Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy
Page 52
Judd: How did you arrive at the ideas in your act, early on? I mean, you were taking apart what it means to be a comedian. It was not observational comedy. The act itself was fascinating.
Steve: I was lucky to have come up in that era because today, every area is covered and there’s so many good people. If I was starting now, I’d be lost.
Judd: But no one’s doing the type of comedy you were doing. There are really smart comedians, but there’s not a lot of conceptual comedy out there.
Steve: I think it’s a dead end, you know.
Judd: Because it runs out of gas?
Steve: Yeah.
Judd: You can’t keep doing it?
Steve: I mean, I’m still around, but I couldn’t have kept doing that act, I don’t think.
Judd: You’ve developed a different comic persona now, which feels distantly related to that. When you host the Oscars, I can sense that you’ve redefined your persona.
Steve: Yeah, I have. I didn’t want to do the same old thing and I didn’t want to look like I was doing the same old thing. That extreme physical thing has totally gone out of it. And I love playing the egotistical asshole.
Judd: I’m always fascinated by people’s comic journey—when they get bored and say, That’s enough. There are people like you, who seem to find new things to keep them interested, and there are people who say, I’m just going to hang out at the house. It’s a real challenge because success never satisfies whatever you thought it was going to do for you. You think, Oh, I thought success would heal me and it doesn’t. So you have to look for new reasons to keep making things.
Steve: I read a book in college called Psychoanalysis and the Arts. And it compared Picasso and Chagall. Picasso was a guy who just kept changing his whole life and Chagall essentially painted the same things, over and over. And it talked about there being two types of creative people and I think that applies.
Judd: When you got bored of doing stand-up, was there a part of you that thought, Okay, this next thing will bring me happiness?
Steve: No. I was just beaten down.
Judd: And you feel the joy again, now that you’re out touring and making music?
Steve: I really enjoy doing the shows, but the wear and tear—I have a daughter at home. It gets a little painful.
Judd: When did you start playing the banjo?
Steve: I’ve been playing it for over fifty years now.
Judd: The second I hear that instrument, it makes me feel that happy Disney feeling. I read something where you talked about how fun it was to be creative with something that’s completely nonverbal.
Steve: I think playing the banjo has extended my brain life by another ten years.
Judd: Because it just connects everything?
Steve: Yeah, just thinking in another way.
Judd: Do you feel like this is a common trait, among the people that you’ve chosen as intimate friends? This creative searching? Is this how your friends also deal with this ride?
Steve: Yes.
Judd: Everyone around you seems to have a sense of humor about it, but they’re also working really hard.
Steve: Everybody I know—I’m talking about Tom Hanks, Mike Nichols—
Judd: Lorne.
Steve: Lorne, yeah. Marty. All of us, we know how lucky we are. Everybody says, Oh, God, we have such a nice life, you know. We’re lucky to have had this happen to us.
Judd: Yeah.
Steve: Everybody is grateful.
My parents, Maury Apatow and Tami Shad, either exhausted at the end of their wedding, or pretending to be. 1964.
Me dressed as Harpo Marx for Halloween. Never been happier. 1975.
With Jay Leno backstage at Rascals Comedy Club in West Orange, New Jersey. 1984.
Interviewing Jerry Seinfeld at his West Hollywood apartment. Notice the lack of decor. 1983.
Me being way less funny than Robin Williams on The Tonight Show with the great Jay Leno.
(Paul Drinkwater, © 2010 NBCUniversal Media, LLC)
Dennis Miller before hosting the Paul Simon Live in Central Park HBO special. Notice my green shorts. 1991.
Steve Allen waits to speak into my gigantic tape recorder. 1983.
Martin Short and me. One of us is aging badly (not Martin). 1984, 2013.
(Photo on right courtesy of Justin Bishop)
This is how comedians dressed on the 1992 HBO Young Comedians Special. (Clockwise from top left: Bill Bellamy, Nick DiPaolo, Judd Apatow, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Kindler, Ray Romano, and Dana Carvey)
(Photo courtesy of Andy Hayt)
A bunch of idiots trying to get stage time at the Improv. (Left to right: Judd Apatow, David Spade, Allen Covert, and Adam Sandler)
(Photo courtesy of Tony Edwards, 1990)
My first gig writing for the HBO special Tom Arnold: The Naked Truth. I now weigh more than Tom. 1991.
