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I had to look at the failure as the path to success.
I thought, well, every joke that doesn't get a laugh is teaching me what not to do.
Sometimes we wait for the result to make us believe that we're worthy.
But there's a moment that I think when you do what you love, you're like, oh no, I can do this.
It's just a matter of time before people kind of figure it out.
The number one health and wellness podcast.
Jay Shetty.
Jay Shetty.
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Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to listen, learn, and grow.
Today on On Purpose, I welcome a true icon, Judd Apatow, one of the most influential storytellers in modern comedy and the filmmaker behind, just to name a few, The Four-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Funny People.
Together, we explore how to tap into your creativity, push through self-doubt, use humor to get through tough moments and build the kind of resilience that lasts in both life and work.
We'll be diving into Judd's newest book, Comedy Nerd, a visual memoir of his life and career.
This book is epic.
Honestly, I've been flicking through it and taking moments out that I want to talk about today for the past couple of weeks and I can't wait for you to grab it.
Please welcome to On Purpose, Judd Apatow.
Judd, it's great to have you here.
It's great to be here.
Truly.
Thank you so much for being here.
I'm like, I'm so fascinated by your career, your life.
And I feel like there's so many directions with which we can go.
And that's my favorite kind of person to sit down with.
But the first thing I want to ask is you have a book called Comedy Nerd.
Yes.
You've made people laugh for decades.
What was the last thing that made you laugh out loud?
There's a TV show on Hulu called Such Brave Girls.
Oh, I've not seen it.
Okay.
I'll just recommend that to everybody.
You didn't make this show.
I have nothing to do with it, other than my daughter Maude, said to me I think I've seen the funniest thing ever.
And then we watched it together and we went, yeah, that's about it.
And I've been catching up on The Righteous Gemstones, which I was behind on.
Okay.
I've not seen that either.
You got two good ones.
Great two recommendations.
I love that.
I feel like you and your family just have such a sweet, fun relationship.
Are you always watching shows together and connecting and recommending?
What does that look like?
Yeah.
I mean when they're young.
You're just, you know, watching the Iron Giant 800 times in a row with them, or Toy Story.
And then at some point you go, I wonder if they could enjoy the Blues Brothers.
And you try to slip, you know, some Caddyshack or Ghostbusters in there.
And maybe a third of them they like.
Yeah.
Like you kind of can't get them to love the stuff that you loved.
Yeah, yeah.
But then every once in a while, you know, when they were young I'd walk by their room and they're like watching Anchorman or something.
And I think, okay, they're beginning to get it.
Yeah.
How long did it take them to get your sense of humor and your style?
I don't know.
I used to joke all the time that like, they just so don't think I'm funny.
And you know I would go, do stand up and they would be like, how long did you put them through it for?
I'm like 15 minutes.
Like, Oh God.
Like they felt so bad for anybody that had to listen to me.
Anyone who paid to see you.
Exactly.
But I think that's the fun thing about kids is they just have no respect for you whatsoever.
I mean, maybe hidden.
Like everyone's a little sneak out.
Like, oh, I guess they did like that.
They think it's funny to hold back.
Yes.
Like Maude is in the movie Funny People.
And the running joke for her in the house is she's never seen it.
Right.
So when she comes over, I'll just have it playing on a TV.
And then she'll just leave the room.
That's amazing.
He just decided this one I will never watch.
That's amazing.
What's her reason?
Why does she want to watch it?
I think she just realized that it bothered me and now it's a lifelong gag.
That's what it is.
That's exactly it.
I don't have kids yet, but I can totally relate to the fact that if I thought something my dad did was cool, I did not want him to know.
Exactly.
Like I did not want him to know.
And you just got to be prepared for that as a dad, I guess, and a mom.
Yeah.
I saw one clip where I think you and your wife were talking and I think you said that her like best feeling of being a parent was when you realized your daughters actually got along.
Yes.
Or something like that.
Oh, that was a big moment.
Yeah.
Because you know, when they don't get along for a while, then you're like wait a second.
They called each other.
Oh, my God, they text each other now.
And then you just get excited.
You know, the relationship you always thought would happen happens, right?
How did you get over that as a parent?
I think so many parents struggle with that.
Obviously we all want to be liked.
You want to be liked by your kid.
And this is the person you love more than anything else in the world.
But for years, they don't love you.
Like I always say, like, I feel like I was grateful to my parents when I was like 21.
I could do all those years for me to turn around and be like, thank you, mom and dad.
Like in a deep, sincere way.
I may have said it before then.
How did you deal with that?
Like it seems like you have a really great relationship with your kids, and how did you get over that hump of not them seeing you as cool and funny and all the rest of it, when you'd achieved so much?
Well, I think that they, you know, I think we all got a kick out of each other.
Like we always thought that they were really funny and we enjoyed their personalities.
And so, even when you know you go through the rough middle school years, you know, you know we're still having fun most of the time.
And, but I also think like, we're, we're like the kind of parents who were like, you know, don't go to college then leave me alone.
Like we weren't like the pressure parents.
You know we were trying our best to to say you know, just figure out what you want to do and, you know, chase your passion.
And that's the main thing I realized later, which is people are always obsessing on grades or discipline, but the thing you're really hoping your kids have is some sort of fire to chase a dream.
And I had never thought about that before.
Oh, I need my kids to have some ambition, some energy to take a risk and go after something.
And so when I saw that both of them did, that was a great, great relief.
Yeah.
How were you in school?
Did you get good grades?
I was like a very mediocre student.
I went to school on Long Island and they used to do this thing where they would test you, I guess, like in sixth grade, and they would decide how smart you were, basically.
And they would put you in track one, which was the smartest.
Track two, which is kind of most people.
Track three kids having a problem.
Yeah.
And if you were put, like me, in track two, it was really hard to get them to ever switch you to a class in track one.
So I always thought like that kind of messed me up because it was very early, like 12, where they basically said this is the limit of your intelligence.
You know, that like really bugged me.
And you'd see like the smart kids go to class.
And you could kind of tell that the track one teachers were probably a little cooler than the other ones.
And so, but I got my act together.
I went to USC film school and studied screenwriting.
But how I got in was I just wrote a really funny essay.
My grades weren't amazing.
I just sent in a couple ideas for movies, but my essay was amazing.
It was meant to be funny.
I just described what the buildings would look like that I would give them the money to build.
So I just kept promising them how much money I would donate.
It was basically the college scandal in 1985.
And I think it made them laugh.
I said, you know, you think the George Lucas building is nice?
Get ready for the Judd building.
Yeah.
But I still have not given them any money.
Is that happening?
I was about to ask.
Are we getting a Judd building?
Just so that they're not part of a bad agreement, I literally have never given them a penny.
I'll go speak there all the time, but I don't want them to be caught in anything.
Have you ever reconnected with any of your school or high school teachers or anyone else who taught you and you had any interactions with back then that you remember now?
Well, the man who ran the...
The media program and the high school radio station that I used to interview comedians at was named Jack DeMacy, and we're still good friends.
And he was the first person to say to all of us treat this radio station like it's real and just use it.
And so we would call up and try to figure out how to get free tickets and free books and- Live on-
Yeah, we would just use it.
People were interviewing politicians and sports people.
My friend was interviewing bands like REM.
And then one day my friend was like you should try to interview comics, because he knew I was into it.
And then one day, I got an interview with Steve Allen.
And then I got an interview with Howard Stern, Sandra Bernhardt.
And that became how I educated myself about comedies.
I did 50 interviews in high school with Seinfeld and Leno.
And as I look back now, I go, it helped.
Like they did give me good information.
And, most importantly, they were nice to me, which I think made me feel safe trying to get in the business, because I thought oh, there's people like that in there.
Yes.
Yeah.
What was the most memorable interview that you remember for yourself at that time?
Because you were 15 years old.
Yeah, I was 15, 16 years old.
I mean, yeah, Martin Short, I interviewed when he was promoting SCTV and he was just so funny.
I was always amazed when anyone would try to make me laugh because I was just a kid.
And I just thought, wow, this is the nicest person in the world.
They're like really like...
Going for it with me.
You know, some people would seem like, oh, no, this is a kid.
I didn't want to do this.
And they'd be like, fine.
But a few people would be really funny.
Jerry Seinfeld was hilarious and talked to me about how to write jokes and gave me examples of jokes he was working on.
And that all, you know, stayed with me forever.
Yeah, it's so subtle I feel like in those years, the things that you ran and the people that you're around.
And I wish everyone got work experience like that.
I mean, that sounds amazing.
Well, it was also a lesson in how to treat people.
Yes.
Because, you know, I was just a young person and I would go in to talk to someone.
And for someone like Jerry Seinfeld to say I'm going to sit with you for 45 minutes and really take all your questions seriously and thoughtfully.
And that was a big deal.
Yeah.
It's such an amazing experience and entryway into the industry too.
Like.
You said that oh, if I become like these people, then I can still be a good person and a nice person.
Yeah.
And I didn't realize that until like a few years ago.
Like oh, that was a big thing about how I try to handle myself in the business was?
I saw these people like Harold Ramis and they were just so kind and funny that I just thought that oh, that's the vibration you want to go for.
Yeah.
Did you ever worry about it?
I feel like everyone has so many thoughts on the industry.
Did you ever have a negative idea of the industry or worry or fear that it would change you or make you different or in any way change your path?
I was just really excited by it.
I think as a kid in the 70s and 80s just variety TV Bob Hope and Saturday Night Live and Richard Pryor.
It seemed so exciting.
And I also thought, there's not that many people in comedy.
Back then, it really felt like all of comedy was 100 people.
Mm-hmm.
So for some reason I thought, I can get in there.
I think I can get a job in there.
And so I really was just determined to figure out what is the path?
How do you do it?
Yeah.
I had an interview where you were talking about how you almost grew up in comedy with all these amazing other people that are all icons in their own right as well, like Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler.
And you were almost like, you were like, we all grew up with our friends in our career.
And I was thinking what was it that allowed you all to be friends and not competitors, and not see each other as your arch rivals or your arch nemesis, in that sense?
And actually say, oh no, you said in that interview, you were like, I saw them as friends.
And I was like, wow, that's special.
It's unique.
I think it's different for everyone.
Like for me, I just thought I can't compete with Jim Carrey.
I can't compete with Adam Sandler.
I had an awareness that these were very special people.
I mean, they were great friends and remain and are so nice.
But back then, just as a fan, even when I was around Adam or Jim, I always thought oh, that's the guy.
That's going to be the guy.
It was like hanging out with Charlie Chaplin or something.
And it just turned out to be true that they were the people who were going to change everything.
And so I never felt competitive.
Sometimes I was depressed.
Like I had lost the competition.
That's really what I thought was, oh, wow, I'm not built like that.
