Apatow Quotes & Sayings

I started a radio show where I interviewed comics.And I interviewed Leno and Seinfeld and John Candy and Father Guido Sarducci and Garry Shandling, all when I was 16.And they kind of told me what to do. — Judd Apatow

You want the audience to get your movie, and you want the audience to like it. It's as simple as that. If they don't understand what you're trying to say, you've failed. Of course, you can't get 100 percent of the crowd to understand the movie, but you know when you've reached the people you want to reach. — Judd Apatow

I've had movies bomb with terrible reviews, I've had movies make a lot of money with terrible reviews, I've had movies get good reviews and make money. And I like it best when the movies do well and the reviewers like them. — Judd Apatow

I think it's fun to have people see everything at once, and then I think certain shows are very well-suited to being on every week and being spread out over months. — Judd Apatow

I remember before I did my HBO special, Chris [Rock] screamed at me - in a loving way, but still. He was like, "You need to do 200 shows in a row and a month straight on the road before you even think about recording a special!" And I had literally booked two weeks on the road and then went right into the recording. It put me in a panic, but it also made me work harder and made me realize that everyone works differently, and that's okay. — Judd Apatow

Maybe you just get so attached to the music of your youth that you think it's better than what's coming out now. — Judd Apatow

I'm the guy who gets uncomfortable. That's why I was able to write 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin' and 'Knocked Up.' I believe in those guys. — Judd Apatow

That's the greatest thing about comedy. If you've got talent, it's unmistakable. No one misses it and you don't have to wait around for a break. It's very easy to get a break. It's very hard to be good enough. — Judd Apatow

I don't think because a story has humor in it means it's brief. For some reason, people think anything that's 30 minutes is a comedy, comedies can be longer or shorter, so can dramas. — Judd Apatow

I literally cannot remember one joke. — Judd Apatow

I love the Lonely Island. I wish there was more Lonely Island movies. — Judd Apatow

I have a lot of respect for people who are great at ad-libbing and for writers and directors who are able to create a scene in which that works. Judd Apatow is fantastic at it. But as an audience member, I like the sound of something that's been written - I like it to sound written. — Aaron Sorkin

I don't really get attached to anything. I'm pretty brutal about cutting stuff. With each successful movie, I've discovered anything that's not connected to the immediate story is going to be cut out of it. — Judd Apatow

I like to make movies the way people made movies in the '70s, where they lived and died with these stories, and cared about them, and went to war for them, and they all said something they wanted to say. — Judd Apatow

I test the movies a lot, and if the audience says they love the movie, we know we're on the right track. And if they tell me they hate it, I try to figure out what I've done wrong. But every time out, the audience wants me to go deeper, they want to know more about the characters, and they don't want these movies to be shallow. So they really urge me to tell them a complicated story, and then when I do so, they're thrilled — Judd Apatow

A lot of times, it's easy to trim the movie 'cause you just start losing things that you thought would be there just for amusement's sake that actually are not funny. My favorite part of the process is seeing it with an audience. I do about eight previews to see how things are working. — Judd Apatow

I definitely learned to embrace the quiet moments onstage from Garry Shandling - relaxing and not fighting with the crowd, not raising your voice, not ever trying to win them over. — Judd Apatow

Back then, you seemed like a crazy person when you were trying to push the boundaries of network TV. People looked at you, and they were offended by the fact that you didn't follow the generic rules of what was expected on network TV. — Judd Apatow

I think that everything I do tends to root for the underdog. — Judd Apatow

I always see other people as predecessors and admire them. — Judd Apatow

My way of dealing with the world has always been to make fun of it and observe it but not take part in it. That's how I became a writer. But when you have kids, suddenly you have to be part of things. It leads almost to a breakdown because your whole defense mechanism is now really destructive. — Judd Apatow

If Judd Apatow called me, I'd do it without thinking about it. I think he does really fun movies. — Kimberly Elise

