About halfway through this interview with Judd Apatow, I make a Beatles comparison, which is about as hyperbolic as you can get when making trying to create an analogy in a positive light (it’s the antithesis of Godwin’s law). But, hyperbole and the lack of an ability to come up with a better analogy off the top of my head aside, my point was that Lennon and McCartney had the ability to edit each other and bring the best out of each other. And, yes, there is something special about seeing two comedy minds like Apatow and Amy Schumer come together to produce something as wonderful as Trainwreck.
Trainwreck is Apatow’s first directorial effort that he didn’t also write. Written by Schumer, Apatow found himself, for the first time, in a position of telling someone else’s story. Whereas Apatow could usually change the story however he saw fit while filming, he would consult here with Schumer to make sure they were capturing her vision. It’s an interesting dynamic between these two.
Schumer plays Amy, a New York City journalist – who, in her free time, likes booze and sex – assigned a story on a sports surgeon, Aaron (Bill Hader), who has a roster of world-class athletes as his patients. (LeBron James and Amar’e Stoudemire both have memorable roles in the film that are much more than cameos.) Along the way, Amy and Aaron start dating, and Trainwreck becomes a truly unique “romantic comedy” in a time when romantic comedies no longer seem to exist.
On the morning I was supposed to talk to Apatow, he threw out his back, significantly delaying the start time. While waiting for Apatow to recover, I noticed that even with his injury, he was still had the time to tweet about Bill Cosby’s abhorrent behavior (something Apatow has been doing almost nonstop for the last few months).
Reading that Cosby tweet from earlier, I’m reading it with even more vitriol because of your added back pain.
Well, you’re exactly right. Someone has to take the heat on this, and it’s going to be America’s favorite dad.
I was reading Twitter earlier, and I saw a joke that the only thing that could be bigger than the same sex marriage Supreme Court decision and the Confederate flag coming down is a Freaks and Geeks revival. Anyway, the ball is in your court.
Well, as I always say, I think most of them are dead or in jail at this point, so it’s a hard thing to revive.
LeBron James is in this movie, are you friends with him now? Like, can you text him?
Can I text LeBron James? I have an email. You know, “friends” might be a strong word, but very friendly collaborators might be better.
I didn’t know if after the NBA Finals, you send a “tough break” note.
Well, I did not do that, but Amy spoke with him. And we love him. It was one of the great experiences of my career having LeBron show up on set. Because that’s amazing, it’s like having Reggie Jackson on the set or Babe Ruth or something. He was the nicest guy and so funny. And really game and open to do it the way we do it. He didn’t try to control the process; he didn’t say, “Oh, I can’t do that because I’m worried about my image.” He treated it like he was another actor on the set doing his work. And it shows because his performance is fantastic. And I’m really proud of what he did because there are a lot of cameos and he’s a big part of the movie.
LeBron will get the press, but Amar’e Stoudemire has some big scenes.
Yeah, Amar’e had a difficult part! He was a guy who had to get surgery and he had broad comedy to play.
He had to do a prat fall.
He was really strong. I always like working with people you don’t expect to see in these movies like James Taylor or Eminem. I remember when James Franco was in Knocked Up and he was person that Katherine Heigl was interviewing when she vomited and realized that she was pregnant. And he was so hilarious, he had this line where he said, “If this is a prank show, I’m not into it.”
When I first heard you were doing Trainwreck, I remember being excited that this would really raise Amy Schumer’s profile. But she did that on her own before the movie was even released.
Well, you know, I’m thrilled that her show has exploded like this. It’s always been good, but it just gets stronger and stronger and people have really caught on to the amazing work she’s doing. We certainly were hopeful that her season would raise her visibility and stature, so that when the movie came out, you wanted to get to know her better. You knew a lot of her ideas from watching the show and when you see the movie, you see her as a person. And it’s a great compliment to the TV show.
To that point, there’s a scene in the movie that’s very sad and touching, and I really hadn’t seen that side of her before.
She’s a fantastic actress. She was an actress before she became a stand-up comedian, so she really knew what she was doing. And some of the scenes are very, very difficult. It was an exciting thing to just watch her perform every day.
What do you think was the most difficult?
I think that scene is very, very difficult. She’s playing a very vulnerable person; she’s the type of person who acts out as a way to avoid intimacy. As a way to avoid intimacy, in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, they hide in a stock room. And other people avoid intimacy by sleeping around and having boyfriends that they don’t really like that much.
You didn’t write Trainwreck; is there a big difference for you when directing a movie that you didn’t write?