If you're around Jim Carrey, you're like, yeah, I can't do that.
I can't think that.
I mean, I used to help him at writing jokes and punching up scripts and stuff.
So that felt like the greatest thing ever that he trusted me enough to be a part of his creativity in any way.
Well, that's a great point too.
Like I was looking at it from the other angle, but I love the lens you took it through.
Which is then how did you maintain your motivation and your drive when you're looking around and you're thinking God, this guy's ahead of me?
This guy's going to be the next big thing.
Who am I?
How did you channel that feeling that could lead to depression and giving up to actually going?
Well no, I still have something to say.
I think I just thought something's going to happen.
I don't know what it is.
I started out as a comedian.
And I was studying screenwriting.
And I didn't really have a vision of if I was going to be an actor.
I wanted to be a comedian.
I didn't really think that much about being a director.
I thought about being a writer a little bit.
And everyone was jockeying to break in.
And suddenly, Jim Carrey was on in Living Color.
And then Adam got Saturday Night Live.
And I was beginning to write some HBO specials I wrote for Tom Arnold.
And Roseanne was one of my first gigs.
And then I met Ben Stiller.
And we created a sketch show, The Ben Stiller Show, together.
And suddenly, that was happening.
And out of some weird fluke, even though I was very young, we both ran the show, which was weird.
We didn't really climb the ladder.
We got a show on the Fox network.
And so I was just trying to not screw it up.
And Ben was a genius.
So I was watching what he was doing and trying to figure out how I could help him run the show and not ruin this opportunity.
And, you know, it got canceled after 12 episodes, but we won an Emmy six months later.
And so it became this.
How did it cancel and win an Emmy?
It was a funny thing because I think how many people really liked it.
It was on at 7 30 against 60 minutes.
It was a very weird time slot.
And Ben was really trying a lot of new things in comedy.
Bob Odenkirk and Andy Dick and Gene Garofalo were on the show.
And so we knew the head of the network didn't like it.
And so the whole time we were like, oh, this isn't going to last long.
And six months later, we won an Emmy.
And then people categorized us as people who were doing something interesting, almost like an alternative rock band, like we were the replacements or something.
And I thought, well, that's pretty cool to be a failure.
Yeah, to be a rebel.
Yeah, yeah, to not get ratings.
But certain people that I respect think what we did was great.
And so that kept me going for a while.
Yeah, I love that for two reasons.
Because I remember reading Bob Iger's book and he talked about how Steven Spielberg Tarantino, George Lucas that they would all premiere their movies to each other and ask for feedback.
Yeah.
And when I read that, I was like, wow.
And he goes on to talk about how they were so confident in their own style.
And they so trusted that every person had their own style that they never felt someone was going to steal something or take something off each other.
And I thought, wow, that's an incredible, incredible... And they're all young at this age.
It's not like they're, you know... they're adults, but they're not mature people with wisdom.
And for them to have that at that point.
And it sounds like you all had the same where you're helping each other with jokes, you're building shows together, you're running together.
Like it almost feels like the comedy version of that.
If that was the film version, this is the comedy version.
Well, when I was young, we would watch, you know, Saturday Night Live or Monty Python, or Second City TV.
And it was these groups of comedy people. these communities.
Where would you do this?
You know, it would just be on TV.
You know, you'd be home and you'd watch, you know, Monty Python would be on PBS when I was a kid.
And you would see them and think, oh, maybe they weren't.
But to me, they were all buddies.
Yeah.
And so Saturday Night Live felt like a group of friends.
I'm sure they weren't.
I'm sure like a couple were.
You were watching this with Jim and with.
Yeah.
So in my head I was like this is so fun that like there's a community here in Los Angeles of people trying to break in to comedy.
And I realized oh, that was the goal.
Really, maybe more than even the work was like to find that community of like-minded people to have fun with.
What convinced you?
What was the first moment you were convinced that I'm funny, I can write funny, I can do funny?
When did that happen in that journey and process?
I'm trying to figure out when I thought I was doing well, because I was very comfortable not being good.
Because when I did all the interviews, they all said it takes like seven years to find your voice.
So in my head, I thought, oh, I started stand-up at 17.
So when I'm 24, I'll be great.
And so when I was 19 and I was terrible, I thought, Perfect.
This is where I'm supposed to be right now.
So I had this clock that was very aware that this was going to take time and that I had to...
I had to look at the failure as the path to success.
And so I thought, well, every joke that doesn't get a laugh is teaching me what not to do.
And then I'm trying to think of the first thing that I thought was very funny.
Yeah, that you thought, not that the result worked.
Because I think that's a really interesting part, right?
I feel like sometimes we wait for the result to make us believe that we're worthy.
But there's a moment that I think when you do what you love, you're like, oh no, I can do this.
It's just a matter of time before people kind of figure it out.
Yeah, I started writing jokes for comedians like George Wallace and Taylor Negron.
And then I got hired to write jokes for Tom Arnold when he first moved to town.
And everyone was like, who's this guy that's with Roseanne?
And he was trying to figure out his point of view in stand-up.
And so I was a part of that.
And then we did a bunch of HBO specials where he would try to solve the world's problems, like reality, comedy specials.
And we would write these setups for these reality pieces, which were film sketches.
And Roseanne and Tom would get big people to be in them.
Frank Zappa was in one, Fred Willard.
I got Jim Carrey to do one of these intros and Stiller.
And so these little intros were funny.
And so maybe those were the first things that they shot.
Like, oh my God, I wrote a joke for Frank Zappa.
And it got a laugh.
And that gave me some confidence.
Yeah.
To see Martin Mull do your bit and just go, wow, he's my favorite.
And I think I didn't screw him up.
I think I gave him a good joke there.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the failure to success piece is so interesting.
I saw somewhere you said something like you heard that someone sold their 10th script.
Yes.
And so you felt you could not sell nine and it would take time.
And I love that idea that you said.
Hey, I started at 17 and it takes seven years to be a great comic.
And so at 24, I think the reason why I'm picking those two things that you've said is, today I feel like a lot of young people just feel like they have to be successful tomorrow because there is a 16 year old who has a hundred million followers on TikTok, or there is a 21 year old that is a billionaire or whatever it may be.
And now you're aware of what everyone's achieving, not just your classmates or the people you're around.
And I wonder if you've ever thought about especially with your daughters going into the industry too, How do you help them reconcile that pressure and that timeline that's just totally shifted, where you can't take seven years to become an icon anymore.
You should be an icon tomorrow.
Yeah.
I think that that must be tough on everybody trying to do anything.
Because I look back at when I was living with Adam Sandler and I always think no one was paying attention to us.
Hmm.
So we would go to the improv every night and Adam would experiment and do weird characters, do Cajun Man out of the blue and just do all these weird things.
And no one was judging it.
No one was taping it.
No one was commenting about it.
So there really was this gestation period where you could be really weird and funny and take chances and really fail some nights, really kill other nights.
And so the idea of people paying attention to that was...
Where, when you're really young, you feel the need to put yourself on the internet.
Probably is not great for everybody.
Because it's also really fun failing when no one's watching.
Yeah.
It's fun to play a club of one in the morning in front of 30 people and just do something wild, just to see if it would work.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And it's almost like you've got to kind of, even if you are putting yourself online, you've got to feel or remind yourself that no one's really watching right now.
And hey, people won't.
They'll only watch my first videos after I get a following, which will be okay.
And so there's some of that that you can kind of take forward.
And I didn't direct till I was like 36, 37 years old.
A movie.
I had done some television before that.
And I was better because I wasn't given the shot earlier.
I think I just knew how to do it.
I was more mature.
I had more to say.
And so I don't necessarily think it's always great to get the big break right off the bat.
I love hearing these stories and that's why I love the book Comedy Nerd.
So much is because for me, like my first experience of Ben Stiller would have been Zoolander, or you know, I'm trying to think of the first Adam Sandler movie I watched in Click, or maybe something like that.
And it's like you come across this work, When or like with you.
It's like forgetting Sarah Marshall or like and you're talking about these huge hits that are like worldwide famous people you know people talk about them, laugh for hours.
And that's your first experience.
Then you realize, wait a minute, this person had a TV show that had 12 episodes and got canceled.
And then they went on to do something else.
And so-
I feel like it's so sobering to hear it.
And I feel like for our community that are full of creatives, people who are entrepreneurs, whether you're building a business, whether you're launching a podcast, whether someone's trying to create their own brand or clothing line, it's almost like there's so much pressure to be first and for your first thing to be your thing today, I feel.
And to know that you're your main thing, that you do today, that you're most known for.
Directing happened, like you know, 20 years in, 20 years in to you doing the thing, as opposed to two years in and you've continued to build an amazing career from it.
It wasn't.
It wasn't like that was lost time.
Even you wouldn't say that from 17 to 36 was a waste of time.
No, and there was.
So I worked on a kid's movie called Heavyweights, and that was the first movie that we shot.
And at the time, it was a little $10 million movie that made $20 million.
And Ben Stiller played the bad guy.
Paul Feig was an actor in it.
Kenan Thompson... uh, was in it.
And our friend, Steve Brill, who I wrote it with directed it.
And you know we didn't.
We didn't know what we were doing and made this kind of super weird Disney movie.
And at the time, I guess, considered a failure.
And now 30 years later, it's on Disney plus right now.
And it's like a big movie that kids keep watching.
So even the things where you were learning, sometimes over time you realize oh, people love that one.
Even the things that at the time were failures, or people didn't quite get what your point of view was.
And then 20 years later, people say, oh, I love the cable guy.
Yeah, I took a beating for that in 1996.
And so that's the other thing.
You learn that it takes time for the world to really tell you if you succeeded or failed.
You may think that you failed and then you realize, oh, that never went away.
People like that and they watch it.
So now, when I make things, I'm not as crazed about the immediate reaction, because so many times i've seen things bubble back up.
Yeah, that's why i guess making what you believe is so important, and that's one of the reasons why i love tick tock so much, because songs that are five, ten years old yeah, if 20 years old, some of them will have a full refresh, because they hit the tick tock algorithm, and now a whole new generation is in love with that song.
Would you say though, that you felt that way, or you felt that way over time?
Have you always made stuff that you believed was funny and was made for you and your friends?
Or did you always put the audience at the heart of it?
And it was their response that designed it.
Because I feel like in creativity there's these two versions where people are like I don't care what anyone else thinks.
I just make what I believe is funny and what my friends would laugh at.
And then there's like, no, I'm listening and learning and taking all the outside notes.
And then that's what I'm focusing on.
What was your process in the days when it wasn't working externally?
The main thing is, do you like it?
So as a comedy fan or just someone who wants to make things that are great, that's the main bar.
Like, do I like it?
Am I proud of it?
And then the second question is, how many people would like it the way I like it?