I think a lot of Hollywood is in retreat right now trying to figure out how to make money and make the safest bets. — Judd Apatow

Some stories feel like they need more time or less time to tell. To not obsessively have to trim or add that final two or three minutes is very helpful, because you can just organically follow how the story feels. — Judd Apatow

On American TV, there just aren't a lot of female leads in comedy, especially at the peak of all the Judd Apatow stuff. — Alia Shawkat

I was a big TV kid.When I was a kid, I would go home at 3:00 and watch TV straight through to the end of Letterman at 1:30 in the morning.I was obsessed with comics.And I would watch Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno and study them as if it was Tolstoy. — Judd Apatow

I start thinking about the next movie before it's a success, so I can never have one moment of happiness or peace. I'm instantly thinking about the next one. — Judd Apatow

If I've learned anything - anything - getting older, it's the value of moment-to-moment enjoyment. — Judd Apatow

People like the comedy more when they care about the characters. — Judd Apatow

Well, every movie is an experiment. And the only way you can grow at what you're doing is to take chances. You can't try to stick with what worked last time. — Judd Apatow

A lot of people inspire me. I'm a huge movie buff. From studying and watching movies, over and over again, directly influential are Terrence Malik and his naturalism, Robert Altman and his exploration of improvisation, and Judd Apatow, in terms of his comedic process. — David Gordon Green

Jerry: If you always want less, in words as well as things, you'll do well as a writer. — Judd Apatow

I think a lot of studios today are run by women, and we are entering a time when a lot of women have evolved in Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade and wanted to become writers and comedians. — Judd Apatow

Horror is like comedy. Woody Allen's comedy is going to be very different from Ben Stiller's comedy which is going to be different from Adam Sandler's comedy which is going to be different from Judd Apatow's comedy. They're all comedy, but they're all very different types and you can enjoy all of them. Horror is the same way. — Eli Roth

The first comedians I became fascinated with were the Marx brothers. I couldn't get enough of them. Later in life, I thought, "Well, maybe it's because they were so rebellious and they were just flipping the bird to society and all the rules we're supposed to follow." They were saying that none of it is fair. — Judd Apatow

I think there have been so many documentaries about pop stars, made by pop stars. It's a new phenomenon. People making these movies where they praise themselves and show their own weaknesses. it's all designed to make you love them even more. — Judd Apatow

I like to shoot scenes where I can see the beginning, middle and end of the entire scene. But, when you edit a movie together, you can just cut right into the middle. You don't need to see them walk into the room and put their jacket on the chair. There's always a lot of shoe leather that you can remove. — Judd Apatow

We are at this weird moment where there's an economic model that supports creativity. People are demanding something new and fresh. — Judd Apatow

When you make a movie, you just send it off into the world. You never actually live it with the crowd. — Judd Apatow

Sometimes you need to get away for a few weeks just to figure out who you are again. — Judd Apatow

I don't think I'm going to get so mature that I lose touch with the whatever wounded part of myself that feels the need to be funny. I'm already old enough that I realize that's not going to happen. — Judd Apatow

When I was very young, I started to make friends with much, much older people. So when I was twenty, my friends were fifty, and I never really went through forty because I would watch them die and I would feel younger. So you make friends with older people and you will always feel young no matter what. — Judd Apatow

There was definitely a period when I just felt out of sync with earth. — Judd Apatow

I gave Joss Whedon and Judd Apatow their first writing jobs, as well as many other untried writers who went on to great success. — Roseanne Barr

The thing that ruined your life makes you good at your work. And then you get rewarded at work, so you don't bother to fix it in your life. — Judd Apatow

I'm always talking to people. It's not that complicated. I just find somebody and say, "Do you have any ideas." If they do, we just start thinking things around. — Judd Apatow

Just trying to tell the truth about, you know, the struggle of - being alive is funny, it's just inherently tragic and also hilarious - in a fun way and in a sad way. That seems to connect with people. — Judd Apatow

