EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,002 words- 0:00 – 12:01
Turning Trauma into Material
- CWChris Williamson
You said your parents' divorce bought your house and cars.
- JAJudd Apatow
That's true.
- CWChris Williamson
How so?
- JAJudd Apatow
It's funny 'cause when I first started doing standup, I remember writing in a notebook, and this is years, actually years before I ever got on stage, you know, some joke about how Richard Pryor's, like, grandmother ran a brothel. Like he grew up in a brothel. And all I had to work with to be a comedian was my parents getting divorced. Like, it wasn't enough to be a genius, it was just enough damage (laughs) to get you in the game, that I wished my grandmother ran a brothel, and then maybe I would be more messed up.
- CWChris Williamson
You wanted more trauma.
- JAJudd Apatow
I needed more trauma. But it was enough. It certainly was enough. But back then, when people got divorced in the, in the early '80s, uh, people just, you know, fought. They, like, really, like, fought. It... People weren't aware that you should, uh, keep it away from the kids.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, it was all out in the open.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah, too much i- i- involvement. Too much of us-
- CWChris Williamson
This was trench, trench warfare and you were in the middle of it.
- JAJudd Apatow
Exactly. Too much of us knowing what was going on. And I... We had really thin walls. I remember I would hear them arguing, so I knew they were gonna get divorced way before they told me.
- CWChris Williamson
It was a protracted dispute.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- JAJudd Apatow
And the funny part was they sat us all down, I remember, like, sitting, me and my, my, my brother and sister down, like, on the brick next to the fireplace and telling us they were getting divorced, and then six months later, they got back together, and then a year and a half later, they sat us down (laughs) again.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh my God.
- JAJudd Apatow
And so I had the double, the double divorce.
- CWChris Williamson
They got divorced twice?
- JAJudd Apatow
Uh, yeah, I mean, they broke up and then they finally-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JAJudd Apatow
... they finally did.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep. Yeah, a false start and then a, a small whatever, uh, treaty between the two and then-
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and then back again. Uh, certainly a lot of the comedian friends that I see or working with, and actually this is the same for music as well, um, discomfort and pain seems to be a real creative catalyst.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, some people turn it into trying to earn money and make a business.
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Some people turn it into trying to make people laugh, some people turn it into beautiful chords and lyrics that make people cry, or... Is it a prerequisite to be a funny comed- is it difficult to be a funny comedian without a ton of trauma?
- JAJudd Apatow
There was a really funny conversation, uh, that Garry Shandling had about this with Jerry Seinfeld, and, you know, they were talking about, you know, "Do you need pain to be funny?" And Jerry Seinfeld says, "Well, what about talent? What about just talent?" And Garry went, "Why are you so angry?" (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Ah.
- JAJudd Apatow
But it- it- it is true that, you know, when you go through something, it just makes you more sensitive, and I think you just pay attention in a different way to the world, and you don't feel safe-
- 12:01 – 19:33
Does Comedy Carry Higher Stakes Than Music?
- CWChris Williamson
And, yeah, that, the, uh-... turbulence or the, uh, fickleness, maybe, of, of comedy is something that I hadn't quite considered in the same way. I'm, I'm pretty obsessed with the difference between music and every other performance medium-
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... because if you do even the best set of your entire life, the best hour of your entire life, someone'll watch it and love it, maybe they see it live or maybe they're watching it-
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... s- streaming somewhere. And then maybe they'll watch it again, like, within a month, but they're not gonna watch that again for six months or a year after that.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
If you find a new song, you can put that sucker on repeat for days.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
L- and listen to nothing else.
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And then still listen to it, and still listen to it, and still listen to it. I wonder whether that means that musicians, uh, ride the, uh, vicissitudes of what the next single sounds like or the next record sounds like better than somebody like a comedian, because so few people are going back to watch your old stuff, whereas people are still listening to fucking Kanye, right?
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Even after all of the fallout and the thing-
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and it's like, you know, well, fucking Jesus Walks is like-
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... a bit of a slammer. Whatever. Um, so you get a much longer tail of success off the back of something really great.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Whereas with comedy, it's there and, "Oh, my," it's fantastic, but if the next one isn't good, people aren't still being carried by the bit of work before.
- JAJudd Apatow
Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Does that make sense?
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah, because, uh, you know, I, I guess more in the modern era, musicians are trying to build the great concert, right? So if you have those 10 good songs, some people could get away with five or three. You could sell out shows or do well-
- CWChris Williamson
For a decade.
