Behind The Seen: Judd Apatow
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 11-Oct-07 @ 02:41 PM
You may not recognize writer/producer JUDD APATOW's face, but if Undeclared or The 40-Year-Old Virgin are in your DVD collection, you're already familiar with his work. We caught up with the super-producer who also wrote and directed last month's Knocked Up while he gears up for the release of next month's Superbad.How did you initially get into writing? Well, I used to be a stand-up comedian. I started writing for other comics because I wasn't making very much money doing stand-up, and slowly that lead to getting more and more writing gigs. Then as the people I was writing for got cable specials, they would ask me to write and produce on these cable specials, which turned into TV series and movies. Before I knew it, that career was going better than my stand-up career. Why do you think that the projects you've done for film have been so much more successful than what you've done for television? It's hard to know because with television, so much of it is based on time slot and competition. I don't think what we've done with movies is necessarily better than what we did on TV. I don't know if I'll ever do anything as good as Freaks And Geeks, but it's a little easier to find people to get exposed to films. Do you keep Freaks And Geeks as a reference point for everything you've done since? Yeah, I think Freaks And Geeks was a giant turning point because [creator] Paul [Feig] had a very clear vision about what he wanted to do, and he was very adamant about not making any concessions for anybody. It showed me that if you stick to your vision, you'll do much better work that's more emotional and funnier. |
