Judd Apatow Breaks Down Scenes from His Movies

Is this called a telestrator?

Is that the right word?

What do you call this? [device beeps]

Hi, this is Judd Apatow, writer, director or producer,

and today we're going to break down some of the scenes

from my massive cannon.

[funky music]

No, Kelly Clarkson.

We're gonna have a baby together.

How would you do it?

I don't know, I'm poisoning you.

All right, I'll be using the John Madden,

Telestrator to point some things out

and every time I lean over,

you'll see, I am in fact going bold.

[camera clicks]

This first scene is from the TV show, Freaks And Geeks.

It's an episode called Dead Dogs And Gym Teachers.

This is based on when I was a kid.

Most of my friends played sports and I would go home

I guess, lonely and watch comedians on television

like the Mike Douglas show and Merv Griffin

'cause all normal kids watch Merv Griffin every single day.

And one of the things I would do probably to numb

and comfort myself was I would eat that's right.

Kraft cheese.

I think the idea you're supposed to get

is that this is what he does every day,

which for me probably just three to five days a week.

So I was much cooler than him.

So this is the meal that I would eat almost all the time.

What is it?

I'll tell you 'cause this is my recipe.

It is Entemans cake chocolate with the chocolate,

you gotta do that.

What else?

You've got your grilled cheese and your milk,

and how do you eat it?

One bite of grilled cheese, one bite of cake.

That's how you do it.

This episode was all Who music that's right?

The entire episode was the Who,

we thought.

I wonder if they'll let us use their songs,

and weirdly they said yes.

So they were like five Who songs in this.

And that was very meaningful to me

'cause as a kid, I used to go down to the basement

with my friend, Gary Frank and Michael Strauss,

we would put Who songs on and we would lip sync

them with a black and white camera and do it for hours.

And we were just in bliss.

So just the fact that the Who didn't tell us to screw off

and we asked for their songs,

I felt connected to the Who.

I loved Quadrophenia 'cause Quadrophenia seemed to capture

a lot of my teenage angst and the song I'm one.

Was always one of my favorites.

It was about feeling like a geeky person

that wasn't really understanding the culture, the fashion.

And so this seemed appropriate for Bill.

♪ Leaves start falling, come down is calling him ♪

♪ Loneliness start sinking in ♪

So right there is my mentor.

That's the great Garry Shandling and he was one

of the people I used to watch as a kid

on the Dinah Shore show.

And this was just my way of tipping my hat

to him because when I first got into comedy

he hired me to write the Grammy's for him.

And then later hired me to write on the Larry Sanders show,

and then allowed me to direct the Larry Sanders show.

So that was the first time I ever directed.

And this episode here,

I think was the third thing that I'd ever directed.

And I had to ask Jake Kasdan,

the director of Jumanji for help.

He was our producing director on the show

'cause Judd didn't know how to direct.

So this is what we call joy.

Having camaraderie with a stranger, making you laugh.

This is what comedy's all about.

Escape, connection, laughing with food in your mouth

which you know is kind of disgusting

but you're alone and nobody can see it.

The key to this scene is how did I get Martinson

to laugh?

Everybody on the staff, drew pictures of penises.

I just kept holding up pictures of penises.

I think the penises were of each person

who worked on the show.

So we tried to identify each person

with what we thought their penis looked like

or maybe their face was on the penis.

So he's not actually laughing at Garry Shandling.

[funky music]

This is a scene that a lot of people talk

about from the show,

because I think, you know, we all relate

to feeling lonely as a kid and feeling excluded

and the, you know, seeing Bill be so happy and how we use TV

as an escape was a very moving for people.

It was a big scene for me because it was so personal

and Jake hasn't afterwards said, that's the most

personal thing you've ever done and that's the best thing

you've ever done.

And it really pointed the way for me to try to write more

about my life and my feelings than I probably

was before then in my career.

So it changed a lot of things this scene.

This next scene is I guess,

the famous chest waxing scene from The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

This is your first time getting body wax?

Yes, it is.

Take off your shirt.

Okay.

Oh, we're gonna need more wax.

I'm staying.

This is gonna be good.

This is an idea that Steve had.

We were trying to think of ways

that they would try to fix him up and make him look better.

