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As A Jewish Man Who Has No Interest In Judaism Whatsoever, There's Something In Me That Says When Bad Things Have Happened In The Past, People Were Supposed To Get More Active And Speak Up And Prevent Them. That's What's Important To Me Is That Everybody - And I Don't Care What Side You're On. You Can Disagree With Me, But Everyone Better Get Active. Everybody Better Vote And Be Thoughtful.

-Judd Apatow

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As A Jewish Man

Judd Apatow

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As A Jewish Man Who Has No Interest In Judaism Whatsoever, There's Something In Me That Says When Bad Things Have Happened In The Past, People Were Supposed To Get More Active And Speak Up And Prevent Them. That's What's Important To Me Is That Everybody - And I Don't Care What Side You're On. You Can Disagree With Me, But Everyone Better Get Active. Everybody Better Vote And Be Thoughtful.

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It's Funny When People Debate About Music, Because They Get So Passionate About What They Enjoy.

Every Joke Is An Experiment. When You Sit, Alone, And Write A Script, Or Just A Joke, You Really Have No Idea If It Will Succeed.

I Wanted To See How Funny I Could Be Without Making The Choice That Every 10 Minutes Something Big And Visual Had To Happen.

There's Something So Scary About Trying Out New Material And Being Completely Comfortable Jumping Into The Abyss With A Comedic Idea.

I Used To Scream At Everybody At The Beginning Of My Career. I'd Get Really Emotional. I'd Project All My Issues About My Parents And Safety Onto The Executives, So Every Conversation Where They Gave A Note Was Life Or Death And You Don't Love Me.

I Think Watching Too Much Tv As A Kid Led Me To Being Very Uncomfortable In New Situations. To This Day, When I Drop My Kids Off At School, I Still Feel Like I'm In 9th Grade And I'm Uncomfortable And Insecure. Like Anyone Is Paying Any Attention.

Sometimes You Need To Get Away For A Few Weeks Just To Figure Out Who You Are Again.

I Think That Everything I Do Tends To Root For The Underdog.

Parents Don't Realize That When They Teach You About The Holocaust Too Early, It Ruins You For Life.

Most People In The World Of Comedy At Least Are Multi-hyphenates, So People Who Direct Are Also Writers.

I've Always Appreciated People Like Graham Parker Or Loudon Wainwright Iii, Who Spend Their Entire Lives Writing Songs And Working Their Asses Off Just To Have Complete Artistic Freedom. They're Just Sharing Their Lives With You Through Their Music. That's The Same Kind Of Work That I'm Trying To Do, In My Own Weird Way.

If We Really Talked About What's Wrong With You, You'd Need A 7-1/2-hour Movie And Nobody Would Know What Category To Put It In!

The Little Details Really Connect For People In Ways I Never Realized Before.i Think That's Why Some Of The Movies Have Done Well, Because People Are Relating To Things That I'm Willing To Expose.

I Get Literally A Physical Sensation Of Low Self-esteem That Is A Result Of Not Engaging The World And Getting Comfortable That Way.

I Test The Movies A Lot, And If The Audience Says They Love The Movie, We Know We're On The Right Track. And If They Tell Me They Hate It, I Try To Figure Out What I've Done Wrong. But Every Time Out, The Audience Wants Me To Go Deeper, They Want To Know More About The Characters, And They Don't Want These Movies To Be Shallow. So They Really Urge Me To Tell Them A Complicated Story, And Then When I Do So, They're Thrilled

The Ones [comedies] That I Always Liked, Whether It's Terms Of Endearment, Broadcast News, Or Fast Times Of Ridgemont High, They Were All About Two Hours, Or A Little Bit Over Two Hours. With That Extra 15 Or 20 Minutes, You Can Get To Real Character And You're Not Just Stuck In Plot.

I Often Say That ... I'm Just Involved In Comedy, So I Can Be Around It.

There Are People Who Like Short Movies, And I Think They Should Just Watch Our Movies On Dvd Because They Can Pause, Go To The Bathroom, Eat Dinner, And Come Back To It.

I Think A Lot Of Hollywood Is In Retreat Right Now Trying To Figure Out How To Make Money And Make The Safest Bets.

I Think My Instinct Creatively Is To Make Things That Are Very Funny And Happy And Silly. And In This Moment Where The World Is Very Scary, I Feel Like My Role Is To Make People Laugh Really Hard.

My Way Of Dealing With The World Has Always Been To Make Fun Of It And Observe It But Not Take Part In It.that's How I Became A Writer. But When You Have Kids, Suddenly You Have To Be Part Of Things. It Leads Almost To A Breakdown Because Your Whole Defense Mechanism Is Now Really Destructive.

Back In The Old Days, Everyone Was Shocked If A Band Had A Sponsor For Their Tour. Now, Bob Dylan Can Do A Commercial For Victoria's Secret And People Don't Really Blink; The Beatles' Songs Are In All Sorts Of Commercials These Days And It Doesn't Seem To Offend Anybody. The Times Are Changing.

