David: I know you had an early version of the script and you called in actors and you did a table reading. Explain how that works.
Judd: Yes, well, I wrote the first draft when I was producing Talladega Nights. It was just going well, so I would just go in my trailer and work on the movie. And then I came back and we very quickly did a table read with some people who weren’t ultimately in the movie, just to see where we were. From that point on, you know, basically everyone is involved in the process. I’m asking everyone’s help on ideas and I’m trying to make each role as specific to their personality as possible. Seth is very uncomfortable around my kids so I thought, Well, that’s funny. Seth’s not one of those people that you’re like, “You know what, I’ve got to run out for twenty minutes, will you hang out with the kids?”
David: It’s unusual. There are legendary directors like Bergman and Ford who have worked with stock companies, but this must be fairly unusual in studio Hollywood today, to be able to draw on this many people. I mean, some of them were working. Some of them were not working. You were able to call them in and get them to read for you just like that? It’s an amazing advantage, isn’t it?
Judd: The stock company is mainly Seth.
Seth: Yeah, and my idiot friends.
Judd: I love all the people from Freaks and Geeks and thought it was a missed opportunity to show what they can do, but the thing that really makes a lot of these movies possible is that when we do the auditions, Seth reads with every actor trying to get a part in the movie. So by the time the movie is shot, he has read with like two hundred people. Through that process, we figure out who his character is and we try to problem-solve all the issues of the movie. So we’ll hold auditions for parts even though we kind of know who we want for the part, just to hear it with that person—and that almost becomes the rehearsal of the movie.
David: And the guys in the movie were your friends.
Seth: Yeah, those are my actual friends. I lived with almost all of those people at one point or another in conditions similar to that of the movie. It’s funny because they kept coming to me during the rehearsal process and saying, like, you know, “I don’t get my character.” And I kept saying, “It’s you, Jonah.” And he was like, “Am I for the pregnancy? Or am I against it?” I’m like, “It doesn’t matter. It’s just you, man. Be for it one take, and against it in another take. It really doesn’t matter. It’ll just be you.” It’s surreal for me to watch those scenes because they all use their real names and it’s amazing how our actual group dynamic worked its way into the movie.
David: I don’t have to tell you that there were some women who were upset because the Katherine Heigl character goes through with the pregnancy and there isn’t more, at least, discussion in the film about abortion—
Judd: We knew this would be an issue. To me, the interesting part of the movie is the people deciding not to have an abortion and, you know, from my perspective I think that there’s certainly people that the second that they get pregnant, no matter what the circumstances are, there’s a part of them that says, I’m not doing that. And there’s people who would do that. This is just a story about somebody that would not do that, and I knew people would say, “Why don’t they talk about abortion more?” Which is a hilarious comedy area. When people say that I’m like, “You’re clearly not a funny person.”
David: Your wife, Leslie Mann, gets angry in this movie.
Judd: And at home.
Seth: Yeah, exactly. I wasn’t going to say anything.
David: Elaborate on the connection between the home arguments and the movie arguments.
Judd: In a lot of ways, the movie is two phases of my and Leslie’s relationship. What I wanted to do—and was really happy that she had the courage to do—was to explore us at our worst. And yes, Leslie did kick me out of the car on the way to the gynecologist’s office. She got mad about something, I don’t remember what, and was like, “Get out of the car. Get out of the car.” And I’m like, “Oh come on.” “Get out of the car.” And then I’m out of the car and I’m thinking, Am I supposed to go to the appointment now? Or do I go home? And if I go home, will she be mad that I didn’t get to the appointment? How do I get through this hormonal madness? There’s something that my wife said to me once: Just because you don’t yell doesn’t mean you’re not mean. That’s actually the interesting lesson that I took from my marriage, which is when you’re married to an actress, they’re very emotional and they’re expressive, and as a weird nerd writer who likes hanging out in his room watching The Merv Griffin Show, I’d be kind of quiet, and so I thought that I was always right in fights just because I didn’t get upset. I was in a superior position because she was getting upset. And then actually that realization was kind of a big moment in our marriage. She convinced me that I’m the dick.
This interview was originally part of The New Yorker Festival in 2009; © The New Yorker/Condé Nast.
SPIKE JONZE (2014)
One of the most rewarding parts of putting this book together was that it was really an excuse to continue my artistic education. I don’t know if you would call Spike Jonze a comedian, at least not in the classic sense, but it is definitely not a stretch to say that certain moments in his films—in Her, for example, or Being John Malkovich—are as funny and moving as anything I can think of.
Spike is a true individual, one of the few people whose work I watch and then think, Should I just quit the business? I was thrilled to have the opportunity to sit down with him for a few hours in my office and ask him all the questions that I hoped might jog something loose in my brain and push my work in a more original direction. I may never get to puppets and orchids, but surely there’s a less smart equivalent I can find and make my own.
Spike Jonze: It’s interesting how you’ve become, like, this mentor to so many comedians. I mean, at one point, you were just a young kid, but somewhere along the line, you made the transition to being this mentor who enables all these other creative people to be creative, as well as doing your own stuff.
Judd Apatow: Well, when I was a kid I spent all this time interviewing comedians and they would, in turn, sort of mentor me. Later, I opened on the road for Jim Carrey, and then Garry Shandling hired me on The Larry Sanders Show, which was really just another mentoring—
Spike: How old were you when you were on that show?
Judd: Twenty-six.
Spike: That was a great show.
Judd: I learned everything from watching Garry. We had a similar sense of humor, so he liked having me around. It put him in a good mood. Some guys pitch jokes and when they’re really off, it throws you.
Spike: It kind of takes energy from the room. It’s like, Okay, now we have to dig out.
Judd: Exactly. Because some people, they pitch jokes, they’re in the ballpark and they make you laugh and think of something else. Other people pitch jokes and the room dies. I was mostly in the ballpark and I think it helped Garry get to what he had to think about. But I wasn’t thinking about mentoring anyone when we started working on Freaks and Geeks.