- JAJudd Apatow
... for your, for your whole life. I, I had a, a friend tell me once, who's in a band, that if they can get one song off of every album that the audience demands to hear-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JAJudd Apatow
... that's a big deal. But you're writing the, the body of work and you're making money off of it and you're performing and you're touring off of it, and you could play your biggest hit and the place will always go crazy. So it's like you've built this thing that grows. You're like Springsteen and like, "Oh, I, I can do Born to Run."
- CWChris Williamson
A lot of, a lot of compounding.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah. Where in, in, (laughs) in comedy movies and TV, you have zero. You just start over and you're like, "Well, I hope, I hope you like this one."
- CWChris Williamson
But if you do a new hour, or i- if your hour next year includes the three best jokes from last year and somebody went, they go, "That's lazy." You go, "Is anybody calling the Killers lazy-"
- JAJudd Apatow
(laughs)
- 19:33 – 23:49
Confidence, Doubt and the Fear of Not Knowing
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so two things that you've said so far that I think are really interesting. One is, um, "I was worried that people were gonna find out I didn't know what I was doing." Right? So that's imposter syndrome, uncertainty, self-belief, self-esteem. But on the other side, this sort of irrational self-belief that some of the guys thought that they could make it.
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So, how do you come to think about this relationship between, uh, "I'm going to try and do this thing that I have no certainty about whether or not it's going to work." This seems like a very irrational pursuit to try and go after, uh, which would suggest self-belief, and also the permanent ambient fear of, "People are gonna find out, I don't know what I'm doing." Da-da-da-da. In your experien- for you and the other guys that you came up with, what ... How does that slot together? A rampant uncertainty and anxiety with sort of world-changing self-belief?
- JAJudd Apatow
Well, I think when you're young that, uh, the- the madness self-belief part defeats the terrified of failure part. It's just more energy. There's just more gas.
- CWChris Williamson
Exuberance.
- JAJudd Apatow
There's more gas in that tank. When I first started doing standup, I was just so terrible, 'cause you don't know how to do it. It- it's r- it's, uh, the only profession that you have to learn how to do it in front of people. Like, you have to do it to learn how to do it. It's like if you were a skier and you could ... You only could learn by going (laughs) down the-
- CWChris Williamson
Sex is another one.
- JAJudd Apatow
Exactly (laughs) . Exactly. That's why comedians talk about sex a lot, because it is about, like, the pressure of that. That's like the 40-Year-Old Virgin, the pressure, you know, to jump into something that you don't know how to do.
- CWChris Williamson
Practicing in public, I've called it for the podcast.
- JAJudd Apatow
Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Practicing in public. There is no practicing in private, there's only practicing in public.
- JAJudd Apatow
And you would bomb, and you would- you would have terrible nights. I- I'm amazed that I kept going, because it was brutal, but I had talked to so many comedians by that point, and they just said, "That's part of it." So I thought, "I'm bombing, but I'm in it. This is it. We're doing it." So I got kind of excited, even after a bomb, that I was entering the business.
- CWChris Williamson
What does "bombing as R&D" mean?
- JAJudd Apatow
Bombing as R&D? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, is that ... Do you see the opportunity to eat shit as research and development?
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah, because every joke is, uh, something that you're adding to your act. So, you know, I have a- a set that I do, and then I'll think of something, e- well, maybe it's a line, maybe it's a- a story, and I'll try to do a new joke, and if it works, then I put it on the "it works" pile. And every night, you're doing things that work, and then you- you're trying to figure out if you have the- the- the courage to do the experimental part, because it- it kills your set sometimes. So say you're really funny for 10 minutes, and then you think, "I'm gonna go into that new story that just happened," (laughs) and then maybe it works, maybe you eat it, and now you have to go back into your real set and win 'em back and hope they forget this little-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JAJudd Apatow
... side path of trying to discover new material.
- CWChris Williamson
Before we continue, you have probably heard experts like Dr. Rhonda Patrick talk about the benefits of omega-3s. They support brain function, they reduce inflammation, they improve heart health, and are backed by hundreds of studies. And it's really hard to get enough omega-3s naturally. With Momentous, you know you are getting the highest quality omega-3s on the market, they're NSF certified for sport, and they're tested for heavy metals and purity. This is a big deal when it comes to omega-3s. You do not want contaminated omegas, which is why I partnered with Momentous. They are unparalleled when it comes to rigorous third-party testing. What you read on the label is what's in the product and absolutely nothing else. Best of all, there's a 30-day money back guarantee, so you can buy it and try it for 29 days, and if you don't love it, they will give you your money back. And they ship internationally. Right now, you can get up to 35% off and that 30-day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomentous.com/modernwisdom and using the code "modernwisdom" at checkout. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S dot com/modernwisdom, and modernwisdom... at checkout.