(Left to right: Judd Apatow, Tom Arnold, Roseanne Barr, Martin Mull, and Pete Segal)
Traveling with Jim Carrey to London for the Liar Liar press junket. 1997.
Me, Ben Stiller, and “Saul.” 1993.
Kenan Thompson at sixteen. Me at twenty-seven with mullet. 1994.
Leslie Mann and me on the set of The Cable Guy.
(Melinda Sue Gordon, © 1996 Sony Pictures)
Rip Torn, Garry Shandling, director Todd Holland, and me (looking on while wearing a free Larry Sanders shirt).
(Photo courtesy of Larry Watson, 1997)
Me and Busy Philipps’s head talk to (right to left) Linda Cardellini, Paul Feig, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, and James Franco—holding his usual thick book.
(Photo courtesy of Gabe Sachs, 1999)
Jon Stewart at my thirtieth birthday party. I’ve only aged thirty more years in the last seventeen. 1997.
This photograph of the cast of Anchorman on a hot day is the best photograph I’ve ever taken. 2003.
Adam McKay and Will Ferrell invite me to join the Funny or Die team.
(Gemma La Mana, © 2008 Columbia Pictures)
GQ Man of the Year shoot. It took five of us to equal one man.
(Photo courtesy of Danielle Levitt, 2007)
Interviewing my heroes Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner at a Twitter event.
(Jerod Harris, © 2013 Getty Images for Viacom)
Laughing with James L. Brooks at the Motion Picture Academy.
(© 2007 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)
I copy everything from Harold Ramis, including his poses.
(Suzanne Hanover, © 2009 Columbia Pictures)
The cast of Girls laugh at me, again.
(Dimitrios Kambouris, © 2013 Getty Images)
Me wearing a nicer suit than Paul Feig at the Bridesmaids premiere.
(Alex Berliner, © 2011 Universal City Studios, LLC, courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC)
At the end of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, for some reason Eddie Vedder thought we should square dance.
(Lloyd Bishop, © 2015 NBCUniversal Media, LLC)
Jimmy Fallon and me. Ew.
(Lloyd Bishop, © 2015 NBCUniversal Media, LLC)
Four completely sober men on the set of Pineapple Express.
(Dale Robinette, © 2008 Columbia Pictures, Inc.)
Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, and I pretend to laugh for the photographer.
(Mary Cybulski, © 2015 Universal Pictures, courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC)
The Apatow-Mann family, modeling our asses off at the This Is 40 premiere.
(Kevin Winter, © 2012 Getty Images)
This looks like the Apatows at home, but it’s actually the set of Knocked Up.
(Suzanne Hanover, © 2007 Universal Studios, courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC)
For Leslie, Maude, and Iris.
And for Mom and Dad. Your support—and the mental health issues you gave me—made all of this possible.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank Andy Ward, Michael Lewen, Dave Eggers, Andrew Wylie, Kael
a Myers, and Amy Reed for their invaluable work putting this collection together.
I’d also like to thank my representatives: Jimmy Miller (since Comic Relief ’87), David Kramer, Matt Labov, Bryan Wolf, and Sam Fischer.
Thank you to these special people who believed in me early in my career, before there was any reason to: Jack DeMasi, Josh Rosenthal, East Side and East End comedy clubs, Governor’s Comedy Club, Chuckles Comedy Club, Budd Friedman and the Improv, Jamie Masada and the Laugh Factory, Joe Drew, Sammy Shore, Bob Zmuda, Chris Albrecht, Rick Messina, James L. Brooks, Al Jean and Mike Reiss, Garry Shandling, Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold, HBO, Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Steve Brill, Kevin Rooney, Allen Covert, Jack Giarraputo, Paul Feig, Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, Jake Kasdan, and Steve Carell.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JUDD APATOW is one of the most important comic minds of his generation. He wrote and directed the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin (co-written with Steve Carell), Knocked Up, Funny People, and This Is 40, and his producing credits include Superbad, Bridesmaids, and Anchorman. Apatow is the executive producer of HBO’s Girls. He was also the executive producer of Freaks and Geeks, created Undeclared, and co-created the Emmy Award–winning television program The Ben Stiller Show. His latest film is Trainwreck. He was also the editor of the collection I Found This Funny. Judd Apatow lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Leslie Mann, and their daughters, Maude and Iris.
@JuddApatow
Author’s proceeds, minus agent fees, are being donated to 826 National, 826 LA, and 826 NY—organizations that provide free tutoring and literacy programs. For more information, go to www.826national.org.