There's a great rabbinical motto that says you start each day with a note in each pocket. One note says, "The world was created for you today," and the other note says, "I'm a speck of dust in a meaningless universe," and you have to balance both things. — Judd Apatow

I get the most starstruck around musicians. I get tongue-tied and don't know what to say. I'm so jealous of them. When you make a movie, you're constructing something - it's a little bit like making an album. But after musicians make an album, they get to perform it live and experience it in front of a crowd. — Judd Apatow

I've always appreciated people like Graham Parker or Loudon Wainwright III, who spend their entire lives writing songs and working their asses off just to have complete artistic freedom. They're just sharing their lives with you through their music. That's the same kind of work that I'm trying to do, in my own weird way. — Judd Apatow

I have a four-and-a-half-year-old and, when she was two and a half, she would make my wife and I do voices, like Woody and Jessie the Cowgirl, or Elmo, or Yogi Bear and Booboo. If we didn't do it, she would scream at us. So, my wife and I would have adult conversations as Yogi Bear and Booboo. It was just a nightmare year. — Judd Apatow

I had two projects that fell apart during preproduction. The first one was this movie that Judd Apatow and I had written about two guys following the Rolling Stones. It was going to be half concert film, half pseudo-documentary. It was Mick Jagger's idea.The other one was Simple Plan, based on a novel by Scott Smith. It's a great book - really stark, not a comedy - about a guy who finds $4 million in a plane crash and decides to keep it. — Ben Stiller

I love magazines and film critics, so I eat it up. I'm not one of those people who says 'I never read anything.' I generally read all of it. — Judd Apatow

My dad was a big fan of comedy. He wanted to be a stand-up. He loved Lenny [Bruce]. He also loved Lord Buckley and jazz and stuff. He was a hipster. My parents were kind of beatnik-y, you know, for Salt Lake City. But my humor, I think, came from wanting to disarm people before they hit me. — Judd Apatow

In the U.S., it's like, you start with a great script, and then on set - not everybody, but definitely in the Apatow group - you go off, and you're improvising on camera. So while you're on camera, you're saying things that no one else has ever heard before during the actual take. — Bill Hader

At network television you could make a show like Freaks and Geeks, and even though 7 million people watch is every week, you were considered a terrible failure, and they got rid of you and staff. Now ... It's like a world where the replacements are the biggest fans in the world. It's, the Elvis Costellos of television are the winners. Creativity is king and it's very very exciting. — Judd Apatow

The moment you think of a joke is the best moment. — Judd Apatow

I had a very specific type of terrible network experience where I was told that people like Seth Rogen and Jason Segel weren't leads, so it truly drove me mad. So to be trusted is all I value. — Judd Apatow

I start casting early in the writing process, so I can tailor the script to the gifts of the actors. — Judd Apatow

Judd Apatow is pretty good, both as a producer and as a director. — Mel Brooks

I would love to branch out a little bit and ... do a Judd Apatow type of movie. It just looks like it's so much fun. — Serinda Swan

The only thing worse than a crappy TV show which Paddy Chayevsky couldn't have conceived in his worst nightmare is two megacorps fighting over who thought of the crappy show first. — Judd Apatow

I love Coldplay. I love Steely Dan - Steely Dan's probably one of my top three bands of all time. — Judd Apatow

I always felt as a kid that I was underappreciated, invisible or weird, but I've always secretly thought people would one day appreciate what is different about me. I'm always putting that message out there. — Judd Apatow

I just try to be true to myself and write about things I'm passionate about. I think what most people don't like about movies is they can tell that most movies are a product, and they don't mean that much to the people who make them. — Judd Apatow

Sometimes, something seems dead, and then out of the blue, someone just figures out the way to fix a script and it goes. — Judd Apatow

I have to make good things so good comedians want to talk to me. — Judd Apatow

I put on a big show when I write something I think is funny. — Judd Apatow

I like when people are very passionate about what they want to write about. Even if it's silly, you can be very passionate about it. — Judd Apatow

