The advice that took Judd Apatow from a student of comedy to a master of it (and why he's scared that he's not)

Early in Judd Apatow’s career — before he produced Trainwreck, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Bridesmaids, Anchorman or any of the other dozens of movies and TV shows destined to join the comedic canon — he was struggling with how to react to the pushback and ideas being foisted on him by studio execs. A mentor gave him advice that has helped guide his path ever since. “Judd, if you do their notes, and they're wrong, and then they don't pick up your pilot, they won't apologize,” Apatow recalls being told. “Just make sure you go down with your ship. You need to do it the way you want to do it, and succeed or fail."

Judd Apatow has been doing it his way ever since — and succeeding by building a ship distinctly different than the usual Hollywood method. He writes, directs, produces and even does regular stand-up comedy; he’s as comfortable making popcorn movies as documentaries; he puts wife Leslie Mann and their kids in his movies; and he delights in finding unusual (for Hollywood) talent and turning them into stars — GQ called him, “a mini-studio unto himself.” Among the careers he helped launch: Melissa McCarthy, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Martin Starr and more. "He's like the Henry Ford of movies,” Evan Goldberg once commented. “He figured out how to create a system that ensures a funny movie, no matter what.”

Just before his latest movie was about to be released — the now critical and box office hit The Big Sick — Apatow stopped by to talk about his career, comedy, spotting talent and the changing business of Hollywood.

I think one of the most interesting things about your career is that you've known since you were 10 that this is something you've wanted to do.

Lucky for me, it wasn't something that I had to come around to. It was just there from such an early age. I always wanted to be ahead. I think I was nervous as kid, like nervous to be able to support myself...

At 10 you were thinking about that?

Yeah, I think I just felt shaky. I felt like you've got to be on your game, you need to find your gift, whatever that is. I was really bad at sports. I was always being picked last in gym class, which, when you were a kid, was a big deal, because it happened twice a day. It would happen at lunch time, and it would happen in gym class. You had this massive humiliation multiple times a day, where you were treated lower than everyone.

I think in my head, I thought, "I need to think that I'm better than everybody at ..." Early on, I thought something with entertainment and comedy, mainly because no one was interested in it. There wasn't a second person watching comedians on the Tonight Show. Now there is, because the internet and comedy's become such a giant business.

Then I was always just trying to figure out: All right, what can I do next to make this path happen for me? In addition to just watching everything and reading everything, I became a dishwasher at a comedy club, just to watch the show. I just wanted to know how it worked, and then I said, "How can I meet these people now?" Then I started interviewing them for my high school radio station. It was always about interacting with them and learning more about it.

Then I went to college and studied screenwriting, and did stand-up, and then step by step, things happened.

It was daunting how good certain people were, because I lived with Adam Sandler, and I was friends with people like David Spade and Rob Schneider. I would open for Jim Carrey and write some jokes for Jim Carrey. I felt like these are super novas. You knew that these were going to be the biggest stars in comedy.

Everybody told me it was going to take a long time, so I didn't have that sense of being behind. I always felt ahead, because I started when I was 17. Even when I was 20, 21, I thought, if this all starts working out when I'm 30, it's okay.

In your early days, you famously refused to accept notes from the networks. What was going on that you didn't want this kind of oversight or that you thought that you needed to push back so hard?

The hard thing with comedy is no one knows if anything's going to work. There's just no way to predict it. Early in my career, I just had an instinct that if I think it's right, I should try to just do it the way I think it works.

I remember when I was doing the Ben Stiller Show, which was a sketch show for Fox, I went to my manager's partner, who was running In Living Color, and I asked him for advice. He said, "Judd, if you do their notes, and they're wrong, and then they don't pick up your pilot, they won't apologize. Just make sure you go down with your ship. You need to do it the way you want to do it, and succeed or fail."

That leads to, can I collaborate with executives, and take notes, and find a way to have that process be healthy, but at the time, I didn't know how to do that. I would get a lot of notes, and I would say, "I'm not doing any of them. What happens now?"

Yet your friend and collaborator Paul Feig has called you a “feedback machine.”

I do want the notes. I just want to be in control of the whether or not I have to do the notes. What happens is that early in your career, when you haven't made anybody money, no one trusts your judgment. So, if I do Freaks and Geeks and it gets canceled in the middle of the first season, and then I do Undeclared and it gets canceled in the middle of the first season, when I do a series of TV pilots after that, no one thinks I'm going to be correct. So, when we start having disagreements, I lose, because I've never made anyone money.

As soon as some of the movies made money, people backed off a little bit and thought, "Oh, maybe he has a sense of this thing that he does," and that collaboration got easier. But when I make a movie, I mean the process is to have the first rough long cut, bring in all your friends in and people who aren't your friends and just say what do you make of this? Then fix it, and then do it again with friends and advisors.

I get to make the decision. Then, I bring into it real people, like 300 people in a mall, and then listen. What are they understanding? Is it communicating the way I want it to? I do that three to five times. Usually by the end of that process, we've gotten to the best version of the movie. So, isn't so much about me alone in a room or me in a room with executives. The audience is collaborating with us and telling us if this is working properly.