Times Are Changing

My First Writing Jobs Were Writing Tom Arnold Specials For Hbo, So I Love Working There.

When I Was Very Young, I Started To Make Friends With Much, Much Older People. So When I Was Twenty, My Friends Were Fifty, And I Never Really Went Through Forty Because I Would Watch Them Die And I Would Feel Younger. So You Make Friends With Older People And You Will Always Feel Young No Matter What.

Right When I Started Getting Solid Was When I Was Offered A Lot Of Writing Work. And When The Ben Stiller Show Was Picked Up, I Realized There Was No Way For Me To Do Stand-up Three Or Four Nights A Week And Run This Television Show With Ben. So That Was The Moment When I Had To Make A Choice.

If You Work On Network Tv, They Want To Pick Your Casts, Dictate Your Story And How Your Show Works. It Just Becomes Creativity By Committee, Which Is Never Good.

Eventually, The Nerds And The Geeks Will Have Their Day.

To Me, I've Never Understood Why There Is Any Question About Are Women As Funny As Men.

You Hear People Say: "one Day, When I'm In A Good Position I Can Make My Passion Project." I've Seen A Lot Of People Get Into That Position And Not Make It.

The Thing That Ruined Your Life Makes You Good At Your Work. And Then You Get Rewarded At Work, So You Don't Bother To Fix It In Your Life.

When People Lose Their Jobs, They Can Either Get Another Job Or Be Entrepreneurs. In The Music Industry, A Lot Of People Have Attempted The Latter By Starting Their Own Labels, But In The Age Of Digital Downloads, It's Very Difficult To Succeed.

I'm Always Surprised When You Do Something Very Different That People Don't Get Behind You More, Because You're Always Told, "take Chances! Stretch!" And When You Do It, Sometimes People Get Really Supportive And Excited, But Sometimes People Go At You Because You've Tossed Out The Formula.

It Would Be So Irresponsible Not To Speak Up. I Don't Know What I Would Do In My Home And In My Life If I Didn't Rant A Little Bit And As Thoughtfully As I Can With Some Humor.

I Feel Like Everybody's Waiting For A Job Y'know, You Can Make A Movie On Your Phone. And So There Really Is No Reason To Worry About How To Get In With People- And You Can Do That, There's A Lot To Learn Working For People -but You Can Just Make A Movie, Where In The Old Days That Was Completely Impossible.

Most People Are Really Fighting To Not Be Adults. And, When It Happens, It's A Big Transition. And A Lot Of That Is Just Awful. It's Awful To Have To Get A Job And Really Be Responsible For Other People. And It Is Funny, Too. Like, We're All Kind Of Little Idiot Kids Trying To Act Like We Know What We Are Doing.

In My Work, There Is A Lot Of Storytelling. The Storytelling Is Not A New Thing. Back In The [howard] Thurston Days, The [harry] Houdini Days, The [harry] Blackstone Days, It Was Stories, But The Stories Were, "we're Going To The Egyptian Temples, And We're Going To Vanish The Prince Of Thebes," And, "on My Last Trip To The Orient ..."

I Put On A Big Show When I Write Something I Think Is Funny.

And I Like The Passion That People Have When They're Trying To Prove They Can Make A Movie Or Be A Movie Star.

It's A Pretty Humiliating Thing When You Get Picked Last Every Day In Gym Class And Then At Lunchtime All The Kids Play Sports And You Get Picked Last. At The Time I Just Thought, "this Is Awful," Because It Defines You As A Weak Person. It Defines You With Girls And If You're Bad At Sports, You Get Into This Funny Cycle Where The Ball Never Gets To You Because Now You're In The Worst Position, You're In Deep Right Field, So You Can Never Prove That You Got Better, So The Cycle Lasts Forever.

I Like Human Comedies - Or Dramedies. More Than Anything, I'm Interested In People Just Dealing With Everyday Things That Are Difficult, And There Is More Than Enough Comedy And Drama In That.

I Had A Very Specific Type Of Terrible Network Experience Where I Was Told That People Like Seth Rogen And Jason Segel Weren't Leads, So It Truly Drove Me Mad. So To Be Trusted Is All I Value.

I Think A Lot Of Studios Today Are Run By Women, And We Are Entering A Time When A Lot Of Women Have Evolved In Second City And Upright Citizens Brigade And Wanted To Become Writers And Comedians.

Just Trying To Tell The Truth About, You Know, The Struggle Of - Being Alive Is Funny, It's Just Inherently Tragic And Also Hilarious - In A Fun Way And In A Sad Way. That Seems To Connect With People.

If A Woman Says, I Love Myself; I Love My Body; I'm Comfortable With My Life, Comfortable With My Mistakes, And I Deserve A Seat At Every Table And Everything Should Be Completely Equal, There Are Guys Who Lose Their Minds.