Because you can make something and you know, oh, this is very niche.
There's going to be a small crowd who likes it and certain ideas you're like I think this is great, but I actually think everyone will like it.
And I was always a big fan of James Brooks, from when I was a kid, you know, watching the Mary Tyler Moore show and broadcast news.
And I got a chance to work on the show he did called the critic.
And I just saw that he really cared if the, if the, audience liked it.
And he would always say, if the audience doesn't love it, you failed.
It's as simple as that.
If they're not touched emotionally, if they're not laughing, you didn't do a good job.
And he was a big supporter of table reads and getting input from people and doing test screenings and seeing how people were interpreting the work.
So it's a weird process because, on one level, you're trying to be an artist and stay true to what you believe in and what you like, but you're also having this conversation with the audience because they don't get it.
It's bad.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I think now creativity has become in one sense more difficult, because the idea of a trend and everyone doing the same thing is far more normal and common.
Whereas in what you're talking about there was a sense of uniqueness and ingenuity and everyone's kind of doing that.
Like Jim Carrey's not doing the same thing Adam Sandler's doing.
You're not doing the same thing.
If you're working with them on a project, that's different, but you're not doing the same thing they're doing.
And it's almost become harder to stand out.
Or in one sense you could argue it's easier to stand out because lots of people are doing the same thing.
Yeah.
But it's almost like creativity has very much become about what the algorithm rewards.
Exactly.
And I'm glad you have escaped that era.
Yeah.
Because...
I think that is really dangerous to doing something very unique.
Because the next great thing is the thing no one saw coming.
It's just the wild idea or a band that doesn't sound the way anyone else sounds.
And so there's a lot of great stuff that all sounds the same in music.
And you think, yeah, that's good.
But it does sound like these other 12 things.
And then there's this other thing where it's like Radiohead or whatever.
And I think especially in comedy, you do need someone to reinvent the whole thing.
Like when you saw The Hangover and you were like, where did this come from?
It was so funny.
Well, Anchorman was definitely that.
Yeah, Will and- Anchorman was completely that.
Yeah, Will and Adam had their sensibility of what they wanted to be in a big comedy and there really wasn't an exact precedent for it.
We loved movies like The Jerk, but they had their real take on, you know, this kind of arrogant American man who who needed to learn some lessons, and that changed the game for a lot of people.
Yeah, what was your sliding doors moment?
Or like moment of like?
If that didn't happen, my life could have completely gone on a different trajectory or in a different format.
I mean, there's so many of them.
I met Ben Stiller online at an Elvis Costello unplugged taping.
And we thought of this sketch show idea and pitched it two weeks later.
And everybody thought we were old, old friends and we had known each other for 14 days.
And suddenly we were just...
And it was just natural from the moment you met.
We just got along great and creatively were in sync.
So if I didn't bump into Ben that day, I mean, that was a pretty big one.
I remember seeing Jim Carrey at a comedy club and thinking I think I've just seen the best comedian in the world.
And I called my manager and I was like, you have to come see what Jim Carrey's doing.
And that was a big moment just to witness it.
And in movies...
Yeah, it's just like an opportunity.
Steve Brill saying, hey, I want to make a summer camp movie that's about a camp for overweight kids.
And I just said, oh, that's hilarious.
If you need help, let me know.
And just him saying yes, you know, it changes your whole life.
I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast.
Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential.
I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like it's easier to punch someone in the face.
When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it, if it's going to be beneficial to you.
Because it's easy to say like like, go you go, blank yourself right, it's easy.
It's easy to just drink the extra beer.
It's easy to ignore, to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way.
Avoidance is easier, ignoring is easier, denial is easier, Drinking is easier.
Yelling, screaming is easy.
Complex problem solving, meditating, you know, takes effort.
Listen to the Psychology Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Was there anyone that you felt was so good, but then, you know, didn't have the career?
Did you see people that you were like, oh my God, this person's amazing, but they didn't have the career that you thought they would.
Yeah.
There's so many comedians who are incredible, but they didn't necessarily transition to movies or sitcoms, but they remained the best comedians of all time.
Or they were just road comedians who were just way funnier and better than other people.
But some people never had that energy to go, all right, how would I work in a movie?
I think it's a very specific understanding of yourself and story and what you do.
Adam Sandler started writing screenplays for himself when he was right out of college, when no one wanted him to write a screenplay for himself.
No one was saying, hey, write a movie for you to star in.
He just had this sense of, oh, this is a path I think that I could succeed in.
And so even when no one thought you could be the lead of a movie, he sat in a room.
I remember he sat with my friend Joel Madison.
They just wrote a movie.
And I was like, wow, you just sat down and wrote a movie?
You can do that?
You can just get out the computer and do that?
But not everyone had that belief in themselves.
Yeah.
Why did you feel that turn was so important, that connection between comedy and then becoming a writer and director?
Why was that calling important to you?
Where did that come from?
Like you're saying, not everyone made that crossover.
Yeah.
But when I was interviewing people, some people like Harold Ramis said that he made a living by selling jokes.
And I just thought, oh, I don't have to make burritos.
I could sell a joke for 50 bucks a joke to somebody.
Because I had worked in a restaurant for a long time.
I was a busboy at a dishwasher.
So some of it was just, I need money.
And most comedians didn't want to write for other comedians because they wanted to be – famous yes yeah, and i thought i think i can do it and still do my stand-up.
And i think what it really was is i enjoyed hanging out with other comedians and i enjoyed collaboration.
Like my desire to be successful.
Solo wasn't very strong i, i think on some level i thought oh, this is fun hanging out with ben and i'm not looking to be isolated.
That's such a great sense of self-awareness.
I love that.
I love hearing that for everyone who's listening, because I think there's again and I'm just looking at thinking about our community that watches our show and listens to our show and has dreams and has aspirations, and how often, by wanting to be the face or wanting to be number one in a certain way, you can lose out on this tapestry of stories and experiences and amazing friendships and relationships where you're like yeah, I just I didn't really care about being the guy who was on the screen telling the joke.
I was happy being the person who wrote and built these universes that these comedians played in.
Yeah.
I mean, it was so fun.
Like I would go to Roseanne's house and just write jokes with her on Sunday.
Yeah.
Just go back at breakfast time, sit at her breakfast table with, she'd bring out the legal pads.
And to me, that was success.
I mean, almost to the point of, If it didn't get much farther than that, I was already pretty happy.
Like, wow, there are people that are the best at this who will let me be a part of their thing.
And so I was just so excited to be allowed in the room.
Sometimes I joke that the only reason why I even wrote anything was to get to be allowed in the room.
Like I had to prove I was credible to have these relationships with everybody.
When do you feel most creative and when do you feel most creatively blocked?
I mean, I worked so hard to try to figure that out.
I think it's just an ongoing search for flow state.
And so I used to never understand anything about how the brain works.
And so when I was young, I would write.
My process was I would sleep till noon.
I would get up to write.
I'd watch MTV, like Road Rules or something.
Like I would just sit and watch TV for like six hours.
And then at six, I'd think I'm going to write.
Then I would eat dinner.
And then after dinner, at some point, I'd slowly move to the computer.
Now it's like seven, eight o'clock at night.
And then I would write till like two in the morning.
Wow.
And that was like my flow.
And I realized, oh so it's almost like a post-food relaxation, burnt out all my interest in TV and the world, and then my brain would just like get so tired.
It would relax and then stuff would come to me.
But then when you have kids, you can't work from 8 till 2 in the morning.
And then you have to figure out, oh, I guess I have to almost set an appointment.
Like, OK, from 9 to 12, I'm just going to sit in this chair.
And that's something I learned from David Milch, who created Deadwood, who always said you can't think your way into writing.
You have to write your way into thinking.
So if you just start writing, your brain will eventually go, oh, we're doing this now.
And that if you do it at a similar time, the second you hit the chair your brain will go.
It's time to do the thing that we do.
And I even took a class on flow states, one of those Steven Kotler classes.
And-
It just totally worked.
It was kind of hilarious.
And there were people giving advice about all right, get up, don't have breakfast, just drink a little bit of black coffee.
Try not to eat lunch till noon.
Don't let your office interrupt you.
And then suddenly I realized oh, I'm really getting a good four or five hours done just by listening to some very simple advice about not being distracted.
Yeah.
Because I could look at like the newsfeed on my phone and be in a bad mood for three days and a bad mood that will prevent me from being funny.
Like I won't be able to go to my world of imagination because I'm thinking about some problem in the world.
And so I really have to protect my mental state to disappear into imagination.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
How do you balance that then in staying informed?
And then, and does that ever inform your comedy?
Does that ever inform the messaging you want to put out there?
I mean, yeah.
As soon as the writing's over, I go deep down.
You know a terrible rabbit hole of tracking everything.
And I have to you know, be aware that it could just put you in a massive depression because we know too much.
Like when I was a kid, we didn't really know what was happening in the world.
Like I lived in New York and I knew a little bit about what like Ed Koch was doing.
And I knew they were trying to capture the mob.
And occasionally you hear about some crime or a murder.
I didn't really understand what was happening in Congress as a kid.
I watched the news all the time, even in like middle school.
And now I know the major terrifying problems of every country in the world.
Yeah.
And it's too much.
It really is too much.
And if you find it interesting, which I do like, I'm fascinated by how politics work, how people treat each other, the problems of the world, the drama of crime, the drama of corruption.
I could really, I could read it forever.
I just find it so interesting as a storyteller too.
Like, look, that person was in this position and there's the choice they made.
They could have gone this way or that way.
And they went this way.
Yeah.
So for me, one of my flaws is I'm looking at too much.
And when I'm in a good writing groove, it's usually because I've found a way to limit it so that I could go in my own head and see what's there.
Yeah.
Yeah, I read a study that said we're exposed to more tragedy today in 24 hours than we were in our whole lifetime 25 years ago.
Yeah.
Just today, it's the equivalent of today that there was 11 Pearl Harbors in the last three days.
And so I was depressed the other morning.
And I thought, how would you not be depressed just based on what you read this morning?
It's a trauma response. to all of that.
So for me... What do you do with that?
What do you personally do with that?
Because I feel like that's an issue everyone who's listening can relate to.
I agree with – every month I do a benefit at Largo in LA for a different charity.
My first job was working for Comic Relief, the homeless charity.
And so I've always tried to be connected to philanthropy and –
You know, then some part of your brain is like, okay, you're doing something.
Yeah.
You're doing something.
And it never feels like enough.
Yeah.
But I think everyone has to do something.
Yeah.
And just hope that this collective, you know, moves certain causes forward and helps take care of people.
Because it is rough to hear about so much suffering.
Absolutely.
And then, you know, the guilt response, like, should I be doing more?
Yeah.
I try to spend some time every day thinking about it.