- 23:49 – 35:12
When the Room Turns Against You
- CWChris Williamson
So, I mentioned I'm on tour at the moment, and, uh, as a part of this, I tried to earn my keep-
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... as best I could, so I did work-in-progress shows, and we-
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... tested a bunch of- a bunch of stuff. Uh, there's a weird kind of liberation ... And again, I'm like secondhand living through a bunch of friends that do this properly, really, really fantastic comedians. And I asked, I was like, "Hey, I'm gonna-"... I'm gonna roll the dice with a lot, like 10 minutes of stuff that's never been said-
- JAJudd Apatow
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... publicly-
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, at the start of an hour and a half. So, if all of these go badly-
- JAJudd Apatow
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... I'm, I'm gonna spend an hour and 20 minutes, like, desperately trying to win people back around. What's the, the mindset to sort of overcome that performance anxiety? Uh, and there was a few bits of advice, but the main one that at least stuck with me was, given that they're work in progress shows, your goal is to kill as many babies as possible.
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So, okay, that doesn't work, and that doesn't work, and that doesn't work-
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and fantastic.
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Because it's better to do it now-
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... than to do it in front of 1,500 people in the town hall in Manhattan.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah, yeah (laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
Like, way better now. W- what would you say or what did you learn about dealing with the discomfort of little wobbles during a live performance? I imagine this expands out into a pitch.
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
It expands out into whether you're singing in front of somebody, whether you're on a date and thing.
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, w- what did you learn about the, "Oh, my God, here we go," and then-
- JAJudd Apatow
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... and then bringing it back without being in-
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... too in your own head. Is, was there a way that you learned to work through that fear compulsion?
- JAJudd Apatow
I think I still have it. I, I, I, because my frontal lobe shuts down (laughs) when I get nervous. There are some people who get a kick out of not doing well, so they don't get nervous when it start, when they start bombing, because they, they find it amusing on some level.
- 35:12 – 46:02
Success, Comparison and Holding Your Own
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I think lots of people in entertainment and comedy are concerned with, like, status and progress, right? "I want to be recognized and admired by the people that I recognize and admire, and I wanna feel like I'm getting better и I wanna keep sort of climbing the ladder." I guess the problem is you're regularly going to go before an act who gets more applause and louder laughs or whatever-
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... and this feels like a vicious pairing for most comedians because you've got hypersensitivity to the status, which is the thing that they're, uh, and progress, which is the thing they're being most exposed to, like, literally within minute. I mean, there was, uh, was it the Golden Globes or-
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... what was it you did with Adam and, like, you went on and you were like, "I'm crushing," and then he comes out and you're like, "The volume just got 2X-ed. Like, I wasn't-"
- JAJudd Apatow
Oh, no, that was-
- CWChris Williamson
"... crushing."
- JAJudd Apatow
That was Carnegie Hall. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Carnegie Hall.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah, I, I, I, you know, I was doing Carnegie Hall, uh, for the New York, uh, Comedy Festival, and I asked Adam if he wanted to do a surprise appearance, and Adam hadn't done standup in a really long time, like more than a, a decade, and he had just started doing it again. And, and he said, "Okay, yeah, I'll come on." So I, you know, I did my whole set-... performed for an hour, and then I thought, "All right, that went pretty well." Then Adam came out, and the place lost (laughs) their minds. Like, it was the biggest applause that you've ever heard in your life. And then he was so funny. We sang a song together. He sang the Chris Farley song for the first time in New York. It was a really special night, but I (laughs) afterwards I'm like, "I think his laughs were twice as big as mine." And it was a, it was a great learning experience, too, of, like, what, what, where th- where's the ceiling-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JAJudd Apatow
... on this?
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. Is that... Is it difficult to keep your ego in check when you're being friends with people whose career suddenly starts outpacing yours?
- JAJudd Apatow
Uh, it's, uh, you know, it makes you question if you're gonna make it, or will you make it to the level you want to make it? I mean, that, for me, was a, a, a unique experience I don't think a lot of people have, where so many people in your social group are, like, the best of all time. It's like everybody is like Ohtani (laughs) you know? And you're like-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, you've got 10 Ohtani friends-
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and you live with one of them.