I Started A Radio Show Where I Interviewed Comics. And I Interviewed Leno And Seinfeld And John Candy And Father Guido Sarducci And Garry Shandling, All When I Was 16. And They Kind Of Told Me What To Do.

I Very Rarely Made Any Move To Direct Anything. I Didn't Have Any Faith In Myself.

I've Had Movies Bomb With Terrible Reviews, I've Had Movies Make A Lot Of Money With Terrible Reviews, I've Had Movies Get Good Reviews And Make Money. And I Like It Best When The Movies Do Well And The Reviewers Like Them.

'the Night Of.' I Pray There Will Be More.

I Always Felt As A Kid That I Was Underappreciated, Invisible Or Weird, But I've Always Secretly Thought People Would One Day Appreciate What Is Different About Me. I'm Always Putting That Message Out There.

I Bring People On To The Movies To Type And To Help Punch Up And Look At Things. But A Lot Of It Is, You Want Fun People To Be Around, To Put You In A Good Mood, To Try And Access Your Creative Place.

A Lot Of Times, It's Easy To Trim The Movie 'cause You Just Start Losing Things That You Thought Would Be There Just For Amusement's Sake That Actually Are Not Funny. My Favorite Part Of The Process Is Seeing It With An Audience. I Do About Eight Previews To See How Things Are Working.

I Feel Like It's A Golden Age For Television.

I Was A Guest On Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee With Jerry Seinfeld, And I Interviewed Him When I Was 15 Years Old-those Moments Really Blow Your Mind.

Every Time I Perform In Front Of People, No Matter How Well It Goes, The Next Day, I Feel Humiliated.

'deadwood.' I Could Have Watched That Forever.

For Me, Until I Know That The Audience Really Gets What I'm Trying To Communicate I'm Not Done.

I'm Getting Older, So How People Face Grave Circumstances Is Of Interest To Me. And You Meet A Lot Of People Who Are Very Courageous, And It Doesn't Reek Of Something Funny To Write About, But I Always Think That The Higher The Stakes, The Bigger The Laughs Can Be, And The More Emotional The Scenes Can Be.

Penn [jillette] And Teller And I Get Along Very Well. We Can Call Each Other And Say, "i'm Working On This Classic Effect. Please, I'd Like To Do It For A While." We'll All Respect It. There Are People We Don't Get Along With, But Mostly There Is A Respect Amongst The Group.

I Hear Amy Schumer On Howard Stern, And I Think, "i Wish There Was A Movie That Starred Her, Because She's So Interesting," And Then At Some Point I Go, "i Guess I Have To Get Involved, Because It's Not Happening Right Now. Maybe I Should Help Try To Make That Happen."

I Think There Have Been So Many Documentaries About Pop Stars, Made By Pop Stars. It's A New Phenomenon. People Making These Movies Where They Praise Themselves And Show Their Own Weaknesses. It's All Designed To Make You Love Them Even More.

I Love When People Work Together Who Know Each Other Very Well. Some Of My Favourite Movies Are People Who Are Close Friends Or Families.

Working Together

The Only Thing I Knew In The World As A Little Kid Was Comedy. And No Other Kids In My School Cared About It At All. There Was No One To Talk About It With. You Know, We're In A Geek Culture Now Where Comedy Is So Giant. I'm One Of The People That, You Know, Works On Funny Or Die. And There Is Just A Giant Culture Of Comedy Nerds. But Back Then, I Was Alone, And I Had A Little Confidence About It Because I Felt Like, This Is My Thing, This Is The Only Thing That Only I Know About.

Humor Is His Defense Mechanism, So That Would Allow Me To Talk About Some Serious Subjects, But Get A Lot Of Hilarious Jokes In.

People Like The Comedy More When They Care About The Characters.

It's What I Always Dreamed Of: That You Can Make Tv And Everyone Would Get Out Of Your Way And You Follow Your Vision Without Watering It Down.

With Comedy, A Lot Of People Develop Their Sense Of Humor As A Defense Mechanism.

Sometimes A Story Idea Will Come To Me, And Suddenly I've Figured Out The Whole Thing, And I Feel Like I'm Collaborating With Something Other Than Myself.

Don't Be A Jerk. Try To Love Everyone. Give More Than You Take. And Do It Despite The Fact That You Only Really Like About Seven Out Of 500 People.

Television Is Much More Difficult Because At Every Moment, The Network Can Force You To Change Things Based On Their Belief About What Would Make It Popular. You’re In A Constant Debate With A Gun To Your Head, And The Gun Is Cancellation. So It’s Hard To Win The Arguments.

It Was Always The Most Fun Thing In The World To Think Of A Joke Area And Talk About It With Someone Like Jim Carrey, And Then He Would Get On Stage Fearlessly And Tear The House Down. That's Something I Always Enjoyed. It Also Allowed Me To Not Be Terrified.

I Start Thinking About The Next Movie Before It's A Success, So I Can Never Have One Moment Of Happiness Or Peace. I'm Instantly Thinking About The Next One.

