Judd: I always heard that from Larry David. That was his big inspiration. He was willing to walk away from Seinfeld when they would give him bad notes.
Louis: You have to be willing to say, “Let’s not do this show. Let’s not do it.”
Judd: Do you notice a common theme when you look at the show, or is it too soon to tell? For a lot of people, when you see their body of work, you realize there are certain things that concern them. They make mirrors of their lives. Do you notice that for yourself?
Louis: I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s a common theme. I guess I’m always trying to figure something out on the show.
Judd: Is it self-discovery?
Louis: I like to put myself into fucked-up situations and make mistakes and deal with it. I like to do that over and over again on the show, and maybe I like to do that in my life also. I read in some places that the women on my show were all crazy. They didn’t say that for the first couple of seasons, but people started to go, “These women are all fucking nuts.” For me, it’s because that’s an interesting problem, that’s all. It’s an interesting story.
Judd: I’ve gotten in trouble for having strong women or angry women or dealing with those types of problems that people would say, Oh, you’re being a misogynist. Even Katherine Heigl said, “Oh, you’re making the women out to be shrews.”
Louis: Knocked Up is the best thing she ever did. The best thing she ever did. The fact that she was unhappy is amazing, but for a man, a woman is a problem. She’s a mystery and she’s a choice. The women in our lives are a list of choices that we’ve made and decisions that we’ve made. And it’s the same for them.
Judd: Are you a therapy person?
Louis: I used to go to therapy, but I can’t do it now because it’s been too long. It’s like not going to the gym for a long time. I don’t want to start all over again.
MARC MARON (2010)
I’ve done a fair amount of interviews in my life, but the one that people mention to me the most is the one I did for Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. In addition to being an incredible comic, Marc is an insightful interviewer and empathizer and therapist of sorts, and we connected in a deep way about so many aspects of our journey. At one point, as I was talking about my pain as a kid and how some of those issues have persisted into adulthood, his eyes welled up with tears—and it made me extremely uncomfortable. I thought he was going to start crying right in front of me, so I changed the subject slightly, because I wasn’t sure I could bear to see him lose control. Looking back, I regret having done this. I probably should have kept going just to see what happened. I could have destroyed him. For those of you interested in hearing my story, this would be it.
Judd Apatow: All right, I’m holding the mic. Is it happening now?
Marc Maron: Yeah, sure.
Judd: This is it.
Marc: I am in Judd Apatow’s war room. Is this the war room?
Judd: This is the situation room.
Marc: Ah, the situation room. So this is your office? A lot of boards, things being outlined. It’s like—I can’t read your fucking writing.
Judd: Well, part of the reason why I have bad handwriting is when I used to do stand-up comedy, I would write jokes on planes and I was always embarrassed that the person next to me would see what I was writing about.
Marc: Is that true?
Judd: Yes. And so I found a way to have terrible handwriting that only I could read, so if I was writing some joke about impotency or something, it would be unreadable.
Marc: You did it by design?
Judd: I did. And I still do it now, so if my wife sees any weird notes or joke ideas or things that might be offensive, there’s no way she can read it.
Marc: Because I’m sitting here thinking, like, Man, I got the scoop. There’s a whole Apatow movie outline on that board but all I can make out is—I think down on the lower left, does it say “sperm issues”?
Judd: It says “sperm issues.” Yes, it does. But that would be in all of my movies.
Marc: And then it just, the rest is undecipherable.
Judd: Exactly. And it shall be until America gets to see this.
Marc: So I just watched Freaks and Geeks for the first time.
Judd: Oh, wow.
Marc: It’s nothing personal. I miss a lot of things. And the interesting thing to me is—the scene that resonates almost more than the rest to me is when Bill is watching Garry Shandling after school. It’s one scene, but, for some reason, I was like, That was beautiful.
Judd: There’s a scene in the show where Bill Haverchuck, played by Martin Starr, comes home after school and you can tell he’s a latchkey kid and no one’s around and his mom’s a former stripper. And he looks really sad and he watches Garry Shandling on The Dinah Shore Show while making a grilled cheese sandwich and eating chocolate cake. And he goes from being really sad to laughing his ass off. After we made it Jake Kasdan said to me, “That’s the most personal thing you’ve ever done in your career. And it’s the best thing you’ve ever done, too.”
Marc: That scene?
Judd: That scene. And that was probably the turning point for my whole career, realizing that the little moments that I thought were boring or just not interesting to other people are actually the things that people would be most interested in. I always thought I was a bore. That’s why I quit stand-up comedy.
Marc: Was your mom not around?
Judd: I lived with my dad after my parents got divorced. And I just didn’t do any after-school activities. I just went in my room and closed the door and I was in my fantasy world, watching, you know, Michael Keaton do stand-up on The Mike Douglas Show, and I couldn’t have been happier. I look back on it as a great time.
Marc: I had that same experience. Because one of them—like I still remember one of the moments I decided to be a comic was watching Jay Leno. I don’t know if it was on Mike Douglas but I remember the joke—they were cutting away to a commercial and he was on that ridiculous set and he said, “What happens now, does the chair fold up into the wall like we’re on a game show? Am I going to disappear?” And it was just a moment. It was a beat. But I remember thinking it was the most hilarious thing I had ever heard in my life.
Judd: I remember going to see The Merv Griffin Show being taped. That’s how into it I was.
Marc: In New York?
Judd: In Los Angeles, when I was in high school. Dr. Ruth was the other guest, and she’s taking calls, giving sex advice, and Jay Leno realizes that this makes no sense because the show doesn’t air for a month and where are the calls coming from? Like, is there someone backstage doing this? He calls her on it, like, “These are not real calls. Where are these people coming from?” And I thought, That is the coolest guy in the world. I want to be that guy. I couldn’t get enough of it. I’ve looked back on it and wondered, Why did I like it so much? What was it that I was attracted to? I was obsessed to the point of highlighting the TV Guide so I knew when the comics were on.