And we knew that was kind of a generic idea

that had been done in a zillion movies.

And Steve said, maybe you should wax my chest

and do it for real.

It'll probably be funny if he really hurt me.

And that was his commitment to the craft.

I will point out that this young woman

whose name I do not remember right now.

And I apologize is a liar.

That's right.

She is a liar because she said

that she was a professional waxier and you know what?

Maybe she had waxed once or twice,

but I think she was just a great actress who said

she could wax to get this gig and then really injured

Steve and you know what?

I'm glad that she lied and I'm glad she did.

'Cause if she was better at waxing,

this wouldn't have been as funny.

I think these areas have been pre-waxed.

I don't think this was the first time he was body waxed,

years later, I realized that I think Steve lied to me

and said he had never done it before.

Look at the arrangements of his hair.

It all seems at the same length.

I don't think that's a natural hair design.

I think Steve is fully manscaped coming into this scene.

So the idea here was could we capture

what was really happening in the moment?

So we have like five cameras on this,

maybe more and there's no rehearsal.

We just said, let's let it rip.

[indistinct]

[body wax peels]

[man groans]

You [device beeps]

[man groans]

I'm sorry.

That's just your job.

This is also them trying not to laugh.

So this is, you know, holding back laughter

and that didn't work that well.

And we weren't sure exactly for Romany and Seth and Paul,

what their response would be.

So these are the three reactions you get happiness, disgust,

I think this you would say can't handle it,

from Romany.

You've got your Sonic Youth shirt there,

also keep in mind fake tattoos.

This is in the ear of Pete Davidson where people get

the real ones.

Okay, you know what?

I got a weak stomach.

That's all I could really take.

All right, I'll see all.

Jay.

Be tough man, you got it.

She is too close to the nipple.

That's very dangerous.

He almost lost a nipple there.

And notice this, that is real hair.

So everything you're gonna see going forward is improvised.

The only thing that's really written are the curses.

I had Seth write out tons of curses and then another list

which was clean words that could be said during this.

And we would just yell them

out to Steve or he would look at the list

Ready?

Yep.

One, two.

[man groans] [device beeps]

You pulled up. [indistinct]

[foreign language]

No, Kelly Clarkson.

Kelly Clarkson was on the clean list.

This is all based on going to Action Park as a kid,

and kids would go down these little cars

down these cement tracks and they would always get hurt

and shave their skin off on the track.

And then they would spray disinfectant

on it at the nurse's office,

and every single person cursed out the nurse.

So this was based on that observation.

Paul realized that it looked like a face.

And so that is when Paul improvised.

You look like a man-o-lantern.

Which was the joke of the day.

And then that's all real hair,

no production design, no set dressing.

That nipple,

you're really not supposed to go with the nipple.

That nipple is lucky.

Some people have scenes that will define their careers

at the end of Casablanca, the end of Citizen Kane.

And I know on my dying day,

this is in memoriam clip,

and I've learned to live with that.

[camera clicks]

So this is from Knocked Up.

This is the morning after Seth and Catherine make love.

And now they're having an awkward breakfast

with the whole family.

This is Iris.

That is Maud.

And this is basically her audition for euphoria.

I think Sam Levinson saw this and then he said,

one day in the great distant future

I'm gonna have her create a play

and destroy everyone's lives.

I believe she may even be strapped into the chair

'cause how we would shoot it is we would just lock them

in the chair usually after not feeding them for most

of the day so that they would wanna stay there to eat

because they were so hungry.

See, this is real hunger and all the food is unhealthy.

And then this usually leads to like a massive crash.

So you have to get the whole scene really fast

before the tears begin.

I love [indistinct]

You guys wanna hear something neat?

We're gonna have a baby together.

What?

Yeah baby.

Well, you're not married.

Aren't you supposed to be married to have a baby?

You don't have to be.

But they should be because they love each other,

and people who love each other get married and have babies.

Be amazing.

Leslie Mann and this house,

a beautiful house on the west side in LA.

And after this movie,

we bought a house that looked just like it.

Eight houses away because we are demented,

and don't know the difference between reality and cinema.

Well, I think a stork, he drops it down in it,

and then a hole goes in your body,

and there's blood everywhere coming out of your head.

