In the mid-1990s, I wrote a paper stating that the face of comedy would be revolutionized by a writer-producer named Judd Apatow. At the time, this was based solely on the short-lived run of the Fox sketch comedy series The Ben Stiller Show. In addition to being a launching pad for Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick, and David Cross, the program showcased a unique and irreverent brand of humor that most critics agreed was far ahead of its time. And it seemed apparent, at least to me, that the effects of Apatow's project would have far-reaching consequences. "Wow," Apatow says when told about this. "You were only off by 10 years."
It may have taken longer than expected, but Apatow has indeed ascended to the top of the industry with a trifecta of unexpected megahits he has produced: The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, both of which he also wrote and directed, and Superbad. Along the way, he has made a household name of actors such as Steve Carell and Seth Rogen, while repeatedly pushing the envelope of taste with his outrageous style of comedy — and undoubtedly influencing many of today's comedic minds.
One such mind is Jake Kasdan, a filmmaker who made a stunning debut with 1998's Zero Effect, starring Stiller. The pair met when Kasdan (son of filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan) was visiting the set of The Larry Sanders Show, on which Apatow was a writer and producer. They teamed up on two failed but acclaimed TV series — Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared — Kasdan directing many episodes and Apatow producing. Apatow also served as an executive producer on Kasdan's recent film The TV Set, a behind-the-scenes look at pilot season starring Sigourney Weaver and David Duchovny.
Their latest collaboration is Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, a parody of musical biopics, starring John C. Reilly in the title role. Apatow and Kasdan co-wrote the film and serve as producers; Kasdan directs. The film of course includes all the classic setbacks found in the movies that inspire it: accidental fratricide and an unforgiving father who continually insists "the wrong kid died," a disastrous first marriage, addictions to various drugs, and ultimately redemption. Along the way, Dewey encounters the likes of Elvis (played by Jack White of the White Stripes) and undergoes a Bob Dylanesque transformation into a protest singer. It's a tricky line to walk, indeed.
Back Stage: How did you two meet?
Judd Apatow: Jake visited the set of The Larry Sanders Show with his dad and his brother. Then, when I was in rehearsal to make the pilot of Freaks and Geeks, we shared the same agent, and [the agent] said, "You should hire Jake." I immediately said, "Yes, let's do it! Send him the script." Then I realized I had never seen his movie, Zero Effect. And I only watched it after the deal had closed. And I said, "Wow, this is great. And it doesn't apply at all to what we're about to do on Freaks and Geeks." But Jake did such a brilliant job and really set the template for everything that we did — and, in a way, the template of everything that I've done since, in terms of combining comedy and drama. So it was a very important experience for me.
Jake Kasdan: That's very generous. Freaks and Geeks was probably as important to me as anything I've done before or since. And a major moment for all of us in that show, in terms of finding our aesthetic. It was a formative project. I definitely think The TV Set is a continuation of the Freaks and Geeks sensibility.
Back Stage: What was it about Jake that convinced you to go with him?
Apatow: Nothing. It was just a gut instinct based on zero interaction. I don't know what I was thinking. My wife said, "What are you, crazy?"
Kasdan: It was a serious roll of the dice.
Apatow: It's kind of hilarious; it was based on nothing. There have been other moments since then where I've been about to do the same thing, and even though it worked out with Jake, I'll stop myself. I'll get an impulse — "Hire that actor; I don't need to read him" — but I'll stop myself. It worked with Jake, but at some point it's not going to work.
Back Stage: Jake, you cast Ben Stiller in your first film, which had a unique blend of comedy and drama. Is it fair to say you were influenced by Judd's early work?
Apatow: I didn't have that much work to be influenced by at that point.
Kasdan: I knew The Ben Stiller Show very well; I was a huge fan. I actually had missed its initial run, much as most people have missed the initial run of every show I've ever worked on. It was actually Catherine O'Hara who gave me a tape that was like a best-of compilation. And I thought it was brilliantly funny.
Apatow: I didn't know that.
Kasdan: I don't know that I've obsessed on a piece of comedy in quite that way, before or since. I watched it over and over and showed it to people who came over. I just loved The Ben Stiller Show. That was how I became aware of Ben and also of Judd.
Back Stage: You both continue to work with the same group of actors — Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, to name a few. Is there a key to becoming a part of this comedy cabal?
Apatow: I've worked with a bunch of casting directors, but it was one in particular, Allison Jones, who has introduced me to an enormous amount of people that are my favorite actors, people I never would have known about without her. She cast Freaks and Geeks and found Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segel, Linda Cardellini, and Busy Philipps. On 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, she kept introducing me to people I didn't know. So like any other director, I just audition people. You don't know why you take to somebody. I can't explain it. Jonah Hill came in to do one line in 40-Year-Old Virgin, and we instantly thought, "Oh, we love this guy. We want to do more stuff with him."
Back Stage: Jonah says he was actually obsessed with you.
Apatow: That's the only reason I brought him in: I heard he would praise me. They said, "This kid loves you; he's just dying to meet you."
Kasdan: That helps.
Apatow: I think certain people are just very loose and funny and can improvise and are comfortable with who they are and let their humanity and vulnerability shine through. And we tend to be drawn to people like that.
Kasdan: And when you're working with someone and it's really fun, you want to just repeat that experience. It's fun to be around people who can make you laugh. And I'm awed by what they do. I like working with actors a lot.
Back Stage: Because you use the same actors over and over again, is there ever pressure to cast them in all your projects? For example, Seth Rogen isn't in Walk Hard —
Kasdan: Yeah, he's furious. [Laughs.] Actually, Seth was unavailable for Walk Hard because he was making everything else.
Apatow: People don't get upset.
Kasdan: Yeah, they do. They're furious.