- JAJudd Apatow
Like, "I'm a pitcher too." You know? (laughs) "I got my nu-"
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that's cute.
- JAJudd Apatow
"I got my knuckle ball."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JAJudd Apatow
And, and, and you could tell, like, this is the future of comedy here. And I would get depressed. I mean, I remember just sitting home one night and getting drunk by myself. Just, just, like, l- you know, losing confidence, uh, and just trying to figure out, you know, "What am I gonna do here?" Because I was young, and I didn't really have much to say, and I wasn't groundbreaking. I didn't have, you know, a new way to do standup. I wasn't that weird. I was just, like, a s- kind of, like, a young, smart comic. And, and I was aware of that, and I was bummed out about that. You know, I, I wasn't Steven Wright, I wasn't Bob Goldthwait. Like, people who were really taking chances and doing really cool interesting things. And what Adam was doing and what Jim was doing was just so weird and out there.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JAJudd Apatow
Rob Schneider had this incredible act back, back when we first started, and, and they were very inventive. And I could write for people, and I could, you know, write for Jim and, you know, help him with, with stuff, and I got a lot of confidence from that. But it took a long time for me to find myself, almost till, you know, Freaks and Geeks, where I realized, "Oh, the more personal I am, the better it is, the, the more interesting and creative and emotional it is." But I didn't know how to do that for a very long time, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. In other news, you've probably heard me talk about LMNT before, and that is because I'm frankly dependent of it. For the last, as long as I can remember, I've started every single day with one of these suckers in cold water. LMNT is a tasty electrolyte drink mixed with everything you need, nothing that you don't. Uh, each grab-and-go stick pack contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio, sodium, potassium and magnesium, including no coloring, no sugar, no artificial ingredients, or any other junk. Plays a critical role in reducing muscle cramps and fatigue, whilst optimizing brain health, regulating appetite, and curbing cravings. This lemonade flavor was so popular, a, literally a truckload of it was sold. That was a knuckle ball. Do you see that? Moved in the air. Uh, anyway, this is phenomenal. I really tell the difference between when I drink it and when I don't, and, uh, you should try it too. Best of all, they've got a no questions asked refund policy with an unlimited duration return. So you can buy it for as long as you want, and if you don't like it for any reason, they'll give you your money back. (laughs) Damn it. Uh, you don't have to return the box. They're confident that you're gonna love it. And, um, you can get a free sample pack of their favorite flavors by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom. That's drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom. Oh. Yeah, it's... It's gotta be difficult and throw into harsh, uh, contrast. You're working with this person. Maybe you were peers or maybe you were a mentor, or you're in writer's room together or whatever, and then this person just is out in the stratosphere.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um...
- JAJudd Apatow
And you're also happy for them, because they're your favorites, and so you have a lot of mixed emotions about it, right? All of our dreams... Uh, we, we all had that dream of being on Saturday Night Live or being a part of it, and then suddenly David Spade moved there, and then Rob Schneider moved there, and then Sandler moved there, and Chris Rock was on there, and, you know, you wanna be part of the club. And for me, I had to acknowledge that, "Oh, I'm not gonna get in that way." And so I created a sketch show with Ben Stiller, The Ben Stiller Show, around the same time, which was a reaction to the fact that I couldn't get a job at Saturday Night Live.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JAJudd Apatow
Even though I was helping Jim Carrey write sketches for In Living Color, I couldn't get-
- 46:02 – 59:02
Why Being Funny and True is So Hard
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, I've f- heard you say, "Anything goes as long as it's funny, wise, and true."
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Which of those three is hardest to achieve?
- JAJudd Apatow
Well, funny is always hard to achieve because it's just, like, a gut instinct. There's no formula that makes anything work. So you have to trust th- that it'll happen. Uh, and there are people that really know themselves and trust themselves and they can be really funny and really funny on the spot, but you are just... You do have to get to a place where your inner critic goes away. You do have to... I mean, David Milch, who was one of my men- mentors, um, says it's all about, like, suppressing your ego so you can get in this, like, clear-headed space to l- let the creativi- creativity bubble up.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JAJudd Apatow
And if you're thinking about yourself and what people will think about it, "Will they like it? Will they not like it?" It's all, like, a block to the actual creative moment.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JAJudd Apatow
And so you spend so much of your time trying to figure out, "How can I get in that space?" And, and especially for jokes, it's all just jumping off a mountain, not knowing if there's a parachute (laughs) like, like every single time.