I Think People Like Lena Dunham Really Opened Up The Door To What Was Possible, And They've Inspired Young Women To Go Into Filmmaking And Writing And Directing And Acting In A Way That Maybe They Didn't Before, Because Now There Is A Path And There Are Jobs.

We Are At This Weird Moment Where There's An Economic Model That Supports Creativity. People Are Demanding Something New And Fresh.

Economic Models

I Always Feel Like I'm Very Far From My Potential.

I Did Get Good Enough To Get On Hbo's Young Comedians Special, But I Certainly Wasn't The Person Who Got Launched Off Of Hbo's Young Comedians Special. That Would Be Ray Romano That Year. I Had Some Semi-intelligent Jokes, But When People Would See Me, They Would Think, "oh, That's A Good Writer." No One Would Ever Have Said, "oh, That's A Good Performer."

I Don't Think There's That Many Great 90-minute Comedies.

I Need To Find People Who I Respect So I Can Respect Them, And They'll Like Being Respected So They'll Respect Me, And That's Like A Marriage.

Watching Shows On Netflix Is A Different Experience Because Most People Are Sitting There For Three To Five Hours. Very Few People Even Watch One Episode. So It's Not Like A Movie Theater Where You Want To The Movies To Be Shorter So You Can Go Urinate. You Can Pause And Urinate At Home, And If Something Is Longer, You're Allowed To Stop And Eat Breakfast And Then Watch Eight More Episodes.

Different Experiences

In The Writing, I'm Just Trying To Go Deeper, Emotionally, And Learn More About Myself And Reveal More And Find A Way To Connect With People In New Ways.

Donald Trump Runs The Country Like He Ran "the Apprentice." The Premise Of "the Apprentice" Is A Crazy Rich Guy Has His Daughter And His Son Oversee Celebrities Doing Tasks. And Then They Come Back To Him, And They Tell Him How They Did. So In Every Episode He's Like, How Did - How'd Meatloaf Do, Ivanka? And Then She Says, Meatloaf Really Did A Great Presentation. And Then He Makes Some Impulsive Decision About Who To Fire Based On Not Being There, Not Really Even Understanding Anything.

I Have To Make Good Things So Good Comedians Want To Talk To Me.

You Know, I'm A Big Comedy Fan.

When Jim Carrey Signed On To Star In [the Cable Guy], And Then They Asked Me To Produce It, I Made A Very Brief Plea To Direct - Which Was Rejected Really As Quickly As Anything Can Be.

I'm Always Talking To People. It's Not That Complicated. I Just Find Somebody And Say, "do You Have Any Ideas." If They Do, We Just Start Thinking Things Around.

I Didn't Want To Be A Director For Hire. It Really Just Took Me A Long Time To Learn How To Direct And To Feel Up To The Job.

You Should Look Up Some Of The Reviews. The New York Times Review Is So Over-the-top Funny. It's Hysterical. You Should Dig It Out.

Nobody's Going To Like My Next Movie Because They Liked Trainwreck [2015]. It Has To Work On Its Own, And That Keeps It Really Scary.

I Start Casting Early In The Writing Process, So I Can Tailor The Script To The Gifts Of The Actors.

If Anything Is Leaking, I Try To Plug The Hole.

I Was Bad At Sports And Picked Last Every Day. I Couldn't Quite Figure Out What My Role Was In The Social Order, So I Decided I Was Interested In Comedy. And What Was Then Interesting Was, Nobody Else Was Interested In It At All. I Didn't Find One Friend Who Was Interested In Comedy Until I Moved To California And Met Other Comedians. And Suddenly I Knew Hundreds Of People Who Knew As Much About Sctv As I Did. But It Took Me 20 Years To Find Those People.

College Is The Reward For Surviving High School. Most People Have Great Fun Stories From College And Nightmare Stories From High School.

You Have To Write A Lot Of Scripts To Get Any Scripts That Are Worth Making.

In Terms Of The Emotional Underpinning, If You've Been In Relationships, You Understand What's Happening.

I Thought The Idea Jim [carrey] Had, Which Was To Do A Comedic Version Of Movies Like The Hand That Rocks The Cradle And Unlawful Entry, Was Really Funny. The Movie Was A Little Lighter When We First Came On, A Little More Like What About Bob? Or Something.

There Was Definitely A Period When I Just Felt Out Of Sync With Earth.

When You Make A Movie, You Just Send It Off Into The World. You Never Actually Live It With The Crowd.

No Matter How Much You Love Someone, On A Bad Day, You Could Say Something Terrible. All Of The Little Things That You Are Saving To Say, That You're Mad About But Never Express, Sometimes Come Out, All At Once. We All Have These Terrible Moments. That's Just Part Of Being Human.

Nowadays, When Kids Decide They Like An Artist, They'll Absorb Everything That Artist Has Ever Done In A Single Night.

I Remember The Review From Michael Wilmington In Chicago, And Gene Siskel Wrote Really Smart Reviews Where I Thought, "oh, They Totally Get What We're Attempting To Do."