And I remember I went and had lunch with Norman Lear.
And Norman Lear had the newspaper out.
And I said, what are you doing?
And he said this is something that Frank Sinatra taught me, which is he would open the paper every day.
He would look for somebody in a bad situation.
And then he would get on the phone and write him a check.
And someone's house burnt down.
Or he would just follow up.
And just, someone's got a tragedy.
Sinatra would just write him a check, not tell anybody.
And Norman Lear tried to do that.
So you know, I like that type of thinking.
Yeah, i love that.
Yeah, i feel like if you, if you feel like you're a part of the solution, even a small part yeah, then the big problem feels a little bit smaller.
Yeah, and you know, so you can go and go fund me or something and help out in some way.
The hard part is you go and go fund me and there's two million people with really difficult problems, so that gets in your head.
How do you choose?
Also deserves it.
You can make yourself crazy, but you still have to find a way to do it.
If you have, you know the means.
What was the biggest creative risk you feel you ever took?
I don't think of any of them really as creative risks.
I usually just try to only work on things that I think can be really good, that I care about.
So it's not like there's any one decision.
I just think I want to be proud of everything I tried to do.
And if it fails, I'd like to feel like I understand why I thought it could work.
Yeah.
And I like for things to have a good heart and to say something positive.
I want to be aware of what I'm putting into the world.
It's almost easier to deal with failure when you've really believed in what you were doing.
Yeah.
To some degree.
Because if you didn't believe in it and then it fails, then you're like well, I didn't believe in it anyway.
I knew it would fail.
Well, it's a miracle that anything works.
Because everything in comedy is an experiment.
There's no precedent that lets you know this will definitely work.
So you're always on the verge of massive humiliation and failure.
And then that's just the spirit of it.
Like, I guess this will work.
And sometimes things work for some people, but not other people.
You go, oh, this does work, but for way less people.
And then some things, you know, out of the blue, like the entire world loves bridesmaids.
Yeah.
And it's the same efforts that everyone puts on.
And then just sometimes things connect in a big way.
Such a great movie.
Such a great movie.
Absolutely.
There's something you say in the book.
You say in your book Comedy Nerd.
You say when I stopped performing to pursue my writing career on some level, I betrayed myself.
The truth was I didn't believe in myself.
Yeah.
So that's a part of that story too, was that there was a sense of belief lost.
Well, as a fan...
I was aware of the difference between me and the people that I was hanging out with.
And I also felt very self-conscious.
I look back and I think, oh, I think I was pretty in my head.
I didn't really know who I was.
I didn't have a strong point of view.
Some comedians are very surreal.
Some comedians are very angry and they tell you how you should do this or that.
And I was always right in the middle.
I was just more talking about things I was confused about.
And I didn't have solutions to anything.
And I wasn't that weird.
So when I first did stand-up when I was young, I was on all the talk shows and did all that stuff.
But I knew on some level, oh, I'm not reaching the heights of some of the people that I admire.
And then I started doing stand-up again about 10 years ago and it's much more fun and I have a lot more to say and I don't feel as pressured to feed myself with it.
And so I can really be experimental and have fun.
I love knowing though, that you can be that uncertain confused, and have some self doubt, and still find your way.
There's something beautiful about that.
I mean stand-up is very confrontational, because every time you go on stage you're saying to people you should listen to me.
I'm worth hearing.
And you're also saying, I'm entertaining.
This should delight you for 20 minutes.
So there's a certain amount of confidence and arrogance to do it at all.
Some people do it out of neediness.
They so need the approval that, even though they're terrified, they'll do it anyway to get it like crack or something.
Yeah.
But it's like writing.
Sometimes, when I don't want to write, I realize oh, I'm not writing today because I feel like I'm going to find out today that I've lost it.
You still have that now?
Yeah, because every time you sit down to type, you're like, this better be good.
And I'm going to find out how good I am right now.
And that's the most unhealthy way to do it.
That's the opposite of flow state, is that the critical voice is just there the whole time.
And you have the pressure to be good right now in this moment.
What do you do with that thought?
Sometimes I have to play tricks on myself.
So if I'm going to write a scene, the thing about say you're using a program like Final Draft and it looks all pretty.
And so when you type, it has to be good because it's so formatted.
It looks so beautiful.
It looks like a screenplay.
So sometimes I have to write without the format.
So I'll just open up a Word document.
And if I'm going to write a scene, I'll say okay, take the next 15 minutes and just babble, you know, with no punctuation, ideas for the scene, and and just keep going and maybe like, do an experiment.
Like you're not allowed to stop typing for 10 minutes, just anything lines of dialogue, things that could happen, crazy stuff.
And and try to get in a state of just pure spewing and then take a break and and then read it with a highlighter and go was anything in there good?
And usually there is.
It may be very little, or maybe it's like the whole thing's garbage, but this one idea is so good I can't believe it.
But you kind of have to let your subconscious speak and get out of the way.
Yeah, and get that perfectionist out of the way that was blocking you and saying every line you write down has to be almost like this final line.
That will make it into the scene.
It's like if you were trying to think, what would a woman say to break up with me?
And you just sat for 10 minutes and just wrote the speech of why she's breaking up with you over and over again.
And maybe the 20th time you did it, you'd have reached some bizarre place in your brain and it would be something you never would have thought you would have written.
Yeah.
From just some old injury.
Because I really don't even understand how the brain works, but it certainly stores up a lot of stuff.
Yes.
And it pops out if you keep coming at it from different angles.
Yeah.
Do you believe there are a set of rules to good comedy or there are no rules?
I don't really understand any of it.
I'm not one of those people that can really lay out why things work or don't work.
I tend to try to think pretty simply about if I write it as a drama like if the construction would work if there were no jokes that it won't be hard to figure out a way to make it funny.
So I try to not chase the joke, try to chase the emotional story and then look at it like, how can I make it funny?
Because I think all the situations in life which are painful are really close to funny.
Yeah.
That's why in movies, there's so many movies where it's just like, someone's breaking up with you.
And it might be funny because you start crying.
It might be funny because you start screaming.
It might be funny because you run away.
So I just trust that if I...
That sense of why things are funny that are challenging or awful, that'll just come.
Yeah.
You know.
And so the idea is before that she's just asking him questions about his life because she doesn't know anything about him, because he had a one-night stand.
And everything in his life sounds like the worst information if he was the father of your child.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, he has five grand in the bank.
He thinks it'll last two years.
You know, he got it because his foot got run over by a postal truck.
And, you know, just on and on and on.
So, but...
On another level, you think, well, that's what you would do.
So if you were to have lunch with someone to tell them that you're pregnant, you might, in the warmup, go how's your life?
And try to get some info out about what am I in for here?
Yeah, that's the emotional need of safety and certainty.
Yeah, and she's not getting any safety.
And he's oblivious, which is funny.
He doesn't know what, he's walking into a buzzsaw.
And so it's inherently a very real situation, but for some reason with certain people, it's funny.
I love how much you love the scenes and even the characters you've created, because I find sometimes creatives get quite jaded when something's passed on.
You don't feel that way.
Through the book Comedy Nerd, through talking about it with you today, through all the interviews that I watched in preparation for this.
I don't.
You don't sound when you talk about your characters in your movies.
It's like you're in them and we're in them.
And like, it's fun.
Like how has that stayed?
And have you seen other people get jaded?
How have you held on to that joy of what you created?
Usually when it's done, I feel disassociated from having been a part of it.
It's just a feeling.
That world exists.
It's almost like it happened.
I don't think of it as the construction.
And I know about all the construction, the levels and the rewrites and the rehearsals of how we got there.
But when the movie's done, I feel like it's a real world.
It's in another dimension, and those people are there.
And they're still going.
And I liked them.
For all of them, I liked the characters.
I spent so much time with them.
And if the movie came out really well, a lot of times I don't watch them.
Just because I work so hard.
There's no part of me that's like looking to experience it again.
So I don't have that viewing of a movie that other people get because I know the story.
I'll never really get to see the movie the way someone else gets to see it, because I just know what happens.
And I've slaved over like the music cue and the sound effects.
But recently I went to see the 40-Year-Old Virgin for the first time in 20 years.
We did a screening at the Academy Museum.
And I had literally forgotten 80% of the jokes.
I didn't remember any of it.
And it was the first time in my life it felt like I wasn't a part of it.
And I could just enjoy it.
And I was laughing.
I was proudly like, wow, look at these lunatics go.
They're really funny.
They're going hard, everybody.
I love that.
I love that.
What's a joke you could make 20 years ago that you can't make now?
I think people are sensitive to how we define people, how we goof on people.
You know, when I rewatch this stuff, there's not like a ton where I'm like oh God, why do we do that?
But there's a few where you think, yeah, today I wouldn't have done that joke.
Making fun of people for just being themselves, whatever that is.
But a lot of the times we were talking about people who get made fun of.
So when I worked on Superbad with Seth and Evan, we were talking about how in every Marx Brothers movie they would always have a really rich guy punch Harpo Marx in the face in the first 10 minutes, because then Harpo could do anything to them.
And they represent rich people or power.
But because they did something really mean to him, Harpo had free reign to cause massive chaos.
And so when we were doing Superbad they had one of the kids spit on Jonah by the 7-Eleven type place.
And that was it.
Then you're like, whatever Jonah does, I know where he is in school.
I know how he's treated grades.
And I kind of want him to succeed.
I want him to have something nice happen to him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I always look at it that way.
Yeah, I love that.
What's your take on the impact of AI and ChatGPT on writing, creative block?
Are you a fan?
Do you feel it's going to be useful for writers now?
Do you feel it's a hindrance?
Where do you land on the conversation?
I think that the danger of it is it allows you to shut off part of your critical thinking.
And so if you really were into it, I think that you'd be losing something while gaining something.
So if you think about GPS and you go, I kind of couldn't drive around LA because I don't know where anything is anymore.
That's me.
Or I don't remember anyone's phone number anymore.
I think that if you were asking a machine to do certain work for you like oh, fix my letter.
It seems kind of good.
But at some point, if your chat GPT went down, you might not be able to do the letter.
And so that's the thing that makes me nervous.
I think it's very helpful for research.
So I'm writing a movie that takes place in college and I'm trying to think of classes to go.
Oh, what's an interesting class about music?
That is really, really helpful.
But if you start going, write me the scene about the class, I think that you're in danger.
And then you have to ask yourself, well, why do I do it?
I mean, if you were just in it for the money, I guess you could use it as a tool.
But if you're also in it to learn about yourself and, through creativity, have some self-knowledge and it's an expression of you, then you don't want it in your world that way way.
Yeah.
It's almost like how hard your hand hurts when you try and handwrite now.
Exactly.
Because you're not used to it anymore.
