Jerry: I don’t fall prey to that.
Judd: Do you think your general disposition comes from a place of spirituality, or were you like this from the get-go?
Jerry: That’s a tough question. I was drawn to a lot of Eastern thought, a lot of Zen stuff. I’ve always been drawn to Eastern philosophy and religion more than Western or Jewish, I guess. Which is why I took to TM so quickly. No question. But going back to our thing about emotions, I just don’t accept irrational emotion as part of my behavior. I’m not going to act on an irrational emotion. So I think that’s probably built in, but reading some of the Zen stuff I’ve read over the years and doing all the TM has definitely shored it up. Now I’m this guy, whoever that is.
Judd: I read a lot of Zen but it ultimately makes me unhappy because I don’t want to be one drop in the ocean.
Jerry: I do.
Judd: How do you get over that hump?
Jerry: You look at some pictures from the Hubble Telescope and you snap out of it. I used to keep pictures of the Hubble on the wall of the writing room at Seinfeld. It would calm me when I would start to think that what I was doing was important.
Judd: See, I go the other way with that. That makes me depressed.
Jerry: Most people would say that. People always say it makes them feel insignificant, but I don’t find being insignificant depressing. I find it uplifting.
Judd: Insignificance is a hump I have trouble getting over, but maybe that’s because my parents were crazier than yours.
Jerry: Maybe. Or maybe you think this is your only life, and this is the only stuff you’re ever going to do. Which, you know, I don’t subscribe to that.
Judd: What do you subscribe to?
Jerry: That this is just one chapter of thousands of chapters.
Judd: My parents never mentioned spirituality or God or anything. The only thing they would say is “Nobody said life was fair.” That was my entire religious upbringing.
Jerry: Nobody said life wasn’t fair, either. Nobody is in charge of saying what life is and that’s what it is.
Judd: But generally, your parents were cool, right? You had a good relationship with them?
Jerry: I wouldn’t use the word cool. I would say they were…highly independent. My father’s mother died giving birth to him, and my mother grew up in an orphanage. My father was out of school probably by sixth grade, on the street. And they didn’t marry until they were in their forties so they were very, very independent people, and I just folded right into that place where you won’t need anybody.
Judd: That didn’t make you needy?
Jerry: It made me feel free. You don’t need people. They’re unreliable.
Judd: It’s such a different type of a comedy upbringing. I feel like most comedians have broken parents who don’t know how to mirror you; they want you to take care of them. So you spend your life trying to please other people and thinking that you are significant because you can change the world or change things, but you find out that you really can’t, and then you’re miserable.
Jerry: Pleasing people is fun. It’s never been an emotional nutrient for me. It does make me happy when people like something I made and it makes me unhappy if they don’t like it, but that’s not my nutrition.
Judd: You’re a lucky man in that respect.
Jerry: It’s allowed me to play the game for what it is. I look at everything as a game.
Judd: I recently watched that speech you gave about advertising, at the Clio Awards, or whatever. I really enjoyed that.
Jerry: Oh, thank you. Boy, you see everything. You know, I wrote that because I was so regretting that I agreed to accept this stupid award, I thought, Let me at least give myself something to do there so it’s not just torture. The premise of that speech was that it doesn’t matter if the product is good because I so enjoy that moment before I find out. I enjoy getting sold, and I enjoy thinking that I’m going to get this great thing. That’s all I need.
Judd: That’s maybe the greatest lesson you can teach a child.
Jerry: I’ve always loved getting sold. That’s true of all good salesmen. All good salesmen love to get taken in by a pitch.
Judd: Are you just loving doing your show, Comedians in Cars?
Jerry: Yeah. I love it because it’s a completely free canvas, like stand-up. Nobody cares what I make. As long as the audience likes it and I like doing it, that’s the end of it.
Judd: Looking back at the shows you’ve done so far, what were the ones that had the biggest impact on you, or that surprised you the most? Because you have people on that show that we don’t see in that format, ever. You don’t see Howard Stern talking as he does in life, ever. You don’t see Letterman do that.
Jerry: I think people enjoy that. I never know what the show is going to be. Somehow I get in there and I can make it into whatever I want. It’s a can of Play-Doh. You just make stuff. I don’t deal with any executives, on any level. It’s just me. It’s just like stand-up. I go, “Here’s something I made for you.” And that’s it. I wanted people to see what the life of a comedian is like: Ten percent of it is being onstage, and ninety percent is just like hanging out with these great people. And that’s really made my life.
Judd: Just the joy of that.
Jerry: I wanted to show that. I thought people would get a kick out of seeing what it’s really like. This is the fun part.
JIM CARREY AND BEN STILLER (2010)
One of the most intense experiences I’ve had in this business was the creation of the film The Cable Guy. In 1995, Jim Carrey, Ben Stiller, and I were all just beginning to make a name for ourselves in Hollywood—well, Jim was having a little more success than Ben and me in this department. The movie happened at a moment when Jim Carrey truly could do anything he wanted. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and The Mask had just come out, and he was on fire. What he decided to do was a dark, strange comedy starring a needy, media-addicted man with a lisp—and by doing so, he basically announced to the world, “I’m not only going to make hilarious, silly comedies, I’m also going to challenge you and myself.” We all loved the movie, but when it came out, it was not the mega-blockbuster that the business demanded. In fact, we went quickly from having one of the best, most rewarding experiences of our lives to getting the shit kicked out of us by the press for daring to attempt to blaze a different trail. For some of us (especially me) it took a fair amount of time to recover our footing. Looking back, that movie was the moment that dictated what the three of us—and so many of our friends—would do with our careers. This commentary for the tenth-anniversary release of The Cable Guy on video was the first time we sat down to talk about how it all went down and what it meant. It’s been twenty years now since we shot Cable Guy, and the prevailing feeling I’m left with is a sense of pride about what everybody in the film has accomplished—both in their careers and as people.
Ben Stiller: Let’s introduce ourselves.
Jim Carrey: Okay.
Judd Apatow: Who are you?
Jim: I’m—Orson Welles! My name is Jim Carrey.
Ben: And I’m Ben Stiller.
Judd: I’m Judd Apatow, and I guess we should talk a little about how this movie got started. There was this script, The Cable Guy, and I knew that you were doing it, Jim, and I desperately—
Jim: And you jumped on board and rode my coattails all the way to the top.