I Was In The Recording Studio When Pink Was Recording For A Part Of The Gay Rights Anthem. It Was Just Amazing To Watch Her Perform. She's Just Such An Incredible Singer. She So Funny, And So Smart, Yet She's Doing It For This Silly, Silly Song.

I Try To Just Save A Fresh, Clear Head For Whoever I'm Working With, So Hopefully It's Helpful That There's Someone Who Doesn't Have To Sit In The Editing Room For 12 Hours A Day, And Who's Blinded By The Massive Footage And Options That They Have.

Every Time I'm In Editing, There's Always A Moment Where You Think, "maybe This Should Be Six Or Seven Minutes Shorter, But I'm Losing Character And Story That I Think Is Important." When I Like Things, I'm Not In A Rush For Them To End.

I Still Feel Like A Nerd.

The Moment You Think Of A Joke Is The Best Moment.

The Only Thing Worse Than A Crappy Tv Show Which Paddy Chayevsky Couldn't Have Conceived In His Worst Nightmare Is Two Megacorps Fighting Over Who Thought Of The Crappy Show First.

It's So Difficult To Shock America These Days.

I Love Magazines And Film Critics, So I Eat It Up. I'm Not One Of Those People Who Says 'i Never Read Anything.' I Generally Read All Of It.

For A Long Time, Tv Was Just The Land Of Handsome, Beautiful People, And Now It's The Opposite.

So Many People Are In Comedy Because Of Difficult Mothers Or Broken Homes.

If You Watch The Arcs Of So Many Comedians, At Some Point, They Just Become Themselves.

If The Movie's Not Communicating, It's Not Working.

I'm Always Begging People Like James Brooks And Cameron Crowe To Come To Screenings, To See What They Make Of It, And They're Always Ridiculously Helpful. They Also Keep Me Brave Enough To Commit To What I'm Trying To Do. They Can Be Great Cheerleaders For Risk-taking.

I Don't Think I'm Going To Get So Mature That I Lose Touch With The Whatever Wounded Part Of Myself That Feels The Need To Be Funny. I'm Already Old Enough That I Realize That's Not Going To Happen.

I Like When People Are Very Passionate About What They Want To Write About. Even If It's Silly, You Can Be Very Passionate About It.

I Am Always Driven By The Terror Of Humiliation.

If You Make A Bad Movie About Stand-up, Then Comedians Will Mock You For The Rest Of Your Life.

Rest Of Your Life

You Want The Audience To Get Your Movie, And You Want The Audience To Like It. It's As Simple As That. If They Don't Understand What You're Trying To Say, You've Failed. Of Course, You Can't Get 100 Percent Of The Crowd To Understand The Movie, But You Know When You've Reached The People You Want To Reach.

I Think The World Is Changing And All That Matters Is That I'm Creating Things.

Everyone Is Wounded. No One Is Healthy Enough To Never Screw Up, When You're In Combat. But, I Like To Show That, And I Like To Show How People Get Back From That. You Have To Forgive Each Other. When You're In The Middle Of A Long-term Commitment, The Essence Of It Is That Everyone Is Going To Have Good Days And Bad Days, And It's About How You Continue To Rejoin Forces.

I Don't Think There's Really Observational Magic.

Literally, My Last Call Was With David Blaine, Congratulating Him On His Show. I Have A Camaraderie With David.

I Still Feel Like A Weird Kid Who Is About To Take A Punch In The Face. So, I Think It's Permanent.

It's Funny, Now There Are So Many Bands That I Can Never Remember Any Of Their Names. Maybe It's Because I'm Old.

I've Come To Realize That People Connect More When They Know You're Telling Them The Truth Or Some Aspect Of Your Story, Some Mutated Version Of How You Are Experiencing This Life.

I Always Thought It Was Important To Overdeliver, And When I Got One Of My First Jobs, Writing Jokes For Garry Shandling When He Was Hosting The Grammys, I Stayed Up All Night And Wrote A Hundred Jokes, And I Thought, "i'm Always Going To Be The Person That Gives Them More Than They Requested, And That's Why They'll Want To Keep Me Around."

If You're An Athlete, You Might Work Your Entire Life, And You Win The Super Bowl Once, If You're Lucky. And I Feel Like In The Arts And Entertainment We Win The Super Bowl All The Time.

I Feel The Responsibility To Make Things Which On Some Level Have Something Positive To Say.

I Wrote On The Grammys, And A Few Times For Garry Shandling When He Was Hosting. I Couldn't Have Enjoyed Those Gigs More, Because I Would Get To Collaborate And Try To Make People I Looked Up To Laugh, But For The Most Part, When You're As Talented As They Are, What They Really Want Is Someone Who Can Type Fast And Whose Presence Makes Them Feel In The Mood To Write And Spew And Be Creative, And I Was A Good Person To Have In The Room.