And you're like, wait a minute, if I didn't have my phone, I've got to write something now.
No, there's no cursive.
And they say that you're more creative when you write in cursive than when you type.
Absolutely.
And so we've kind of eliminated this thing, which probably led to a lot of, you know, beautiful expressions of how people are feeling in letters and notes and when people would write novels.
You know longhand.
Mel Brooks, I'm doing a documentary on Mel Brooks.
He would write all those scripts with a legal pad.
Yeah, and there's all the research around how doodling helps our brain connect ideas.
Now, when we'd be on the phone, we would doodle while we would talk to someone and it would help us.
You get in the flow state.
Yes.
I mean, and so, okay, so now no one doodles.
How much creativity have we lost as a result of it?
But I'm scared of all the AI stuff.
I mean, I go on YouTube and I just watch videos about what could go wrong every night, all night.
Because I'm always terrified by the fact that the people who are in charge of AI are also scared of it.
Yes.
So even the people who are doing it, they're like, you know, it's great.
It's going to change your life.
It may solve some diseases.
It also may decide to murder all of us and not want us around.
But I do think it's also going to be good at teaching you how to play the guitar.
Yeah.
Great trader.
Another line that stood out to me, Judd.
In your book you said I learned later in life through therapy that I had projected all of my childhood divorce drama onto the network executives who'd rejected or abandoned me.
And so I want to dive into multiple parts of that.
Let's first start with, I think you've talked about how you've done therapy for like 20 years.
It's been a big part of your journey.
Walk me through how the questions have evolved in therapy 20 years, 10 years, five years, zero years today.
It's amazing how many new things you learn today, as you get older, that you didn't quite understand before.
Because on some level, you understand that there's a lot of projection happening in your life.
But in maybe the last five years I think I learned a lot more about trauma, responses to things and the ways that we just change our whole way of dealing with everything, based on trying to avoid past pain.
And that was something I didn't learn about for the first two decades of therapy.
The idea that a lot of time we're just in a fight or flight or freeze response to everything.
You know I had a therapist say you know, when you walk in a room like say you're walking in a party, the first thing you do you might get anxious and you scan for threat.
And then your brain assesses the threat.
And they might go, oh, looks like these people seem nice enough.
We can enter the party.
And then he said, the thing you're supposed to choose is opportunity.
And okay, I'm going to actually go try to talk to that person.
Maybe something nice would happen if I talk to them.
And in some way, we're doing that all day long.
We're like scanning, where's the problem?
Where's the problem?
And I think that's something that has been very destructive for me as someone who's always looking to solve problems in a very OCD type way.
Like what's the problem?
How can I solve it before it happens?
And then you realize that you're consumed all day long running potential problems.
And so that's been a big thing.
Like how do you let go of a mind that wants to look for trouble?
How do you?
I mean, obviously it's some version of mindfulness, some version of noticing the process and having some higher self separation to go.
Oh, I'm doing that thing again.
And can I connect that the one who's observing is me and the rest is just kind of mental things clutter.
But it's really hard.
It's really hard.
It is really hard, especially if you get caught in those cycles and they just repeat themselves round and round and round and you're back in square one.
What was the particular aspect, the one that I quoted there.
You talking about projecting all of your childhood divorce drama onto the network executives.
Talk to me about that exactly.
Well, I feel like there's always healthy and unhealthy reasons to do most everything.
And that's what's tricky, right?
So on one level, you're like, I love to be creative.
I love comedy.
But in your unhealthy part, you feel like, I want validation.
I want to succeed.
I want safety.
Like, if I succeed, I'll have safety.
Maybe I'll have love.
And so you have both this very pure creative love for something and then this trying to protect yourself from through it.
And so then you're doing work.
Let's say you hand in a script.
And then someone says, I hate your script.
The studio hates your script.
So in your mind, you could go, oh, are they correct?
Maybe I should read it again.
Or you could go, why are they trying to murder me?
Why are they trying to destroy me?
Yeah.
And then you're mad at them because you've given them so much power.
And now you're irrational.
You're just in, they don't care about me.
How come they don't see me?
How come they don't understand me?
And then you have just that insecure, what if they're right?
What if I'm terrible at this?
And so you're projecting all these old wounds and needs onto a creative platform.
But I didn't know that because I was just a young person.
So when people would give me notes that I didn't agree with, I really felt like oh, you're trying to destroy me.
And to learn how to have those conversations in a healthy way took a long time for me.
There was literally a moment where I went oh, I'm treating the head of the network like it's my mom.
I'm mad at her in the same way I'm mad at my mom when she's not there for me.
And I need to take that energy out of this.
But it is a fight or flight response.
Oh, you don't like it?
Well, if you don't like it, I'm not going to be able to eat.
And now I need to fight you.
Yeah.
And it's heated, right?
And so, you know, as you get older, you know, maybe your testosterone levels dropping helps as well.
You just go, oh, that's what that is.
Yeah.
Okay, take a breath.
What are we really talking about?
What's their note?
And you may decide you completely disagree and, oh, maybe let's not do the project together.
Maybe I'll take it to someone else.
Yes.
But you can't be rational till you come down and go.
Oh, everything I'm filtering this through has nothing to do with what we're doing.
That's such a great note.
And I love the visual of you saying, I'm treating the network exec like my mom.
And I'm thinking about just the moments in my life where my reaction has been totally based off of a trigger response or a trauma response that now you're turning this scenario into something that it totally isn't.
And it's coming from something in the past and something you've experienced and feels real, but this isn't that.
Yeah.
You're having a tantrum.
Yeah.
Like a kid.
And it's also embarrassing to realize that you're wired that way.
Like, oh man, I'm just- So basic.
Yeah.
I mean, I would just be so hurt, you know, when Freaks and Geeks was basically about to be canceled, and they would give me notes and the notes were usually notes which would have made the show not as good.
It was like I was at war.
And my back went out.
I had to have back surgery because I was putting myself under so much stress.
I had made it so important.
And the hard part is can I work just as hard and not make it emotionally difficult, important?
Can you with creative tasks?
That's a great question, like can you because freaks and geeks was super successful because you pushed yourself to that limit and because we didn't give in?
Correct that's that, that's the giving part, so important.
And so i'm like have you found that you've been able to not give in but not emotionally carry all that load and still create something that successful?
Is that even possible?
Yeah yeah, you can.
And you realize it like, oh, I didn't get emotional and we had a good conversation.
But it takes a lot of years to see it.
Because what it is, because it's a trigger response, it happens fast, like your emotional reaction.
So do you have that extra five seconds to go, oh, I'm getting heated?
And you still have those moments where you snap and then years later you'll wake up in the middle of the night.
Oh, I feel so bad about yelling at that guy.
And it just happens out of nowhere.
And it's usually around the idea of, are we about to ruin the work?
For me, it's always about, is the work going to be good?
It's never about like the release or the success.
It's always, my only thing that makes me crazy is if I think someone can get me to ruin it.
Yes.
That really kind of freaks me out.
Yes.
You know, and that's not healthy, the level to which it freaks me out.
Yes.
And I worked for people like Gary Shanling who were so sensitive and they really felt like you're trying to destroy me.
And I always thought, oh, I feel so bad for them that that's how they experience this.
And then I realized, oh, I do it.
I'm doing it in my own way.
I have a variation of this need for the work to be good.
And why?
For who?
Like, can I make it so people can enjoy it?
Or is it so...
I can make a living and people like me.
Yeah.
You know, can I separate the healthy from the unhealthy?
I always think about Ram Dass talking about, I guess it's part of like the idea of like all Dharma is dreams that like you live your life and then you also realize that life is ridiculous and meaningless.
Mm-hmm.
And so you still have to be in the game and you still have to do your best.
But can you hold at the same point?
Like, this is all so silly.
Yes, yes, yes.
And when I think about that, I do better.
Yes.
But it's really hard because you're trying to care and not care, like have attachment and non-attachment at the same time.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's like how do I realize what I'm doing is valuable and, at the same time, embrace my insignificance?
And it's like, it sounds beautiful and it is possible, but I hear what you're saying.
There's...
There's a level of focus and due diligence that's healthy.
And then it's only as healthy when it's matched with detachment as opposed to when it's so addictive.
And we're going through our first set of TV and film projects right now that I've ever done in my life.
And I have that same feeling because I can Everything you're saying.
Up until this point also, a lot of what I've created has been fully like it's never been funded by anyone else.
We've never worked with a studio or a production company.
It's all us.
And so I have a lot of, and as time has gone on, I've built more confidence and conviction in my intuition that I'm aware of what I believe will work and what won't.
And I've sat with it for long enough and I've done this for 20 years and all the rest of it.
And then someone comes and gives me a note that I'm like, I know that's not going to work.
And then we incorporate in the pilot.
We make the pilot and then the only feedback we get from the audience and everyone is we didn't like that bit.
And I'm like, I told you, like, I knew it.
And so then what do you do with that?
Because it's such a human experience of...
Well, it's always picking your collaborators.
Yeah, yeah.
Everything in my career changed when I started working with Universal Studios and Donna Langley because her and the executives there Peter Kramer, Eric Byers they just got it.
Mm-hmm.
And so then most of that goes away because you have a good relationship, but also they get what you do and they understand your process.
But I had a lot of relationships with people you know, like with Freaks and Geeks, where they told me, like we don't like the show.
It was funny.
There was a documentary about Freaks and Geeks and they interviewed one of the executives who canceled it.
And you thought in the doc, he would admit that he made a mistake, but he didn't.
He was like kind of still proud of it.
And so I think a big part of it is who should I collaborate with?
Part of it is picking the person that you can have a healthy discourse with.
And that's tricky because sometimes you don't know everybody.
Only by going through it do you go, oh, I like that person.
I'm going to bring them the next one.
Or I need to run away from that person.
Yeah.
How did you get better at doing that and making that process quicker?
Is there ever a way to get better at knowing that earlier?
No.
You just have to meet them and then treasure it.
Yes.
Just go, oh, okay, I'm going to stay here.
And to value that, because it really is a special thing when it happens, when it works and people give good notes and they understand you and they're excited for you and they encourage you.
So I try to remember those people and then go back to them as often as I'll have me.
Yeah.
If fear and doubt would disappear from your life and mind tomorrow, what would you do differently?
I don't know.
I mean, what I would do differently is just probably be happier.
I don't know so much about like work.
That's a great answer.
But just like in life, I would like to have lightened up.
Yes.
A few years ago, I was just feeling terrible.
And then in my mind, I just heard the phrase lighten up.
And I thought to myself, wow, you're in comedy and you're so heavy.
Like you just really need to lighten up.
Why do you look at everything in such intense terms?
But that only works because, you know, if I remind myself of it, I can lighten up.
But what if I go like a year and go, oh, I forgot to say lighten up in the last year.