Apatow: Maybe if I didn't hire Paul Rudd for eight years, I might hear something.
Kasdan: I think people get it. We tend to cycle back to people. It's hard to work with exactly the same people in every single thing. If you're pushing yourself to do new stuff, it doesn't always have roles for exactly the same people every single time. But the next one probably will.
Apatow: Next time, Seth Rogen plays Elvis.
Kasdan: Lew Morton is the executive producer of the movie and a really funny guy, and one day we were sitting around thinking it would be funny to have Seth dub the voice of the penis.
Back Stage: Is it true the idea for this film started as a joke?
Kasdan: In its very first kernel, yes, it was sort of a joke with myself. I called up Judd and said, "What do you think of this?" It did sort of grow from that thought, because it made us both laugh, talking about it. And it grew up pretty quick from there. We decided to write it and make it. We had our first conversation about it exactly two years ago. And we wrote it pretty quick — especially for me. It usually takes me a long time to write stuff. I'd never written with a partner before. That helped.
Apatow: It takes half as long.
Kasdan: We'd talk on the phone and kick around for an hour or two late at night. We did that for a couple of months. We generated a lot of ideas and tried to figure out how many we could fit into a movie. We mapped out a story and said, "You take a run at this; I'll take a run at this."
Apatow: "You do the sequence where he's addicted to coke; I'll do the sequence where he's addicted to LSD."
Back Stage: Did you ever have arguments? Who won?
Apatow: I fought for some things that I was just completely wrong about. Some things I was right about, but some things I was dead wrong. I'd see the footage and go, "I was completely wrong." The first cut was almost three hours long. But I don't want to say what was wrong. Other people could get hurt.
Kasdan: We didn't really fight.
Apatow: We're both too passive-aggressive.
Kasdan: Our process wasn't wrought with conflict.
Apatow: I would just think, "Jake's stuck directing this; I may as well give in. He's the one who's got to pull it off."
Kasdan: Going back to the TV shows: On Freaks and Geeks, there were a few things I really resisted. Things I would fight him on. I would make these strenuous cases. And then we'd get out there and shoot it, and in the first rehearsal I would realize, "Oh, this totally works." Now, I've had that not happen in other situations. But a lot of times something will just reveal itself as you're doing it. And in this movie, which has no content and no story, there's room for that kind of experimentation, because you can leap from any moment in his life to any other moment. There's a bit of an insurance policy in not having such a tightly plotted movie. We always knew we were overshooting, so we could afford some margin of error for things we find really funny but America won't.
Apatow: That's my main comedy theory: Always assume failure. Put in extra jokes, because you're probably wrong about the main ones.
Back Stage: Was Walk Hard always intended to be a movie?
Kasdan: We always thought it should be a movie. I used to say The Ben Stiller Show parody sketches were a template for what we wanted to do. They would do a parody that mimicked every aspect of the style. So they do A Few Good Men, and it seems exactly like A Few Good Men, only with Boy Scouts scouts.
Apatow: You know who wrote that? David Cross.
Kasdan: I always thought the funny idea would be to make a movie that feels like an actual biopic in every aspect of its design and calculation and scope and look, and make it look like we took an actual biopic and replaced every shot with something ridiculous — which was what you saw on The Ben Stiller Show.
Apatow: We used to call it SCTV with money. "What would SCTV do if they had an actual budget?"
Back Stage: What led you to cast Reilly in the lead?
Apatow: We realized we're goofing on this form, but in order for people to stay with us, they need to care about the character. So with John, he's such a good actor that even though the movie is ridiculous, you still feel for him.
Kasdan: He does everything in such a completely committed way, even if it's totally insane. And there's such a humanity to him: No matter how bad he behaves, his sweetness emerges. It's the reason the guy has made more movies than anyone you've ever met — in the last year alone. That and the singing are the two reasons it had to be John Reilly.
Back Stage: Did you watch a lot of biopics to inspire yourselves?
Apatow: A lot of them. There was this horrible Jimi Hendrix biopic you should really find; it's just awful in so many ways.
Kasdan: There were subtle little things you would notice when watching these movies that always made me laugh. Like, he's a new kid in the big city and doors were always slamming in his face. He couldn't get in the door. And the movies would literally have doors slamming in his face. He's trying to get into the studio, but a door slams in his face. Another thing was the parent that just says the most horrible, injurious thing over and over again. And we took it to the extreme, by constantly having Dewey's father remind him "the wrong kid died."
Back Stage: Some scenes are spot-on re-creations of other scenes. Take John Michael Higgins as the record producer who convinces Dewey to go with a new sound: It's straight out of Walk the Line. Where do you find the humor in that while still being true to the story?
Apatow: You know, John Michael Higgins is so funny, and most of that speech is improvised. That was a scene that we weren't quite sure what to do with. Then he went on these really hilarious runs. Saying things like, "There's no way you can ever climb out of this hole and convince me to sign you" —
Kasdan: — forecasting so clearly what was going to happen. That guy was one of our secret weapons. From my experience of directing the movie, it's possible that nobody made as much of an impact on the movie in a shorter amount of time than John Michael Higgins. It was the third day of shooting; it was the first time John [Reilly] was going to be singing these songs. And if you miscalibrate the scene at all, it's going to be exactly like the films we're parodying. John [Higgins] stepped in a couple days before, we had not cast the role yet, and he was just in touch with what was funny about the scene. In a way that we even weren't.
Kasdan: I remember thinking, "This is the scene that is going to set the tone for this movie." We had this gorgeous, electrifying set, perfect clothing, and this amazing design. Then you have these actors working off of each other, and it was improvisation as good as it gets. It was that contradiction of how tight the production elements were and how loose the dialogue was. And I thought, "This is what the movie will be."