I Always Thought That Seth [rogen] Was A Fun, Caustic, Bombastic, Sweet, Underdog-type Of Person That I Would Root For The Way You Used To Root For Bill Murray Or John Candy In "stripes." Seth Had Something That Very Few People You Encounter Have: He Had A Writer's Mind And He Had His Own Comic Point Of View.

I Just Try To Be True To Myself And Write About Things I'm Passionate About. I Think What Most People Don't Like About Movies Is They Can Tell That Most Movies Are A Product, And They Don't Mean That Much To The People Who Make Them.

I Love The Lonely Island. I Wish There Was More Lonely Island Movies.

One Of My Fears Is That I'm Suddenly Not Going To Be Funny, But Still Think I Am. That's Like My Nightmare That I Can Wake Up In A Cold Sweat From.

Every Day I Live By Only One Rule, Be A Good Guy.

That's Very Important To Me As Well: Presentation And How People Perceive You, The Visual Of How Things Look, Your Posture. I Learned That From [bob] Fosse And Jerome Robbins, From All The Great Theater Directors And The Busby Berkeleys. You Overdeliver: Visually, Emotionally.

A Lot Of Bands That Are Great Disappear A Little Bit Faster Than They Used To. They Don't Get As Much Support For The Long Haul. You Have To Be Pretty Tough To Hang In There.

I Was A Big Tv Kid.when I Was A Kid, I Would Go Home At 3:00 And Watch Tv Straight Through To The End Of Letterman At 1:30 In The Morning.i Was Obsessed With Comics.and I Would Watch Jerry Seinfeld And Jay Leno And Study Them As If It Was Tolstoy.

It Seems Like Magic Is Something Kids Start Really Young.

I've Made Movies On Every Part Of The Spectrum, And You Do Understand When You Go Into Certain Movies That You're Trying To Elicit A Certain Kind Of Response From The Audience, And People Get A Real Sense Of Satisfaction When They're Rooting For A Character And The Character Pulls It Off.

I Remember The Time Review [on The Hit And Run]said That There Wasn't One Laugh In It. And I Had Watched The Movie 50 Times With Audiences, And It Always Played Great. There Was Certainly A Moment Where You Could Tell The Audience Was Like, "wow, This Is Really Getting Weird."

Some People Are Probably Saner. They're Good Performers, And They Go About Their Day. I Just Get Obsessive About It.

When You're Making Your 20th Movie, It Might Be The 20th Most Incredible Thing That's Ever Happened To You!

I Used To Tour A Little Bit With Jim Carrey And Help Him Out On His First Showtime Special.

I Think It's Fun To Have People See Everything At Once, And Then I Think Certain Shows Are Very Well-suited To Being On Every Week And Being Spread Out Over Months.

There's Something Honorable About Holding Out For Love And Not Breaking Up For The Sake Of The Baby. I See People Get Divorced, And There Is A Part Of Me That Thinks, I Wonder How Hard They Tried?

I Always See Other People As Predecessors And Admire Them.

I Think, There Were Probably Problems With Show Business Where Producers And Directors Would Try To Get The Writing Credit Also. So They Created A Rule Where The Bar, To Get Your Name Added To The Writing Credits, If You've Done A Revision, Is Very High If You're Also The Producer Or Director.

Back Then, You Seemed Like A Crazy Person When You Were Trying To Push The Boundaries Of Network Tv. People Looked At You, And They Were Offended By The Fact That You Didn't Follow The Generic Rules Of What Was Expected On Network Tv.

I Loved Working In Stand-up, And I Always Dreamed That I Could Make A Movie About It. I Didn't Know If I Would Have The Courage To, Because If You Make A Bad Movie About Stand-up, Then Comedians Will Mock You For The Rest Of Your Life. They're Still Mad About Movies Made 25 Years Ago. But It Was Always A Dream Of Mine, And I Was Glad I Finally Came Up With An Idea That Allowed Me To Explore It In Such A Way That It's Not All About Stand-up, But Stand-up Creates A Great Backdrop For Another Type Of Story.

I've Come To Believe That The Simpler The Title, The Better. Whenever I Try To Get Cute With It, It Seems To Be A Problem But If It's Just The 40-year-old Virgin, People Seem To Know What They're In For.

I Get The Most Starstruck Around Musicians. I Get Tongue-tied And Don't Know What To Say. I'm So Jealous Of Them. When You Make A Movie, You're Constructing Something - It's A Little Bit Like Making An Album. But After Musicians Make An Album, They Get To Perform It Live And Experience It In Front Of A Crowd.

Some Stories Feel Like They Need More Time Or Less Time To Tell. To Not Obsessively Have To Trim Or Add That Final Two Or Three Minutes Is Very Helpful, Because You Can Just Organically Follow How The Story Feels.

I Like To Make Movies The Way People Made Movies In The '70s, Where They Lived And Died With These Stories, And Cared About Them, And Went To War For Them, And They All Said Something They Wanted To Say.

[my] Dream Writers Room: "'taxi.' I Need To Write For Someone Named Judd."