I forgot to – you know, I'm one of those people like I'll write all these things down.
Like I'll have like a piece of paper and, you know, one of the things I write down a lot is –
Just try to do better today.
Just look at today.
Don't look at the long arc of it.
Like, okay, what am I going to do today?
Will it be fun?
Can I make it fun?
And at the end of the day, go, that was a good day.
And if I think about the next year, I'm usually in meltdown.
Yeah, you reminded me of this beautiful story where a student once asked the Buddha what do you gain from meditation?
And he says, I didn't gain anything.
And then the student says, so then why do you meditate?
And the Buddha says, well, I don't meditate because of what I gain.
I meditate because of what I lose.
I lose fear, I lose anxiety, I lose insecurity, I lose envy and ego.
Yeah.
And it's what you're saying.
It's like, hey, if there was no fear and doubt anymore tomorrow, how would you feel?
And you said happy.
That's a beautiful answer actually, because it's not something that's blocked you from taking action, but those are emotions that make living and breathing a lot harder.
Yeah.
Because your mind's just going.
Like, I like to meditate, but I just don't do it enough.
And every time I do it, I'm thrilled after.
I'm like, that totally worked.
I feel better over the next five hours.
And then I might go 11 days not doing it again.
And I always think, what is the part of my brain that's fighting doing it?
Because clearly there's something resisting just being present and quiet.
And it doesn't make any sense now because I like it.
Yes.
But there's a little part that's like, don't do it.
Yes.
You know I guess some people go.
You know that's your ego and your ego doesn't want to be destroyed.
So it's trying to figure out a way to get you not doing that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Earlier, that's reminding me of before we started taping, you said something to me.
You said it's surprising of the things we're not addicted to.
And then I asked you if you ever did drugs.
And the reason for my question was I feel like there are so many people today who feel their creativity is dependent on something recreational or whatever it may be.
Your life, as you explained it to me before we started taping, was not like that.
You were scared away from drugs and you can share that.
Well, my grandfather produced the first Janis Joplin album, Big Brother and the Holding Company.
And so my entire childhood.
They always talked about the fact that she was the best singer who ever lived and she took drugs and died.
Hmm.
In fact, that's why it's in Freaks and Geeks when Joe Flaherty says, what happened to Janis Joplin?
She's dead.
Oh yeah.
Was because that was this mantra.
And so all of that really, really scared me.
And then the few times I did it when I was young, usually I would just get paranoid or I never had like the great experiences that would make me go.
Let's do more of this.
It was one moment where I did try to buy some pot and my brother found out who's older than me and told the guy not to sell it to me.
But I always think if my brother didn't tell that guy you better not sell pot to my brother, maybe I would have found the part of me that loves it.
So I got a good long run of that.
I never loved drinking.
I would always get tired and fall asleep.
I think it's just my chemistry doesn't get that kick out of it, where I know people who will say oh, I wrote that entire series you love.
Hi.
And I'm like, I literally can't write one joke.
The second I'm high, I'm just like, let's just watch, you know.
Great British Bake Off.
I'm not in creative mode.
But thank God, because that's just a random thing.
Because I think if I loved it, it would have been a real problem.
But I was very aware that I wanted to succeed and I thought, that's not going to help me.
You've said you read a lot of self-help books.
I was wondering if you had to pick three that have really had an impact on your life and a lesson you've learned from each.
What would they be?
I mean the three that I go back to all the time.
One is called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.
Yeah, great book.
And I'm always going back to that book, although there's tons of YouTube videos of him talking.
They're all great.
And with anything really good, usually they're saying the same thing just in a different way.
It's one idea and it's just kind of... rewritten to find another way to get you to soak it in.
And his thing is that he feels like people have these energy blocks.
You know, something happens to you you know, like say someone punched you in the face at a party.
And so then you think, all right, I guess I'm the guy who doesn't go to parties.
And that by the time you get older, you have a hundred of these or you have a thousand of these, and everything that you do is avoiding certain things, certain types of people you didn't get along with once.
And so he I guess he described it as like it's like if you had a thorn in And instead of pulling it out you put like a metal thing around it and then you realize you needed a bigger metal thing and then you would go to the party and you couldn't let anyone bump into it, as opposed to just taking it out.
And to just like live with the pain of it and to let the energy, whatever that experience was, move through your body and see it.
And I find that's really helpful.
And those books are great.
That's a great answer.
Yeah.
I always read Pima Chodron books.
Just all of them, When Things Fall Apart, Start Where You Are.
She's amazing.
And I think she writes better than almost anybody about Buddhism.
And she talks about Tonglen meditation.
And I guess there's a lot of slogans.
But the thing she mentions is that...
She does a type of meditation where you try to breathe in someone else's problem and then breathe.
So you take it in and then you try to send out like fresh, clean air.
Like you breathe in there like dirty muck. and take it on and then give them clear freshness, right?
And then you might run, okay, I'm gonna do that for the person I hate.
Now I'm gonna do it for myself.
I'll do it for my friends and I'll do it for all my enemies and I'll do it for everyone in the world.
And that's a beautiful piece of meditation that really changes your chemistry when you do it.
Because you're always trying to help yourself.
So like a pure giving meditation just changes everything.
Absolutely.
And then the third one, there are these books by this guy named John Wellwood.
And they're relationship books.
They're just some of the best written relationship books.
But...
He basically talks about how, in your relationships, they're meant to bring everything to the surface and confront you with it.
So in your relationship, in your marriage, it's all going to come up.
And you have to look at that as a sacred thing that you both help each other with what comes up.
And it's not like I'm so mad at you for telling me that I do this.
But really the relationship is that we're in this together and that these things are going to keep going.
Bubbling up and can we figure out how to address them and address them in a positive way.
There was another guy named Harville Hendricks who had books about this where it really was to embrace it when it comes up and not be annoyed.
Like yeah no, this is the whole point of the relationship.
Is that you're going to tell me how annoying I am?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, those are beautiful recommendations.
And I hadn't heard of the last Wellwood, so I'll have to go and grab a couple of copies of that.
But no, beautiful examples and beautiful lessons.
So deep and profound.
When did your fascination with that work start?
Like, when did that begin with all of this reading and writing?
I mean, it sounds like you're a voracious reader on the other side too.
You know, my parents never talked about religion ever.
Mm-hmm. not positive, not negative.
They just didn't talk about it.
And so even though they're very nice people with good values, there wasn't a system.
So I think I really had a hole there and an existential dread from the idea that there was no structure to the universe or how I should think about the meaning of life.
And when I met Gary Shandling, he would recommend these Buddhist books to me like Feather on a fan or turning problems into happiness.
Turning problems into happiness was based on the idea that anytime anything bad happens, you're supposed to be happy because it's giving you an opportunity to work on something.
Oh, I can work on patience or fortitude or something.
I had never heard anything like that in my whole life.
That's what you're supposed to do.
Like, wait, problems are good?
I never, ever had heard that.
And so I became interested in those books.
And then probably some of it is almost like mental hoarding.
Like I would just buy so many self-help books.
And I think sometimes it's hurt me because it's just too much.
And then I just drown in it.
Like oh, I'm supposed to not want anything, but I'm also supposed to list what I want so I can manifest it, you know.
I'm supposed to be here now, but don't live in the future, but I have to plan for it.
You know, like, and I just started passing out.
I love it.
Me too.
I get that.
It's, yeah, you've got to be selective and focused on what you pick up.
I feel like there's always been this.
I don't know whether it's a myth or it feels like something people have said for a long time, and therefore we feel it's true.
And I guess you're the right person to ask, but comedy's often, or humor's often, been seen as hiding something or carrying a certain weight behind it or a pain behind it or a coping mechanism.
Is that true?
And what is it for you?
Over the years.
What I realized is a lot of times when I'm writing is I'm trying to figure my own thinking out.
Like, what am I thinking about this?
I'm just trying to explore myself, maybe a struggle, maybe a question.
So I would you know?
Some people say you know you write the movie to figure out why you write the movie and you're not even sure what you're working on.
So you know, in my career I've been a person who's worked on projects about high school and about college, and about getting somebody pregnant and about maintaining a relationship and about getting sick and about you know.
So I feel like I hit these major life turning points because I feel like oh, I really need to work this through.
But when I'm doing it, I'm not conscious of that.
And then maybe later I'll go.
Oh, I must have been thinking about these issues like friendship and the value of your work when we were doing Funny People.
My mom had been sick and I noticed that when she thought she was going to get better she was happier than when she thought she was going to die.
When she had cancer.
She was always happier than when she thought the medicine was working and she was going to get better.
All her neuroses would come back.
But when she thought she had no hope she kind of dropped everything and became this very much more serene person.
And so I thought, oh.
So I started writing a movie.
It was an Adam Sandler movie about him having an experience like that.
But at the time, I didn't realize that's what I had done.
It took like a while for me to – go, oh, this movie isn't about me and comedy.
This is about my mom and what she went through.
So you'd say that comedy heals pain, not hides it.
Well, it certainly is a road to understanding yourself.
Sometimes, when I'm working with a writer, if I'm overseeing a writer, I'll say I feel like a lot of these movies are about a problem, usually an emotional problem.
And then you think what would have to happen to the character for them to to hit bottom enough to make a change.
Because in life usually you make a change, because something happens, usually something that's not great.
And so in a movie, there's usually some sort of bottom.
Even in the silliest movies, someone crashes.
And then I always say, and what would health look like?
So if they figured it out and at the end they were doing better, what would better look like?
I like that.
And I guess, do you feel after you've made something that you feel better?
Like when you do have that reflection.
Yeah, yeah.
Sometimes, you know, at the end of it, I have a good feeling.
You know, when I worked with Pete Davidson on The King of Staten Island, we talked a lot about sacrifice because I was thinking oh, I've never worked on a movie that's about being there for other people.
Most of the movies are about, you know, emotional situations and people having meltdowns and fighting with other people and just trying to make their lives work.
I've never made a movie about people who are willing to risk their lives for other people.
And I think we all felt a great responsibility to show the lives of first responders and to be respectful and to show the challenges of that for families.
And so when it came out really well, I was especially proud of it because I wanted to do right by all those people.
Yeah yeah, that's beautiful.
That feels like a really nice three like 360.
Yeah, we met all those.
You know the firefighters and a lot of them lost a lot of people in 911 and you know we knew like how sacred this space was, that we were, we were talking about.
Yeah, Your movies have made people laugh, made people happy, made people have great memories around them.
Would you say, are you happy?
Am I happy?
That's the right question.
I mean, I think I'm always trying to figure out how to be happy.
And I think I ebb and flow.
I think I have periods where I get really lost and caught up in my head and in things.
And then every once in a while, it clears up for a little while.