You're creating documentaries now, you've got episodic shows and you've got movies. How do you decide what it is that you're going to work on?

It's hard, because you never know when anything will happen. So, I can write a movie, I don't know when I'm going to be happy with the script. Then, when I'm happy with the script, I don't know if the actors or actresses I want to be in it are going to be available in the timeline I'd like to do it. So, in a way you have to have a dozen things floating, because sometimes you know exactly what you want to do, but then no one else is ready to go.

I was just about to start making a movie, and at the last second, one of the actresses pulled out, and suddenly I'm free for the next year and a half, and I have to figure out, "Okay, so now what's my next move since that fell apart?" That happens.

One of the reasons why I work with young people who need a break is because they're available. They're not getting another job. So it's not like when I say, "Let's go." They say, "No, I have got three years of work lined up." That actually has made my life much easier.

You’re also working with everyone — Amazon, Netflix, HBO, all the studios. What’s the difference between the new players and the traditional ones?

I really feel like it's an experimental phase. It's hard to know. I have had a very long relationship with HBO. They gave me my first job. I worked for Comic Relief, the charity in 1986, and have worked almost straight through on The Larry Sanders Show, on Girls over the years, and it's a very smart place of executives who care about doing great work. It is a special place where they encourage people to be creative. I'm doing a Gary Shandling documentary for them right now. I've just sold them a documentary about the band, The Avett Brothers, that's going to air in January. So, that's been very rewarding.

Then you have, you know, a situation at a place like Netflix where we sold them this TV show Love that's on now. When we sold them the pilot, instead of shooting a pilot, they ordered two seasons of the show, and that's just an incredible headstart when you're trying to do television, and we've had a great experience with Netflix. I'm doing my stand-up special for Netflix in Montreal in a couple of weeks.

Then, Amazon bought The Big Sick at Sundance. That's interesting to see: Here's how Amazon is going to use their position to try to get this really special movie out into the marketplace. So, I feel like at the end of a year or two, maybe I'll have a better sense of what seems to be functioning best, or maybe it all works well.

It doesn’t matter to you who you work with?

It's always good that there's multiple places, that there's competition. That's good for creative people. That's good so creative people can get paid, and that seems to be happening.

You don't get any numbers back from Netflix, right?

You get a vague, "Yeah, that's good," or "Oh, it's great," or "I don't know."

Is getting the ratings data important to you?

I like to know if anyone's paying attention. I like to have some sense of that. I think that people consume things so quickly. I'm looking for the moment when I can have a conversation with the audience.

Part of the numbers is just: Are people excited about what you're doing and at what level? It's an interesting part of the business. I understand, certainly, why Netflix doesn't want that to be how their business is run. I think it frees them up in numerous ways. People love a horse race. They would love to debate the exact number on every single item on Netflix. For Netflix to not have to be pulled into the press of their numbers frees them up to make a lot more creative decisions. I mean, for creators, we'd like to know how we doing. It's helpful but I certainly get it, and it's fascinating that nobody knows. It's really interesting. I wonder if it'll hold. We'll see.

You're well known for finding and nurturing talent, especially unexpected talent, maybe faces of people that wouldn't have made it in the Hollywood star system. Is there something that you have found over the years works well for you for spotting someone you can build on?

There isn't a formula. It's just more like when I was a kid I would watch TV and I would see somebody like Michael Keaton when he was young and on a sitcom and think, "Oh, I love that guy. I wish he had a movie." As a kid, I would just wait and then one day, you know, Mr. Mom would come out, and I would be like, "Oh my god. They gave that guy a movie." Now, as a producer, I see someone I go, "Oh, I wish they had a movie. Oh, maybe I'll call them and see if we can think of a movie." But there's no formula to it.

There's nothing in that gut level reaction that over the years you've been able to say, "Ah, this is what I've discovered is what I'm looking for. This is why my gut is telling me this is the right person"?

I mean, I like people who are like a mess with a good heart who are trying to figure out how to make it through this life and find love, and success, and that that journey's going to be difficult. I like wounded people that are good down deep, so generally that's what I go to. I'm not into like the perfect action hero, gorgeous, strong, kick-ass types of characters. I'm a Norm from Cheers guy. I used to say, "I'd like The Bourne Identity more if it starred Norm from Cheers."

Do you find you have some people who are indispensable to you?

Oh sure. I mean, when I was working a lot with Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, you know, Seth was an actor on The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but at the same time he was co-writing Drillbit Taylor. He and Evan were writing Pineapple Express, and punching up Superbad, and we were just praying that any of these things would work out, and they really inspired me in my writing, and their point of view was very inspirational to the style of a lot of the work that I was doing, so when it works, it's helpful to everybody.

I learned so much working for Lena Dunham. We collaborated together but I felt like it gave me more courage in my own writing and directing seeing how brave she was. It's always a really healthy relationship.

Are there trends in comedy, or does comedy change, and do you have to keep up with it? Are there things that you're like, "Why is that funny? And do I have to make comedy like that?"

I think that's part of why I do standup comedy, is to be in the center of thought, of things that are happening. Because my fear is that I'm not funny any longer but no one has told me.

Photo: Monica Schipper / Getty Images edited by LinkedIn