I Think The Story Should Always Determine The Visual Approach. There Are Situations Where You Want Things To Feel Alive And Like Life, And There Are Situations That Should Have Some Magic And The Separation With The Grain.

I Think We All Have A Love/hate Relationship With The Media.

I'm Just Trying To Be Truthful And Collaborate With People Who Have Interesting Things To Say.

I Used To Bug All Of The Comedians For Interviews, And When People Want To Talk To Me, Sometimes I'm Very Receptive And Sometimes I Say No. Sometimes If I Say No, I Think, "if They're Smart, They'll Figure Out How To Not Accept This No."

Well, Every Movie Is An Experiment. And The Only Way You Can Grow At What You're Doing Is To Take Chances. You Can't Try To Stick With What Worked Last Time.

I Literally Cannot Remember One Joke.

I Have A Four-and-a-half-year-old And, When She Was Two And A Half, She Would Make My Wife And I Do Voices, Like Woody And Jessie The Cowgirl, Or Elmo, Or Yogi Bear And Booboo. If We Didn't Do It, She Would Scream At Us. So, My Wife And I Would Have Adult Conversations As Yogi Bear And Booboo. It Was Just A Nightmare Year.

The Cable Guy Was Underbudgeted, So It Was Always A Debate About Whether We Could Have More Days Or Certain Things That We Needed, Because The Budget Was Determined Before The Script Was Written. So That Made It A Hard Production On Everybody. But It's Also A Funny Thing, Because It's One Of Those Movies That Cost $40 Million To Make And Made $100 Million Around The World, But At The Time, It Seemed Like A Disaster That It Didn't Make Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars, Because Jim Was On Such A Tear. But It Was Actually A Successful Movie.

I Think Jim [carrey], In The Best Possible Way, Thought, "i Need To Do Different Things To Establish To The Audience That I'm Not Going To Do The Same Thing Every Time."

I'm Trying To Think If There Was Ever The Lenny Bruce-y, Observational, George Carlin Kind Of Magician: "you Know What I Hate Is ..." I Don't Think That Ever Existed.

As A Jewish Man Who Has No Interest In Judaism Whatsoever, There's Something In Me That Says When Bad Things Have Happened In The Past, People Were Supposed To Get More Active And Speak Up And Prevent Them. That's What's Important To Me Is That Everybody - And I Don't Care What Side You're On. You Can Disagree With Me, But Everyone Better Get Active. Everybody Better Vote And Be Thoughtful.

I'm Making A Movie About Relationships, And I'm Surrounded By Guys Scared Of Talking To Girls.

My Dad Was A Big Fan Of Comedy. He Wanted To Be A Stand-up. He Loved Lenny [bruce]. He Also Loved Lord Buckley And Jazz And Stuff. He Was A Hipster. My Parents Were Kind Of Beatnik-y, You Know, For Salt Lake City. But My Humor, I Think, Came From Wanting To Disarm People Before They Hit Me.

Sometimes, Something Seems Dead, And Then Out Of The Blue, Someone Just Figures Out The Way To Fix A Script And It Goes.

I Really Think More About Being Honest And Truthful About Feelings And How People Behave For The Movies That I Direct, But I Also Love Movies Like Zohan And Anchorman, Just Balls To The Wall, How Much Can You Make People Laugh In One 90 Minute Period.

All Of My Jokes Were About Not Being Able To Meet Anybody. I Didn't Have Any Insight Into Anything - Even My Own Insecurities.

The Only Way You Survive On All These Services Is If You're Groundbreaking. There's Pressure To Be Groundbreaking, Which Is The Greatest Thing That's Ever Happened. It's A Bizarre Aspect Of What's Happened With All Of These Subscription Services Is Everyone Is Trying To Outdo Each Other By Doing Great Things.

People Are Disappearing From Movies, And Normal Human Behaviour Is Disappearing From Movies... You Are Not Always Fighting A Creature In Life. That's Part Of Life, It's A Pretty Big Part Of Life, But It's Not All Of Life.

It's So Funny, All The Similarities That We Have [with David Copperfield] Of Being Obsessed Young People And Finding A Way To Be Around The People Doing What We Want To Do.

I Have To Go Back To Vinyl Every Once In Awhile, Even If My Kids Don't Want To Hear It. I'm Much More Likely To Be Listening To Wilco Or The Avett Brothers.

I Like To Shoot Scenes Where I Can See The Beginning, Middle And End Of The Entire Scene. But, When You Edit A Movie Together, You Can Just Cut Right Into The Middle. You Don't Need To See Them Walk Into The Room And Put Their Jacket On The Chair. There's Always A Lot Of Shoe Leather That You Can Remove.

Maybe You Just Get So Attached To The Music Of Your Youth That You Think It's Better Than What's Coming Out Now.

I Don't Want To Be Ordinary. I'm Willing To Do The Work. I'm Willing To Suffer The Indignities Of Comedy Because I Want To Be Great. I Don't Want To Just Be Good. I Want To Be Great.