And I'm like, oh, yeah, I feel good about... how everything is and what's going on.
I feel in between tragedies, you know, like, oh, this is a good period.
But then sometimes I just lose it.
Like I lose touch with the thing that makes me feel like I understand where I am in the universe.
Because sometimes, you know, especially now, as everyone's talking about computers and everything changing and the world is changing, where we're like is something happening right now.
I can really get thrown and just obsess on it all day long.
Like, what's the point of all of this?
What are we doing?
It's almost like feeling really happy and loose in my mind, sometimes feels like I'm not doing what I should be doing to make something positive happen.
Interesting.
And that's not really fair on myself.
Yeah.
But it is the feeling like I can't just be like wee, because I look, have you seen what happened today?
Like, what are we supposed to do about this?
And it's, you know, like a deep kind of guilt.
That is again some sort of Fight or flight response, and a childhood thing too.
Like you know, just stay on top of things.
You know, don't let anything slip by you.
As a survival strategy.
So like actually being happy sometimes feels like a violation of my survival strategy.
Wow.
And that's a big thing to like, can I let go of that?
And sometimes I can, and then sometimes I totally can't.
Yeah, and it's so interesting how thank you for going there, because it's so interesting how those things that make you successful and make you organized and make you great at what you do everything comes as this double-edged sword of stopping you from having an experience.
And then, at the same time, there's a beauty to how you feel, because it's wonderful that you feel a sense of responsibility and empathy and compassion, because those are all good things you want to feel.
At the same time, you don't want it to steal your joy.
And so it's such a, yeah, it's interesting living in that landscape.
And as I was listening to you, I was thinking that I think happiness is never not being lost.
It's knowing that you've been lost and found multiple times.
And so that ebb and flow that you spoke about, it's almost like knowing that oh, I've been lost before.
And there's joy in that and there's happiness in that, in that this is the journey back and forth.
But I love what you're saying about needing a overarching structure and overarching almost belief.
Have you ever discovered anything, read anything, that feels that way, that started to kind of scratch that itch?
Or is it something you seek?
Well, kind of like the meditation thing that you're talking about.
You know this idea of returning when you're lost.
It is the experience of meditation, like you're trying to not think and then suddenly you realize oh, I've been thinking for 12 minutes in my meditation and you're not supposed to beat yourself up about it.
You're supposed to celebrate that you realize to return to your empty mind again and that every time you return it's good.
And even if you only let's say, in 20 minutes of meditation you were running stuff for two giant hunks and you only got back twice that you should celebrate it as the greatest success.
That that is a way to look at all of life.
Like, you know, like life is suffering yet we soldier on, right?
And it just, it's a mix and it's always going to be a mix.
It's always going to be up or down, up and down.
But I've never really gotten the exact way to kind of keep returning to something that feels good.
But I did do ayahuasca a couple of years ago.
And it was a wild experience.
And most of it was about trying to let go.
Because I really felt like I was not letting go.
Not just being open, like, that's my issue.
And then at the end, after this long experience, vomiting, you've gone through it.
I don't recommend this to anyone, by the way, because it's crazy.
And I feel like I don't know if it's safe for people.
So it's not anything you can say to do.
But at the end of it, I had this image of Jesus, which is weird because I'm Jewish.
And so it's not the thing that I would think of.
And suddenly I see Jesus on the cross at the end of this eight-hour trip.
And in my head, I'm like, oh, I get what that is.
It's he's there for us and we should be there for each other.
And the whole idea of it just like landed with me.
And I thought, oh, I guess that's it.
It's just like being there for other people.
And that's the one thing that I try to go back to.
Wow, that's beautiful.
Where did you go to do Ayahuasca?
I did it in the state of California.
Oh, okay.
I'm pretty sure it's illegal.
That's amazing.
But it definitely was, for me, very meaningful.
Did you ever do it again?
You're not having the experience, but the shaman is.
Because the shaman takes the ayahuasca also.
That's part of it.
So then suddenly, like, I'm not high, and the shaman's singing to me for eight hours.
And I'm not really even feeling anything.
So then you just got to watch someone dance and sing with a drum.
So I went back again, and then I committed to doing the whole thing.
Yeah, wow, wow.
I mean, that's a pretty special experience to see Jesus and to have that as a take-home.
That's pretty powerful.
Yeah.
No, it really was.
And I tried to take it seriously and hold on to it.
And the funny thing was that after ayahuasca for about six, eight months, I would wake up and it was as if my mind had been working on problems all night.
And when I woke up... it was like telling me what it had figured out.
And so I would just like wake up to these like messages.
And so I'd be like asleep, and then I would get up and in my head I would hear you're not doing any of the things that you asked Leslie to do.
Oh, you know things like that.
You know, like you know all that matters is love, or you know whatever it was, but like it was different every day.
Wow.
And it really felt like I was stepping into a conversation, you know, that was happening.
Wow.
And then it finally faded.
And then you realized it was just Leslie.
Whispering in my ear.
That's amazing.
You've been married for 28 years.
27, yeah.
You've been married for 27 years.
What's the secret to a 27-year marriage that looks happy and fulfilling and wonderful?
Leslie, man, that's the main thing.
I mean, it's a lot of work and you do realize that so much of it is the courage to be honest about it, what's happening, what you're feeling, what you're going through, and to really be there for each other.
But we really enjoy each other.
We love each other, but we're also, I think, kind of engaged and amused and we're creative together and we love our kids and I think that we have a really nice relationship with them.
But at the same time, it's like the work of what's coming up?
What am I struggling with?
How do we make life work?
Our kids moved out.
And it's like, all right, what's life now?
And you're just in this very beautiful partnership to make the best of this life.
Yeah.
How is that curiosity, that musing, that amusement stayed?
What has it been that you've practiced to keep that alive?
I think it's just her.
I don't think there's work there.
I think in life you can get distracted And you can get kind of pulled into things and consumed and off track.
But it's really about kind of getting centered and present, which you know is hard if you're a hypervigilant person and you're just worried about everything being good, you know to kind of clear it all away and be there.
I mean, that's like the work of a lifetime to figure out how to clear it all away and just be there.
Were there moments where you felt you were moving at different paces in careers work life, family and you almost had to find a way to stay connected.
I mean, I think we always supported what we were doing in work creatively.
I think that we realized that we're not always going to work together, but when we do something really special happens and we get to a deep place and, And you know, it's very like funny and real and people feel it, but we're talking about things that are, that are meaningful, and she's so funny and creative and comes up with these amazing ideas.
So it's a real collaboration when we decide to do that kind of work together.
And then we're always supportive on.
You know, if I'm doing a project, you know she's, you know watching cuts and giving me notes.
Like we try to just like help each other, you know, do a good job.
Yeah, yeah.
She's fantastic.
I mean, yeah, whenever you guys work together, I feel like you're spot on.
It is magic.
And that must be just such a bonus, because there's you obviously have this loving relationship at home.
You're having this great relationship at work.
Yeah.
And to hear that it's her and that there's not necessarily a work behind it sounds I mean, it sounds wonderful.
It's like, yeah.
I mean, it's terrifying also because you, you put yourself out there.
Yeah.
And so, so, so if you go, okay, we're going to make a movie as a family and the kids too.
Yeah.
On some level it's crazy because it's like well, if this goes bad, this is a worldwide humiliation.
So I would really feel the pressure you know, as the captain of it, to not make anyone you know look terrible or you know.
But I also think it made it better because I just cared at such a high level.
They obviously cared and did an amazing job.
I think it did the opposite.
It really like focuses you and then you're having kind of an amazing conversation about what do we want to say?
Yeah.
You know about life, about relationships, about marriage, about kids, and so, you know, for years, we have common purpose and I think that was, you know, the best part about it was really all of us as a family moving towards the same goal.
Yeah, that's so special.
I love seeing that and i know you were recently, you know, just seeing your daughter have have her moment.
Both of them have their moments.
It's like it must be so fulfilling.
What do you think was the most important lesson you taught your children when they were young?
That you see them mirroring today.
Leslie and i tried to tell iris and maude that the most important thing is uh, to care about the work and be passionate about it and to be proud of what you're saying in it.
And that all that matters is that.
And that you shouldn't take any work just for your career.
You shouldn't try to figure out how to get successful.
That it'll always come, because you have something to say, something that you want to express, that you feel good about.
And we talked a lot about just having the courage to take the risk.
Because it is scary, you know, making things.
And you do have to gird yourself for rejection and, you know, careers which have highs and lows.
And so in a way, you know, you're saying, you know, you can handle this.
Like, let's, you know, or maybe you don't want to do this.
Which we also said to them many times, like, if this isn't fun for you, because it is hard.
It's hard on the people who have a creative life.
Because, you know, you can go through periods where...
You're like, no one understands me anymore.
And then suddenly it's better again.
And it's like being an adrenaline junkie in a way.
And you don't want them to experience it in that way.
You want them to be proud of what they're contributing.
But it's hard to explain that to kids.
It's all about you're making a contribution.
They're like, what?
Because it took me decades to realize.
Everyone wants someone to walk up to me and tell me they like something that I did, or it made them laugh.
It's easy to not take that in.
But when you do and go, oh, that is the only reason why I did it.
Because this person I bumped into has watched it 11 times.
Yeah.
And it's the thing they turn to that makes them happy.
Yes.
Like that's actually the only reason to do it.
Absolutely.
That and to be able to eat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How do you try and let people down lightly when you're rejecting them?
I imagine people are pitching you crazy ideas all the time.
What have you learned?
You've told us about how you deal with rejection.
What about when you're rejecting other people's ideas?
I think being direct with people and also trying to be constructive with people.
I remember working for James Brooks on this cartoon, The Critic.
And when he would listen to people's pitches for stories, he always gave them a lot of time.
And even when the idea was terrible, he would kick it around from all these angles to see if the room would find something in it.
Like maybe it would... lead to some other inspiration.
And that really had a big effect on me, because someone would pitch something and I would think this is the worst.
Go on to another idea.
And he would go, but what if this?
And what if that?
And he never seemed annoyed.
He seems fascinated by the thought and like, could it work if he did this?
Does she have to be a that?
And I think when you do that to people, even when you say I don't want to make your movie, but you give them the time to say here's why I'm not passionate about it.
Here's what's interesting about it.
Because the truth is, I've turned down things that became big hits and that's happened to me.
It doesn't mean I'm right.
It just means that I don't connect to it.
Someone else might.
What was one of the ones that got away, that you may not have loved, but went on to do something great.
I don't know.
I can think of one off the top of my head.
Usually it's because I don't move fast enough.
Someone sent me a script and it took me too many days to read it, and then they sold it to somebody else.
Yeah.
But I like what you said, that it's not about...
Because it's not about whether it's successful or not.
It's about whether it's meaningful to you or not.