The difference is, I’m trying to understand her and her vision and execute the way where her ideas come through. So, when I’m directing, I might come in in the morning and throw out everything because I don’t have anyone to answer to. But, when I’m working with Amy, my ideas can’t supersede her ideas. If she says, “I feel these are the beats of the scene,” I’m trying to find the best way to make that work. If I disagree strongly, then we debate the function of the scene together and come to an answer that we are both happy with. But I’m never shooting anything that she’s not thrilled about.
Being familiar with your work and her work, this is a terrible comparison, but how Lennon and McCartney together made something they couldn’t make on their own. I know that’s an outlandish comparison.
Well, I feel like it’s a little more like, using your analogy, The Beatles and George Martin. I’m saying to her, “Hey, I think this might work better if you add a rock trumpet to it.” It’s her song, and every once in awhile I’m arranging the strings.
This is arguably your first movie where the main protagonist is a woman. Speaking to Paul Feig, he believes there are different beats in a woman’s comedic voice and he knows those better than he does with men. Do you agree with that? Is there a difference while directing?
Well, I don’t think it is the first movie where the lead is a woman. In This Is 40, it’s a couple. And Knocked Up is about two couples. And Freaks and Geeks, you would say the lead is Lindsay Weir. So, it’s not really that different than any of those movies. What I think is interesting, I’m trying to collaborate with very strong women with very strong visions about what they want to say who have their own unique way of telling stories and own comedic style. So, people like Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo or Lena Dunham or Amy have their own way of doing things. And it’s really fun to collaborate with them and try to help them get their ideas across in the strongest possible way.
There’s an elaborate, touching dance sequence in this movie. I’ve seen movies where something like this goes terribly wrong. How conscious were you that you had to hit just the right note?
It’s very hard to come up with endings to movies that haven’t been done before or that touch you in a new way. And it is very easy for things to be sappy and sentimental and it usually happens when the moment isn’t earned or isn’t organic to the story somehow. So, we were very careful about it. It’s always a miracle when it works. I mean, it’s not like on paper anyone is sure if Wilson Phillips comes out at the end of the movie and sings a song people have nostalgia for, that’s going to move people. It’s an experiment. You just never know until you get to the editing room if it has the emotional effect that you’re hoping for. I don’t know that people care if Steve Carell dances at the end of The 40-Year-Old Virgin when we’re shooting it. I’m hopeful, but I’m also thinking if this is lame we’ll cut it out and I’ll end it at the wedding. Or I’ll end it on the street when she kisses him. You’re just guessing and you try to do a good job with it and pray for the best.
One of my notes from the movie just reads, “John Cena!” with an exclamation point.
Well, John Cena was somebody I wasn’t that familiar with, and I just saw his audition tape. I didn’t even see him in person, and he made me laugh really hard just as a comic actor. Then, we did a table read and he flew in for it – he still didn’t have the part – and he got bigger laughs than anyone at the table. And then when we shot, he was the killer again. He’s a really super-hilarious, talented guy. And I’m thrilled that, in the movie, he’s as strong as he was when we first met him. I’m like, “Can you even capture how funny this is in a movie? Maybe he’s just funny in the room when you see him do it?” And he’s such a gentleman; it’s always exciting when somebody is just crushing it. It’s like watching Steve Carell in Anchorman and you just think, I can’t believe how funny this is. Is this going to be as funny in the movie as it appears on the set? It’s a thrill.
And you have a new book out, Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy.
Yeah, all the money goes to 826, which is a charity Dave Eggers started that provides free tutoring and literacy programs to kids around the country. I’m very excited about it because it made the Bestseller list, and it’s the book that I wish someone had written when I was a kid. It’s all these long interviews I did over 30 years where they talk about how they do their work, but they also talk about their lives. I thought it would just be in the humor section and no one on Earth would buy it. I thought it would be next to an old Garfield book or something.
Weren’t you at a college radio station when most of these interviews happened?
High school! When I was in high school, I started a radio show to meet and interview comedians because I wanted to ask them how they did it. I couldn’t think of a way to get anyone to talk to me.
And publicists didn’t know they were setting up an interview with a high school kid.
Yeah, they didn’t know. I’d just show up with my giant tape recorder. But I interviewed Jerry Seinfeld in 1983, but then for the book, I interviewed him again in 2014. So one interview was like, “What do you want to do in your career?” And the follow up was, “How did you feel about it? How did it go? What do you want to do now?”
Mike Ryan has written for The Huffington Post, Wired, Vanity Fair and New York magazine. He is senior entertainment writer at Uproxx. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