Some People Make Movies And Think, "well, I'll Just Keep Asking For More Money If This Isn't Enough." And Then There Are Other People, Like Clint Eastwood, Who Always Come In Under Budget.

I Used To Watch 10 Hours Of Television A Night, My Entire Childhood. And I Don't Think It Did All Good Things To Me. I Certainly Still Have Social Problems That Are A Result Of Being In My Room Alone Too Much.

I Loved The Idea That I Could Write A Joke And Someone Else Would Have To Take The Risk Of Performing It.

When I Notice That All The Beats Sound Exactly The Same, It Starts To Wear On Me.

You Can Do Weird Things On Tv - There Are Happy Stories, Sad Stories, Dark Stories. But With A Movie, It Always Has To End Satisfying. Unless You're The Coen Brothers, And It Ends With Somebody Getting Shot In The Head.

If Everyone Is Mature, There Is No Comedy.

I Don't Really Get Attached To Anything. I'm Pretty Brutal About Cutting Stuff. With Each Successful Movie, I've Discovered Anything That's Not Connected To The Immediate Story Is Going To Be Cut Out Of It.

All My Cuts Are Always About Three Hours, At The Start, Mainly Because Any Scene In The Movie That's 90 Seconds, I Probably Shot A Five-minute Version Of. If You Just Extrapolate That Through The Whole Movie, I Have A Very Long Version Of Every Scene, Usually Because, If There's One Funny Joke, I'll Shoot Five Because I Don't Know If The One I Like Is Going To Work. I'll Get Back-ups Because My Biggest Fear Is To Be In Previews, Testing The Movie, And A Joke Doesn't Work, But I Have No Way To Fix It Because I Have No Other Line.

In My Beginnings, Those Nos Were Ever-present-even Today, Those Nos Are Ever-present-and It's The Workaround. I Always Found A Workaround For People Who Turned Their Back To Me. It's A Way Of Being Persistent That Makes Them Take Notice.

My Grandfather Was Bob Shad, One Of Those Legendary Jazz And Blues Producers - He Worked With Charlie Parker And Dinah Washington, And He Produced Janis Joplin's Album [1967's Big Brother & The Holding Company]. He Always Owned Small Labels As Well - He Had A Label Called Mainstream Records In The 70s.

I Feel Like Superbad And Freaks And Geeks Are Somewhat Timeless. That's Always Gratifying, When You Feel Like 30 Years In The Future, People Will Still Get It, And It Won't Seem Creaky. It Won't Come Across Like The Incredible Mr. Limpet.

There Are Only So Many Hilarious Actors So When They Cross-pollinate, People Assume It's Always The Same Actors And Directors.

I Love Coldplay. I Love Steely Dan - Steely Dan's Probably One Of My Top Three Bands Of All Time.

People Talk About Universal Intelligence ... I'm Reticent To Believe Almost Anything, Just Because My Parents Weren't Religious At All, But That's When I Feel It. People Talk About Being In The "flow."

The Hard Part About Getting Much Attention Is That People Start Dissecting What You Do.

There Are People That Entertainment Is Something They Do At The End Of A Long Hard Day At Work, And They Want To Be Entertained And Have It Over Quickly. They're Like, "entertain Me Fast!"

I Was Very Combative As A Creative Person At That Time [while The Ben Stiller Show]. I Didn't Understand How To Play Politics With The Studios. I Didn't Know How To Creatively Collaborate With The People Who Were Paying The Bills, And That Came Up All The Time On Every Project I Was Doing, And It Took Me A Really Long Time To Figure Out How To Collaborate In A Healthy Way.

People Like Everything To Work Out, And Anytime You Don't Make Everything Work Out Perfectly, You Really Are Fighting Against What Most People Are Going To The Movies For, Especially In The Summer.

I Don't Think It Matters What The Frequency Is Of Me Writing Or Directing A Movie. It Doesn't Really Matter To Anybody Else. I'm Just Trying To Put Good Things Out There.

I'm The Guy Who Gets Uncomfortable. That's Why I Was Able To Write 'the 40-year-old Virgin' And 'knocked Up.' I Believe In Those Guys.

You Can Work On A Movie For Years, And You Won't Know Until You Show It To An Audience For The First Time If It Makes Any Sense To Them At All, If They're Touched, If They Find It Funny, So It's Endlessly Exciting, Because Failure Is Just Right There All The Time, And Your Chances Of Success Don't Rise That Much Based On The Fact That You Succeeded Last Time.

Deer Are Like Dogs. Except For Bambi, They're Pretty Personality-less.

The First Comedians I Became Fascinated With Were The Marx Brothers. I Couldn't Get Enough Of Them. Later In Life, I Thought, "well, Maybe It's Because They Were So Rebellious And They Were Just Flipping The Bird To Society And All The Rules We're Supposed To Follow." They Were Saying That None Of It Is Fair.

There's Nothing More Fun Than Debating And Defending Your Taste In Music.

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Henry Anatole Grunwald

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