Watching shows on Netflix is a different experience because most people are sitting there for three to five hours. Very few people even watch one episode. So it's not like a movie theater where you want to the movies to be shorter so you can go urinate. You can pause and urinate at home, and if something is longer, you're allowed to stop and eat breakfast and then watch eight more episodes. — Judd Apatow

Don't be a jerk. Try to love everyone. Give more than you take. And do it despite the fact that you only really like about seven out of 500 people. — Judd Apatow

I guess Judd (Apatow) is my soul mate because we have a lot of hard times, and it's great at times, too. — Leslie Mann

It's funny, now there are so many bands that I can never remember any of their names. Maybe it's because I'm old. — Judd Apatow

I still feel like a weird kid who is about to take a punch in the face. So, I think it's permanent. — Judd Apatow

Marc: Why are we so afraid of joy? Judd: That's the question. And I've thought about it a lot, and I think it's because we think right behind joy is a knife that will cut our throat if we really feel it. It's almost like a laugh - your chin goes up and your throat is exposed. If I laugh too loud, someone will slit my throat. That's the terror of joy. — Judd Apatow

If the movie's not communicating, it's not working. — Judd Apatow

I'm always begging people like James Brooks and Cameron Crowe to come to screenings, to see what they make of it, and they're always ridiculously helpful. They also keep me brave enough to commit to what I'm trying to do. They can be great cheerleaders for risk-taking. — Judd Apatow

Eventually, the nerds and the geeks will have their day. — Judd Apatow

You hear people say: "One day, when I'm in a good position I can make my passion project." I've seen a lot of people get into that position and not make it. — Judd Apatow

Back in the old days, everyone was shocked if a band had a sponsor for their tour. Now, Bob Dylan can do a commercial for Victoria's Secret and people don't really blink; the Beatles' songs are in all sorts of commercials these days and it doesn't seem to offend anybody. The times are changing. — Judd Apatow

People are disappearing from movies, and normal human behaviour is disappearing from movies ... You are not always fighting a creature in life. That's part of life, it's a pretty big part of life, but it's not all of life. — Judd Apatow

I want to be able to play trailer-bound fatties in a Judd Apatow comedy. — Benedict Cumberbatch

I didn't want to be a director for hire. It really just took me a long time to learn how to direct and to feel up to the job. — Judd Apatow

When I notice that all the beats sound exactly the same, it starts to wear on me. — Judd Apatow

I'm just trying to be truthful and collaborate with people who have interesting things to say. — Judd Apatow

Nowadays, when kids decide they like an artist, they'll absorb everything that artist has ever done in a single night. — Judd Apatow

In the comedies I've been lucky enough to be a part of a world like Judd Apatow's, where I believe comedy comes from real people. — Jonah Hill

It's so difficult to shock America these days. — Judd Apatow

To me, I've never understood why there is any question about are women as funny as men. — Judd Apatow

I still feel like a nerd. — Judd Apatow

For me, until I know that the audience really gets what I'm trying to communicate I'm not done. — Judd Apatow

I've seen all the Judd Apatow movies, and I'd love to have a really funny little part in one of them some day. — Miranda Cosgrove

Mel, if you're going to go up to the bell, ring it. — Judd Apatow

I used to scream at everybody at the beginning of my career. I'd get really emotional. I'd project all my issues about my parents and safety onto the executives, so every conversation where they gave a note was life or death and you don't love me. — Judd Apatow

I often say that ... I'm just involved in comedy, so I can be around it. — Judd Apatow

If anything is leaking, I try to plug the hole. — Judd Apatow

When I met Judd Apatow, he told me I should start writing screenplays. They'd be really bad at first, but the more I did it, the better I'd get. — Bill Hader

Deer are like dogs. Except for Bambi, they're pretty personality-less. — Judd Apatow

If you look at who drives the box office numbers at these films, it's men. — Judd Apatow

I'm making a movie about relationships, and I'm surrounded by guys scared of talking to girls. — Judd Apatow