- CWChris Williamson
What have you learned about overcoming uncertainty and getting into that self-belief, even maybe sometimes before it was warranted? W- i- is there any speed running this, or are you just, "Fuck, like, every time that I sit down with a blank piece of paper, I just gotta have faith"? How does it work?
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah, I, I think it is like... It's like a baseball player, you know. If he, if he gets three hits out of 10, you know, he, he's (laughs) one of the greats of all time. In a way, you have to think that. Like, yeah, uh, you're not gonna s- score all the time. Whether it's jokes, whether your script is good, whether your movie came out well, there is... You know, even if you look at the greatest directors of all time, you could s- pick out, like, "Oh, these of their movies are terrible." But they just went and made the next one.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JAJudd Apatow
Sometimes the best one they ever made is after the worst one they've ever made-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JAJudd Apatow
... and y- I try to remind myself, like, "You know, you're just taking swings, and that's okay. It's okay to not be perfect all the time." But you can't take this conversation to the computer when you're writing.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- JAJudd Apatow
You, you just have to see what happens. You know, I always say... You know, I try to, I try to, like, spew and write and free write and not judge it, and then the next day, I go into judgment mode and read it and decide if there's anything of value. I try to separate...... the f- the flow moment from the judgment moment. And I think that people slow down because they're trying to do it at the same time.
- CWChris Williamson
Wasn't that... Was that Dis- Walt Disney's plan as well? He had three writer rooms.
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And in the first one, there was no such thing as a bad idea-
- JAJudd Apatow
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... and then you'd sort of b- distill it down. On that point, uh, this wonderful statistic about Roger Federer. Roger Federer played 1,526 singles matches across his career. He won nearly 80%, but he only won 54% of all of the points that he played.
- JAJudd Apatow
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
Which means that one of the greatest to ever do it lost nearly every other point. So, it's about treating every iteration like it matters and then letting it go, whether it's an unforced error or perfect winner, it's still just one point. And realizing that, "Okay, we get another shot at this." But I suppose, again, the challenge that you're facing is if you're practicing in public, or if you're being scrutinized based on your last performance, the stakes are, "Well, what if this is the end? What if that's such a huge-"
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"... face plant that I can't... I will never-"
- JAJudd Apatow
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
"... come back from this?"
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah. He, if he loses, it doesn't end his career, but you could make a movie bad enough to end your career.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- JAJudd Apatow
Or, or, or bad enough that, like, your budgets are gonna get lower and people's faith in you will disappear.
- 59:02 – 1:09:24
How Streaming is Reshaping Movies
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Uh, you say it takes 10 years to really know if you've made a good movie. I imagine that that must be a difficult world to get into, which is 10-year test on a movie, which can be using the exact same fundamental skill of comedy when standup gives you the response in 0.3 seconds.
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So immediate feedback mechanism, decade-long feedback mechanism.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, I'm interested in the, it's not even delayed gratification, it's a delayed assessment of your-
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... body of work with this Batman versus Bruce Wayne life of, and also I need to be prepared to accept it immediately-
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... if I go and do something very similar tonight at the fucking Laugh Factory.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah. Well, you're judged b- by, uh, you know, by... When, when you make a movie, the judgment is coming at different stages, right? So the movie comes out, so there's a critical judgment, and then there's a financial judgment. Sometimes you have a great movie, it doesn't make money. Sometimes you have a bad movie, it does make money. You know, there's every permutation of that. And then there's this next judgment, which is, did people actually like it? So you have, there are movies that get bad reviews or make no money, and then 10 years later you realize, wait, everyone talks about that movie, and they forgot it got bad reviews-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JAJudd Apatow
... or they don't remember that it didn't make any money. And that's something that I noticed. No one remembers what something did or what the reviews were f- unless it was really extreme-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JAJudd Apatow
... years later. So we've had these movies like Walk Hard, which didn't open, and then, you know, 15 years later you realize, oh, this is like in the top three of all the movies we've done, and people keep watching it and it never goes away.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JAJudd Apatow
You can tell when you go on Netflix and it has like the little strip of comedies, and you go, "Oh, we got a couple." (laughs) "We got a couple up there." And some of them you realize aren't around much because they've just, people aren't as into them and they don't move up the algorithm.
- CWChris Williamson
Out of the zeitgeist.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.... and other things, you go, "Wow, that movie, like, never goes away." Th- and you could just tell. People must like it, and they keep showing it. Uh, I don't know what, how the system works, but like, hey, look, Bridesmaids is still like right there in that key spot, and doesn't seem to be slipping, and that's the audience judging.
