his hands on a joint and we attempted to smoke it in the middle of the night at a construction site. Before we took a real puff a security guard pointed a flashlight in our direction and we ran for miles and miles and miles as if he was hot on our tail. There is no chance he took even one step in our direction. We stared out the window at my friend’s house for a half hour, terrified that he would knock on the door and tell our parents. The next year I was so scared that my friends were going to become potheads that I switched social groups. My new friends eventually became the real potheads of the school, and after two years I ran back to my old friends, who never bothered to try it again. Two, when the Northridge earthquake happened it really felt like nuclear missiles were falling from the sky. The noise and the shattering of glass freaked me out. My girlfriend at the time seemed to have a bit of a mental break. Afterwards I wanted to go back to sleep. She wanted to look around so we went outside and every time we passed a cracked section of sidewalk she laughed nervously in the way bad actors pretend to be crazy people on the TV show Quincy. We broke up soon after when she cheated on me with a sportswriter. A year later I tried to win her back but she refused my advances because she was dating a pot dealer. Three, I got freaked out when George Bush beat Al Gore for the presidency because he was so terrible in the debates and I assumed everyone in the country saw what I saw, a man who clearly was not equipped to lead our country.
Miranda: One, aforementioned birth of baby. Two, that girlfriend you had who had a mental break during the earthquake? That might have been me. I was in bed and the next thing I know I’m on all fours growling in the corner. I was so scared I turned into a dog for a moment. Three, various flights with extreme turbulence. I grab the stewardesses, the people next to me—I pretty much do the dog/earth quake thing but without going down on all fours because the floor’s gross. Last question: Can you try to give a little running narration of what it’s like in your head, how the thoughts come and go? Are there fully formed words and sentences? Is it incessant and talky? Do you compose emails in your head? Or are you more in the moment than that?
Judd: My mind is a noisy place. I tend to look for problems so I can solve them before they blow up in my face. I am like a lookout for disaster. I also have a voice that tells me to calm down. I have a TM mantra and every once in a while I try to breathe and think about some piece of advice I have heard or read, usually from the book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Then I will think about my mantra. About one second later I am worried that I will never have a good idea again, or that I have wronged someone in my life and I try to figure out what to do. Sometimes I am really hungry. Other times I am moved by a piece of music or a deeply felt thought and I cry. Laughter has happened, too, but less often. My great love for people and my family is pushed up close to terror and my existential crisis. Occasionally I think of a great dick joke, like when Steve Carell tries to pee with an erection, and I get very proud of myself and feel like I am adding something very positive to the world. I can almost feel people forgetting their troubles and laughing, and for a moment I feel like there is a God or a higher purpose and I am truly happy. God gave me that dick joke. It all makes sense. Then I get scared again and it all starts over. You?
Miranda: Many words and fully formed sentences. Whole emails written out in my head. Lots of planning thoughts—like every single moment planning what I’m going to do in the next moment, the next hour, the next day, week, year. I have the next ten years planned, work-wise. I also think a lot about washing the dishes or vacuuming. The more boring the task, the more of my mental space I have to devote to it. I also instruct myself a lot, like: “Robot, go brush your teeth.” I lay in bed and think about what I’ll bring in my carry-on bag on a trip I’m going on in five months. Sometimes I instruct myself to “free fall”—exist without thinking. It feels like falling through space. I can also get super-duper focused, wormhole-style. That’s the space that I go into when I’m working—about five hours a day. It goes by in a flash.
This interview was originally published in Huck magazine in May 2013.
ROSEANNE BARR
(2014)
Back in the late eighties, a friend of mine—fellow comedian and Undeclared writer Joel Madison—told me about this guy he knew named Tom Arnold, who was moving to L.A. to write jokes for Roseanne Barr. Before we knew it, we were hearing that Tom was going to marry Roseanne, which seemed insane and impossible. It was insane and impossible, of course, but it happened, and Tom Arnold went on to become one of the producers of her television show as well. My secret hope was that, through my connection with Joel, I might somehow get the call to go write for Roseanne, one of the biggest shows on TV. As it turned out, the call I eventually got was to write jokes for Tom’s act, which went well and soon led to a gig writing for Roseanne’s nightclub act.
For the next several years, I spent a lot of time with Roseanne trying to craft a standup act that wasn’t just about raising her family and growing up poor, but about what it was like to now be rich and mega-famous. It always felt o
dd to me, as a twenty-two-year-old guy without a ton of life experience, to be writing jokes for an ass-kicking middle-aged woman who happened to have multiple personalities. I used to force her to sit with me and tell me her life story, so I could try to get in her head. The depth of her experience and imagination was astonishing.
This was all happening at the absolute height of Roseanne mania, with the national anthem scandal, and the very public divorce from Tom Arnold, and the number-one show on television, year after year after year. Many people only remember the drama that surrounded her at that time, but I believe that Roseanne was one of the most influential shows ever on television. Because it reflected the real lives of working-class people and their daily dramas. Because it managed to be riotously funny while also exploring the deep truths about how people were living in America at the time, and still are today. It took an enormous amount of courage and madness to make that happen.
Judd Apatow: How much stand-up are you doing now?