And then you push your belly button,

and then your butt falls off and then you hold your butt,

and you have to dig and you find the little baby.

Now this is all improv.

So you gotta say, for a nine year old,

maybe eight at that time, pretty good.

'cause we didn't feed any of that.

Then I'm pretty sure she believes

you dig and you dig til to this day,

this is how she thinks babies were born.

[device clicks]

This is a scene in This Is 40.

Where they go to a hotel to get away from the kids

and suddenly,

they get along perfectly.

See, you know what I love about us,

you can still surprise me.

I figured for sure

you dug me out with one fell swoop poison,

but you would extend it over a series

[woman laughs] of months.

So this is a scene that a lot of people talk

about because they both talk about murdering each other.

This is something that came out

during rehearsals that we thought maybe it's too far

and no one talks about this or thinks these things.

And then this became one of the most popular scenes

in the movie because what we found

out is that everyone has a plan to murder their spouse.

I'm poisoning you.

I poison your cupcakes that you pretend not to eat every day

and just put like enough into just slowly weaken you.

I love it.

Now I have to say, this is Leslie's real plan,

but she can't do it anymore 'cause now I know.

Now I know it's a plan.

How would you do it?

Wood chipper

A wood chipper?

Yeah. A wood chipper?

That's a Fargo inspired murder.

And you know, that's a more violent kind of murder.

I think that Leslie's idea, you know, it's gentle.

It takes time.

Maybe it shows a little more compassion while murdering

but Paul's idea is a straight wood chipper.

He doesn't even say,

if she'd be unconscious when put in the wood chipper.

So I'd have to say that that's really messed up.

[camera clicks]

So this is a scene from The Bubble.

Which is my new movie that's gonna be on Netflix

till the day you die.

It does not go away.

I've been told it just, it exists in a digital space

till the end of time.

Basically during the pandemic,

I didn't know what I could do to be helpful to other people.

And I realized the only thing that I have to offer

is to make a really stupid movie,

and that's apparently what we did.

[crowd claps]

I just wanna say,

I am so lucky to be able to work with a cast, this talented.

This is your car and I'm gonna step in and take the wheel.

Now this driver's gonna be a little crazy,

gonna head towards the railing a couple times,

I might even hit the railing.

Some of you might not even survive,

but I've got the end of the road in my sight.

Well, what this scene is about is,

they're about to shoot a movie,

they're in the bubble.

They have hope that it'll be a great movie.

And the truth is that most movies turn out to be shit.

And no matter how hard you work or how much you try,

it usually doesn't work out.

So Fred's character here.

He does not realize that everything is about to fall apart.

Our director, Darren Iger. [crowd cheers]

Thank you.

Fred Armisen.

So he's, you know, kind of a Sundance winning director,

you know, a lot of times someone wins Sundance with a movie

that they made that costs like a million dollars.

And then they get a Marvel movie

with a hundred million budget

and they're in a little bit over their heads,

you know, right here, we got a David Duchovny,

you know, from the exiles and he's in a relationship

with Leslie in the movie there like a couple

like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

who breaks up and gets back together all the time.

Right there, you got Keegan Michael Key.

He plays kind of a superstar that may have

started his own religion,

but that doesn't really happen, does it?

Right here, you've got Iris,

that is my daughter who plays a TikTok star who has tons

of followers and has been forced in the movie

even though she doesn't know how to act

because she has so many followers

and I can't imagine that ever happens.

And then right here,

you've got the great Galen Hopper who plays, you know,

kind of her creepy friend.

We don't know what she's up to.

She's up to trouble.

And this is Leslie again.

And right there is the great Guz Con,

and also the wonderful Peter Serafinowicz,

and these are two of the funniest people

that I've ever got to work with.

According to Guz, we are gonna work together

for the rest of our lives.

He's my new Leonardo DiCaprio.

And I guess I'm Scorsese in that equation

but maybe he meant Leonardo DiCaprio and James Cameron.

I'll ask him later.

Thank you very much Vanity Fair for letting me show

you how the sausage is made.

I hope you all enjoyed it.

And for you film students out there

I hope this has influenced your work

and helps you in your careers for the rest of your lives.