- CWChris Williamson
What's being a real, uh, U-shaped-
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... curve bad weekend to 10-year success?
- JAJudd Apatow
I mean, there are ones that, like, did, like, okay, but years later, you're like, I don't know, that's one of the main ones they talk about. Uh, there's a movie called Heavyweights, it was about a summer camp for overweight boys. It starred Ben Stiller, uh, Kenan Thompson was in it, Poe Feig acted in it. And we made that in 1995, uh, and it's on Disney+ right now, and so it didn't ... you know, maybe it cost 10, made 20, it was kind of a wash. Uh, the reviews weren't very good, and now you go, oh, right, all this like 30 years later, it's in the main spot on Disney+. People watch it li- like I put it out yesterday, and it's a lot of people's favorite movie from like when they were kids, and you're like, wow, we, we really didn't think anyone's paying attention to that.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JAJudd Apatow
And, and that's really fun too, you know, to see things like that. This Is 40 is probably the one that most people mention to me. Eh, eh, you ... when people say hi, 90% of the time they mention This Is 40, and This Is 40 did pretty good at the box office. It wasn't gigantic, but it seems to just keep rising in esteem in a really wonderful way, because it's very truthful and also people enter that age group, and they watch it and they go, "Oh, all this stuff-"
- CWChris Williamson
I get it now.
- JAJudd Apatow
(laughs) "... it is true, what, what they're talking about there."
- CWChris Williamson
One of the things that me and a few of my friends have talked about, especially ... I'm 37, so to me, uh, 40-Year-Old Virgin as an example-
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... Anchorman, you know, these comedy movies moved culture and created taglines that people still now are referring to.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- 1:09:24 – 1:17:43
Do People Still Say No?
- CWChris Williamson
on that. Uh, you've got this line, "I know my level of fame. If I say no, they say, 'All right.'"
- JAJudd Apatow
Oh, yeah, yeah. If someone says, "Are you Judd Apatow?" If I say no, they go, "All right." (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Oh. I re-
- JAJudd Apatow
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... that's, that's funny.
- JAJudd Apatow
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
That is funny. Uh, I also had this insight around, um, when you get to a particular level of gravitas or impressiveness, how many people tell you no. "Well, it's fucking Judd Apatow. Like, he knows what he's doing. Look at this illustrious list of previous productions that he's done," and is that a challenge to be, uh, correction checked, fact-checked with your intuition, which sometimes is going to be wrong? It's like, "Hey, hey, hey."
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"No. This one's a no."
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"I know you think it's a yes."
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
At the start of your career, it's all nos.
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And then the tenacity that you've got turns into momentum, turns into respect, turns into pliability and sycophancy-
- JAJudd Apatow
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and before you know it, you're putting out something that's not being stress-tested by the rest of the team.
- JAJudd Apatow
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that a dynamic that you've felt?
- JAJudd Apatow
I think that it's important just to figure out who your collaborators are. So I've made, you know, the vast majority of my movies with Universal since, uh, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and it's the same people, and they are-
- CWChris Williamson
Show you no respect.
- JAJudd Apatow
Well, they-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JAJudd Apatow
... (laughs) like, we know each other well enough that we don't have to do any of those dances. Like, they'll tell me, like, "Hey, I don't think the third act is working so well" (laughs) , and that's really helpful to have a, a lot of trust where people know they can challenge you, and they're not gonna hesitate to give you notes. And, and you know that they're smart and that it's all worth listening to, because you know, the, the nightmare is that you're just working for someone who doesn't get it, and you're having a creative debate with someone that you're very different than.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JAJudd Apatow
And that's, uh, that, that's truly the worst thing that-
- CWChris Williamson
You speak in different languages.
- JAJudd Apatow
... could ever happen. Yeah, and some people like different things, so it's almost like, you don't, why do you have to like what I'm doing? You know what I mean? (laughs) Like, like if you said to a friend, "Here are all the movies nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture this year," almost all your friends will hate about two-thirds of them.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JAJudd Apatow
And it doesn't mean the ones they hate are bad. It just means they're bad to them. So when you're in a creative relationship with somebody, it's, it's not that they're, like, dumb or smart, but also maybe their entire life experience makes them not connect with what you're trying to express. If I'm doing a movie about being 40 and I'm talking to a 25-year-old who doesn't have kids, I'm having a different conversation. And so the best thing that ever happened to me was, uh, the moments when I found people that got it-
Episode duration: 1:35:17
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode 9p0NbOWWsgI
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome