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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.

-Judd Apatow

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It's A Pretty Humiliating

Judd Apatow

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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.

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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."

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If You Develop 10 Things, And You Can Get Two Or Three Made, That's A Very High Ration.

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

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.

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.

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

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It Seems Like Magic Is Something Kids Start Really Young.

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Working Together

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

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

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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 Still Feel Like A Nerd.

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

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

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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.

If Everyone Is Mature, There Is No Comedy.

I Literally Cannot Remember One Joke.

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.

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

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

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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 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.

It's So Difficult To Shock America These Days.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

I Wrote For Roseanne. I Wrote Her Stand-up Act With Her. I Wrote With Tom Arnold. There Was A Period When I Was Working With Them Pretty Steadily. But I Would Take Brief Gigs Here And There.

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.

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 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.

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!"

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

As A Kid, I Was Obsessed With The Who. They Were The Most Important Band To Me. Songs Like "i'm One" Helped Me Get Through High School.

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

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 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.

The Audience Doesn't Care That Most Of Happened. They Just Want A Good 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."

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

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.

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!

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

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

A Lot Of The Turning Points Happen In High School And In College, And It Defines A Lot Of How You See The World And How You Decide To Defend Yourself From The World. Some People - Their Defense Mechanism Is, I'm Really Smart Or I'm Sexy Or I'm The Leader. And Other People - They Hide Or They Make Jokes.

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.

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 Remember Before I Did My Hbo Special, Chris [rock] Screamed At Me - In A Loving Way, But Still. He Was Like, "you Need To Do 200 Shows In A Row And A Month Straight On The Road Before You Even Think About Recording A Special!" And I Had Literally Booked Two Weeks On The Road And Then Went Right Into The Recording. It Put Me In A Panic, But It Also Made Me Work Harder And Made Me Realize That Everyone Works Differently, And That's Okay.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Most Comedians Weren't Great Athletes; That Was The Way They Got Noticed In High School.

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

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 Feel Like It's A Golden Age For Television.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

'deadwood.' I Could Have Watched That Forever.

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.

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

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

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

Rest Of Your Life

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

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.

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 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.

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.

I Am Always Driven By The Terror Of Humiliation.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Something Economically Changed. It Used To Be That You Needed 20 Million People To Watch A Tv Show For It To Be A Hit. Now, With Just A Few Million People Watching, You're Considered Very Successful, For A Lot Of These Streaming Services, Or Cable Channels. Now, That Allows People To Do Much More Creatively Ambitious Work, Because It's Not Lowest Common Denominator.

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.

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Joseph Franklin Rutherford

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