An Afternoon at Judd Apatow’s Office

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, a visit to the office of legendary director and producer Judd Apatow! We talk about his upbringing in Long Island (5:20), conducting interviews with Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Allen as a teenager (5:46), his move to Los Angeles in the early 80s (17:50) where he befriended a young Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey (21:33), and why he began writing material for other comedians (25:13).

On the back-half, Judd reflects on his start at The Larry Sanders Show in 1993 (28:59), the personal memories he excavated in his 2018 documentary, The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling (34:13), and the series’ memorable finale in 1998 (39:30).

To close, we walk through his path from The 40-Year-Old Virgin to Funny People (45:20), his pivot into producing and mentorship (56:47), the legacy of Freaks and Geeks (58:44), and what he hopes to create in the years to come (1:03:27).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm Sam Freg, director, producer, and comedian Judd Apetow.
0:47.0	He's responsible for creating some of the biggest American comedies of the 2000s, including the 40-year-old virgin, knocked up, funny people, and
0:56.2	Train Rick.
0:57.3	In recent years, he's shepherded a handful of young filmmakers as an executive producer, bringing projects like girls with
1:04.6	Lena Dunum and the big sick with Camale Nangi and Emily Gordon to life. This
1:10.1	year alone he's served as a producer on Brose with Billy Eichner, a co-director on the
1:15.7	HBO documentary George Carlin's American Dream, and the author of Sicker in the Head,
1:21.6	a collection of interviews with some of the funniest people
1:24.3	working today. Now there are plenty of reasons why I wanted to sit with Judd, but
1:30.1	chief among them is the 20th anniversary of the Larry Sanders show,
1:35.0	starring the late Gary Shandling.
1:38.0	Shandling was a mentor to Apetow, the person who really kick-started his remarkable career, which eventually included a documentary
1:46.8	he made on Gary called The Zen Diaries.
1:50.5	As you'll hear, Shanling meant the world to Judd.
1:54.0	Hell, he meant the world to me, and I never even met the guy.
1:58.0	So we do talk a lot about the Larry Sanders show and its legacy.
2:03.0	But we also discuss Apatow's journey from Long Island to Los Angeles, his enduring love of stand-up
2:09.2	comedy, and most importantly, his late mother, Tammy Schodd.
2:14.0	Wherever you are right now, to everyone listening, I wish you safe travels around the holidays.
2:20.0	If you don't do Thanksgiving, I hope you can take the time to unwind just the same,
2:26.2	maybe even throw on a Judd Apotow comedy, whatever works.
2:30.8	However you spend the next week, I really appreciate you being here for this very special
	...

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