That is such a great metric.
Because if it becomes about what's successful, I mean there's going to be a million things that are successful and you're going to miss out on all of them because there's so many things that are successful every year.
But if it's meaningful to you, you want to be involved.
And I think that's such a great lesson.
I find when I speak to anyone who's creative, you know we had Rick Rubin in here and it was talking about music in that way.
And when I'm talking to you, I'm like I feel like I'm understanding comedy in a different way, because this isn't just.
It's never been as simple as oh yeah, we're just trying to make that person laugh.
It's like there's so much more.
There's just so much more deep intention behind what you're creating and how you're doing it.
Well, I love Rick Rubin's book.
Yeah.
And years ago, Gary Shanling said to me, you should get to know Rick Rubin.
He's like, I think, I don't know, I think there'd be something there.
And so I got to know Rick and he would show me music and I put some music from the band the Avett Brothers in This Is 40 that he had played for me.
And then one day he said, they're about to do a new record with me.
You might want to do a documentary or something.
And I thought well, maybe I should do it, because Gary said you know, Gary was my mentor and and I'm going to follow that.
I'm going to follow that through as if it's like a message from Gary.
And then I, we followed me.
My, my friend, Michael Bonfiglio, followed the David brothers around for a couple of years and made this movie called may, at last, about them making a record with Rick.
Okay.
And it was about two, these two guys, um, who, uh, who are just good guys.
And it was a funny thing because we were making this documentary and we're like, where's the drama?
Cause it's like two good guys making music and working with Rick.
And, and we realized, well, that's the point of the movie.
It's almost like a meditation on creativity.
And they're like, some people aren't assholes.
Some people are kind of great.
And we thought, oh, that's kind of a beautiful thing.
If we could figure out how to make this, like you know, fascinating about a band being good to each other.
And so I always think about, about Rick.
That's so funny.
I didn't know that.
I loved what you said there.
You were talking about, obviously, Gary being one of your mentors.
How important have mentors been in your life?
Gigantic.
I mean, the entire thing.
When I look back I'm so grateful.
You know that.
You know i bumped into gary at a comedy club and he asked me to write jokes for him for the grammys and then hired me at the larry sanders show.
Then he asked me to co-run it the last year.
Then he asked me to direct it.
I never directed before and you know so.
He was like a real angel who just believed in me and kept giving me opportunities.
And now i look back and go wow, those are giant opportunities.
I didn't know anything he really taught me.
And how do you explain those?
How do you make sense of that now, when you reflect on those huge moments that he gave you when you were learning the ropes?
I mean, I remember he wanted to hang out when I was young and writing jokes for him.
And he was living with Linda Doucette.
And I would go over there and just eat with him sometimes and watch TV.
And he was beginning to develop the Larry Sanders show.
And he would show me auditions and scripts.
And I remember thinking, why is he doing this?
Like it was hard for me to go, oh, he's just a good guy.
Like this is so weird because he's like the most talented, funny guy in the world.
And he likes having me around.
And then later in life I thought you know he never had kids, but I feel like that was like his way of doing it.
It was like through me that it was like an experiment in fatherhood.
And I think that, you know, when he was a kid, his brother died. when he was little.
And his parents never really talked about the brother.
And it was discouraged that they just kind of moved on in a very kind of early 1960s way.
And it really hurt Gary and it made him very sensitive in a lot of ways after that.
And I thought that he was nice to me in the way he wished his parents were to him.
That's what I thought he was doing.
Wow.
So in one sense, you were able to give him a gift too.
Yeah.
I think he was trying to prove that it was possible to be purely giving like that.
I never knew it at the time.
I just thought, oh, Gary's a great friend.
He's so sweet.
But then later, other people would tell me like, oh, Gary felt very paternal with you.
And I thought, oh, yeah, because I went through all my emails after he died from him.
And every email, where I asked him for something, he said yes.
For like 10 years, I just scrolled through and I'm like, he said yes every single time.
And other people would be like, he says no to me to everything.
And I just started crying.
It was just such a beautiful thing to scroll through like someone just consistently just being there.
That's so beautiful.
And asking for not that much in return, other than to not screw up the Larry Sanders show.
That's so special.
What's beautiful is you've done that for so many others too, I feel.
Like that seems to be something you live on.
Yeah.
And it's the fun part too.
I mean, it's, you know, I like to do it.
A lot of it is from Gary, but also it's really fun to work with somebody who is very inspired and needs some help understanding what they're doing.
Yeah.
But know they're doing something amazing and you can help them, and you go oh yeah, just i could give them some of the wisdom that i learned over the years and this person can actually pull off the thing that they're trying to do.
Yes, like they're good enough without me.
But i can make this way easier if i say watch out for this, watch out for that.
Yeah, That's beautiful.
Judd, it has been amazing learning from you.
I feel like I've gained so much wisdom about, whether it's the comedy industry, whether it's about resilience, whether it's about breaking through barriers, believing in yourself even when you don't all the way through, to just how much work that you've done.
We end every On Purpose interview, the final five.
These questions have to be answered in one sentence maximum.
Although I break that rule often, so...
Well, we'll see how well we do, but Judd Apatow, these are your final five.
The first question is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?
Don't live in here, live in here.
Ram Dass said that to me when I interviewed him for his podcast.
He goes, hear bad, hear good.
Tell me about your interview with him.
He asked me to interview him.
And it was over Zoom.
And in the middle of it, Gary Shandling.
I invited Gary Shandling to sit in.
And halfway through, he showed up.
And the two of us were just trying to make him laugh, saying dumb jokes.
We were like, are you mad at Eckhart Tolle?
Because you're like the be here now guy.
And he's the now guy.
And he was just laughing.
But he also said, you know.
I am loving awareness.
And he said a lot of things that were really reducible that anytime I think about them deeply affect me.
And the other thing i noticed about it i have a photograph of of me and gary.
Uh, you know, it's like a still of our side of the zoom yeah, and in the in the photograph, gary looks purely happy.
Wow, and i thought i don't know if i've ever seen gary look happy and serene, like how he looked when he was talking to ramdas.
Oh, that's beautiful.
I love that uh.
Question number two what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?
Stop crying or I'll give you a reason to cry.
Is that advice?
Who said that to you?
That was like a parental thing when I was a kid.
Okay.
They said you know when you're doing your TV pilot and they give you notes.
If the note is wrong, don't do it, because if you screw up your show –.
They won't say, you know what, let's make your show anyway because I gave you that bad note.
But I took it like to really fight.
And I would just like refuse to take certain notes out of self-protection.
I took it too seriously.
I didn't realize that there's a real give and take and you have to respect the people that you're working with.
And later on I realized like if the people who are trying to help you, if they think you think they're idiots, they'll try to destroy you.
That there's a lot of ego involved in this exchange for people when they kind of take a risk to tell you what they think of your thing.
And that you have to be very respectful to their mindset and their ego.
In the same way, I'm so sensitive.
Wow, that's profound.
Question number three, what makes a good friend?
It's funny because I was talking to David Milch, who is one of my mentors, and he was talking about he had a friend when he was a kid, growing up, and he said we would just laugh so much.
They were like 12.
They would crack up.
And he said you know that way you behave with your friends, where you never, ever have to think about what you're going to say to them, because you just know they're going to get it.
You know they're okay with it.
And so you're in this crazy, joyful flow.
And then he said, that's what I think writing should feel like.
Yeah.
That's how I think of your friendship.
At its best is that feeling of total relaxation confidence hilarity, connection.
Yeah.
Well said.
I love that.
You have so many great friends in the industry outside and it's beautiful to hear that.
And that's, I can agree more.
It's.
I feel like I'm around my best friends, when I don't have to filter anything and we can hash it out if we have to, but yeah, there's no filter.
Question number four, what's something that you used to value that you don't value anymore?
Well, I'm a hoarder.
So I've always saved everything.
Like I've really saved everything.
You can tell by the book.
The pictures.
It's 570 pages of scanning of my like childhood autographs.
It's amazing.
My James Garner and Jack Klugman autographs.
Like I saved things when I was 10.
Like I was the Smithsonian.
Yeah.
And you know that thing where like, oh, there's an article about you in a magazine.
And instead of getting one copy, you get 20.
And then you put them in a box and you can't throw it out.
Like, you literally can't throw it out.
And when I put this book together, I thought, I need to let go of this stuff.
Because it's mentally unhealthy.
And also...
If I could let go of it, I could probably connect more to the spirit of all of it.
I shouldn't need to hold on to some strings.
I'm glad you did.
Yeah.
So I scanned it all and put it all in the book.
So now I should throw out like seven storage spaces worth of crap.
But you haven't yet.
I haven't yet.
But I'm really working towards like not needing it anymore.
That's great.
I'm glad you didn't.
I thought it was remarkable.
I mean, the amount of stuff you've saved and scanned and shared in the book, it's unbelievable.
I wish everyone was able to tell their story that visually, because that's what takes you back to that time.
It's so hard to do it through imagination and you saving all of this means we don't have to, so...
Well, I, you know, I thought I want, I want to go through all my stuff.
I scanned everything and then I had like 400,000 photos.
So I spent a year laying the whole book out with no writing.
And then I took about six, eight months and I tried to do the book with a lot of like little essays and captions so that it felt like I was explaining the book to you.
Yes.
If you open any page, it's me going, Oh, let me tell you what that is.
And, uh, I think it's a fun read because of that, because you can open to any page.
Totally.
And I also have all the projects that failed and explained what they were and why they failed.
It's not just a success thing.
No, absolutely.
No, I think that was the best part about it.
It's so real.
Even today, you've shared so many things that I feel are not the highlights.
There's so much.
Fifth and final question.
We ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show.
If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
The thing that it's such like a corny bumper sticker, but every time I hear it I think wow, if people really live this, it would be meaningful, which is you don't know what anyone is going through.
Be kind.
And I did this documentary about Mel Brooks for HBO that's going to be on in January.
And he's 99 years old.
So I said, what do you tell your grandkids?
What advice do you take from them? this century on earth.
And he said, be kind.
And I think that's it.
Yeah.
Well said.
Chad Apatow, the book's called Comedy Nerd.
We're going to put the link in the description to go and grab your copy.
I want you all to clip on TikTok and Instagram the pieces that really resonated with you, that connected with you, the stories that you're going to remember and share.
I
Again, I learned so many nuggets of wisdom from Judd today.
And Judd, I'm so grateful that you not only lived your life, shared it in this beautiful visual way with all of us.
And I hope I get to spend a lot more time with you because this was too much fun.
So thank you so much.
Thank you.
So grateful to you and really appreciate it.
All right.
Thank you.
Take care.
If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to build more.
I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success and the secret to genuinely loving what you do.
If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you.
Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value.
Like as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value.
That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it.
