TV and film writer and producer Judd Apatow returns to his stand-up comedy roots in a special for Netflix; The Black List is an annual compilation of highly regarded, but unproduced scripts that are floating around town.
Judd Apatow wants to know if he can still do stand-up comedy
Judd Apatow's love of stand-up comedy started early. As a teen he washed dishes at a Long Island comedy club to so he watch comedians as he was too young to get into the club any other way.
In high school he had a radio show and was able to land interviews with comedians including Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno. You can hear some of those in Apatow's 2015 interview recorded for Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
Naturally, this all led to a stint as a stand-up comedian himself.
But by 1992 Apatow was getting more work as a writer than as a comedian, so he switched gears. Since then his success as a writer, producer and director includes the beloved TV show, "Freaks and Geeks," and the movies "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up." He's also been the executive producer of "Girls" and "Crashing," and he was a producer on the 2017 film, "The Big Sick."
While working with Amy Schumer on the 2015 film, "Trainwreck," Apatow found he was getting the stand-up itch. He attended some of her sets at a comedy club and realized how much he missed being on stage. Apatow began doing the occasional stand-up sets in Los Angeles and it led to the making of his new Netflix comedy special, "The Return."
Judd Apatow spoke with The Frame's John Horn about his love of stand-up and his go-to topics — marriage, parenting, and politics. Below are some highlights of their conversation.
Interview Highlights
Screenwriting versus stand-up:
Doing stand-up is much different because it really is like a speech that you are punching up night after night, and you really are presenting yourself in a raw fashion. When I tell a story in a movie a lot of it is made up. Some things are inspired by things that happened in life and I'm trying to hit certain themes by telling this story. But when I'm doing stand-up, I'm just talking directly to the people and saying, This is my life, this is what happens, this is how I feel about it. It's a direct conversation. And it feels connected to the movies because I think people know me from the movies, they can tell that this stand-up is an extension of it. For instance, I live with my wife and my daughter. My daughter's 15 now, my other daughter went to college. So onstage I say, "Four people is a family, but three people is a child observing a weird couple, and that's what my life is right now." And that's what I'm doing, I'm talking about a lot of the same things, but just directly.
How the dilemmas of modern parenting factor into his comedy:
Modern parenting is about the fact that we are so confused about what will hurt our children: Is it bad that they are putting these photos on Instagram? Are they turning their brains into mush by being on social media and being on the computer and binging TV? And I think that the parents are a mess because it is the equivalent of being mad that Elvis is shaking his hips on "The Ed Sullivan Show." We really don't know yet what will damage them. Or maybe this is the future and they need to fully engage it. So that's a lot of what I talk about — What is right? Is it good or bad?
I think we all wonder about this need for approval. All these kids are putting their photos up and they want likes and they want for people to tell them that the photos look good and to say nice things. What is that doing to kids? And the truth is, I don't really have an answer, but I do talk about it with my kids constantly and I think we have a pretty good conversation about it. And so far it's been okay, but I don't know. I try to think, What would I have done as a kid? I would have been more obsessed than anyone. I used to go to the public library to look up articles of Lenny Bruce dying. I wanted information so badly, what would I have done if I had endless information? I don't know.
How comedy helps us understand the world:
Comedy is an important way for us to process how much news and information is out there. If you watch Seth Meyers every night, or "The Daily Show," they are pretty reliable interpreters of what is going on. I feel like we have this problem where people tend to watch news and comedy that already agrees with their point of view. So, I think that's a difficult thing. But I also think that for a younger generation, they are probably watching a lot of those shows and developing their way of watching news and deciding what they believe or do not believe. So I do think it's very important. And, every artist decides for themselves how political they want to be.
I don't think it's anyone's responsibility to jump into the muck and comment about it every day. There are certain issues that trouble me deeply, and a lot of that is about disrespecting women or the abuse of young people in Hollywood. If something is really hurting people, I find it difficult to not speak up when others may not be, and saying, We can't let this happen.
Getting on The Black List won't guarantee your script's success — but it can't hurt
The Black List is an annual tradition in Hollywood going back 10 years now.
If you’re not familiar, the Black List is a tally of the most popular, but un-produced scripts that were shopped around in Hollywood over the past year. The list has been a springboard for up-and-coming writers to get their work read by industry big-wigs, and a few Blacklist scripts — "Argo," "Spotlight" and "The Imitation Game," to name a few — have gone on to win Academy Awards.
But who are the people voting on these scripts? Black List founder Franklin Leonard came by today with some answers and to talk about this year’s list.
Interview Highlights:
What it takes to be a Black List voter:
If you are an executive at a major studio, major film financier, [or] production company that's had a film in major release in the past three years, you are an eligible voter. That is roughly 600-700 executives every year, depending on the contractions and expansions of the industry. Roughly half [of them] vote. That's how we ended up with 275.
On the diversity of Black List voters:
I think the executive corps is, generally speaking, a little more diverse than the upper echelons of Hollywood's green light committees, for example. They are less diverse than America and more diverse than the feature films that are made.
On the ever-increasing focus on women's stories and writers who are women:
I think we're really starting to see a sea change of executives who love scripts that are either written by women or about women. I think the real material question going forward is: Will green-light decision makers make and finance these movies and give them the support in the marketplace that allows them to be successful?
On how much influence The Black List can have on a script:
I'm always hesitant to overclaim the role that The Black List plays, for no other reason than it's self-serving and I'd rather deal with concrete evidence. Here's what I can say: Without question, a script being on the list drives a ton of attention, both to the script and the writer. A ton of people will read these scripts over the holidays who have the ability either by attaching themselves — as directors or actors or producers or as financiers or agents or whatever — to catalyze these scripts towards production ... There's tons of anecdotal evidence to suggest that the list catalyzed people's attention, but at the end of the day, no one is making a movie because it was on The Black List. They're making the movie because they read it on The Black List and they loved the script and decided they wanted to make it, or thought that they could make money by making the film.
On Kate Hagen's Black List blog post analyzing incidents of sexual violence in spec scripts:
When you're trying to get into an industry, it is inevitable that you mirror what you see in the industry. So if the industry is making content that overwhelmingly represents a certain point of view about gender, I don't think it's terribly surprising, though it is also terribly unfortunate that people trying to write their way into the film business ape that. I've been thinking a lot recently about that. While our current president was bragging to Billy Bush about grabbing women, we had one of the most powerful men in the industry in Harvey Weinstein actually doing that. As much as Hollywood likes to pat itself on the back for being progressive ... I think we have to look at ourselves, the content that we produce, the people who we choose to make these stories and the stories we choose to tell. At a minimum, I think we're complicit in the situation that we find ourselves, if not responsible.