Judd Apatow Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Judd Apatow. Here they are! All 53 of them:

If I’ve learned anything—anything—getting older, it’s the value of moment-to-moment enjoyment.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Life is ridiculous, so why not be a good guy?” That may be the only religion I have to this day.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Jerry: If you always want less, in words as well as things, you’ll do well as a writer.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
you have to have a dream before you can execute it. That the people who succeed are the ones who think through what the next stages of their careers might be, and then work incredibly hard, day after day, to attain their goals. They don’t just flop around like fish. They have a vision, and they work their asses off to make it a reality.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Mel, if you’re going to go up to the bell, ring it.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Judd: I like to be here until people really want to leave. But that’s kind of how I am as a person. That’s why my movies are too long. That’s why I eat too much.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
There’s very little work where the work and the reward are simultaneous, and comedy is that.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
I’m trying to fuck my kids up just enough so they’ll want to get a job.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
As Nora Ephron said once: “Well, I feel terrible about the metaphor, but what can I do? It’s like the whale, you know?” And
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
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 7 out of five hundred people".
Judd Apatow
Sometimes I actually have a phobia of feeling good.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
If life only has the meaning you bring to it, we have the opportunity to bring rich meaning to our lives by the service we do for others. It’s a positive thing.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
I'm sure my brain is all screwed up because it's always trying to think about how to look at something in a funny way.
Judd Apatow
Harold: Serenity is an illusion, but if anything is possible and I can do anything, then there’s a limitless capacity to do good.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
No one really knows anything about comedy. We know a little bit about what we’re doing, but as far as the industry—the exec branch—they don’t know how it happens.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Amy: I still think that all the time. It’s not that I feel like what I’m doing is so amazing, but it’s pretty good compared to what other people are doing.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
They say certain people aren’t good soldiers because if they’re in a foxhole all night—you know, if you’re creative and smart, you’re thinking about all the different ways someone is going to blow your head off. But if you’re not that smart, you’re just like chilling out. And I feel like that in life. I’m just in the foxhole all fucking day thinking about everything that’s going to go wrong in every possible way.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
That’s the greatest thing about comedy. If you’ve got talent, it’s unmistakable. No one misses it and you don’t have to wait around for a break. It’s very easy to get a break. It’s very hard to be good enough.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Marc: Why are we so afraid of joy? Judd: That’s the question. And I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think it’s because we think right behind joy is a knife that will cut our throat if we really feel it. It’s almost like a laugh—your chin goes up and your throat is exposed. If I laugh too loud, someone will slit my throat. That’s the terror of joy.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Marc: I’ll tell you something Harry Shearer said to me, and I want to get your opinion on it. He said the reason why people are comedians is to have control over why people laugh at you. Judd: I look at it this way: When someone is laughing, I know they don’t dislike me. I don’t know if they like me, but I know that in that moment they don’t dislike me. And that’s why I get the need for constant approval, because if you’re smiling I know you don’t hate me.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Sarah: I can be cynical. But I don’t think of myself, at my core, as cynical. So much of it is location. Like, who is Muslim? Who is a Jew? Who is a Catholic? Who is a Christian? Who’s Buddhist? Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of it is where you happen to be born. So how can one be right and another be wrong? It seems pretty clear to me that it’s a coping mechanism for people who cannot handle the not knowing of things. I am okay knowing I will never be able to comprehend the world.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
There’s that moment early in your career when you will work harder than any other point afterward.
Judd Apatow
For a while, my daughter would give me a hard time because she wasn’t allowed to see my movies because they’re all R-rated. It’s hard to delay kids to fifteen, sixteen years old, especially when they have the movie on every gadget in the house. But I finally opened up the door. It was this big deal. I was like, “Okay, you can watch them now”—and then she had no interest in watching them. So now, anytime she watches a movie that’s not one of mine it’s an insult to me. “Why are you watching Schindler’s List? You haven’t seen Funny People! When are you going to watch it?” She’s like, “I don’t know, Dad.
Judd Apatow
Michael O’Donoghue didn’t suffer fools. He didn’t need to. Judd
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
a weird movie.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Working with an audience is like being an animal trainer. If you go in the ring and you’re a little bit nervous and your hand’s shaking, the animals sense it and they rip you apart. Same thing with audiences.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Cocky nerds. My wife and I always talk about it. It's people who think they don't think ill of themselves --they actually think that there's something special about themselves but no one's noticed it... And that's what makes them interesting. They have an air of superiority as they're getting pummeled.
Judd Apatow
Jerry: I think anyone should do whatever they like. I don’t think there should be any rules. Judd: As long as it gets laughs? Jerry: If it doesn’t get laughs, you’re not gonna get work, and you’re not gonna be a comedian. So the audience ultimately decides. It’s a very democratic system.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Why Superbad Worked Superbad worked because Seth and Evan wrote about exactly what they were experiencing at the time. Evan explains, “At the time, all we knew was that we really wanted to get laid, we weren’t getting laid, and we weren’t supercool.” It pays to write what you know. Seth started doing standup when he was 13 years old. He adds: “That’s something that came from standup comedy. There’s a comic named Darryl Lenox who still performs, who is great. I remember he saw me perform. . . . I would try to mimic other comedians like Steven Wright or Seinfeld, like, ‘What’s the deal with Krazy Glue?’ and he said: ‘Dude, you’re the only person here who could talk about trying to get a hand job for the first time. . . . Talk about that!’” Lessons from Judd Apatow EVAN: “I would say the biggest thing we learned from [Judd] is ‘Don’t keep stuff to yourself.’ You’re surrounded by smart people. Bring them in. Get other people’s opinions. Share it with them. And most importantly, emotion is what matters. It’s an emotional journey. . . .” SETH: “. . . I remember one time we were filming a scene in Knocked Up and improvising, or maybe it was even 40-Year-Old Virgin, and the direction he screamed at us—because he screams direction from another room a lot, which is hilarious—was, ‘Less semen, more emotion!’ I think that is actually a good note to apply across the board.” TIM: “You also mentioned that every character has to have a wound of some kind.” EVAN: “That’s a big Judd-ism.” TF: Judd recommended they read The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri (Evan: “If you’re a writer, 60% of it is useless and 40% of it is gold.”), which Judd said was Woody Allen’s favorite writing book.
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
Louis: You have to be willing to say, “Let’s not do this show. Let’s not do it.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Starbucks is the smart coffee for dumb people. It’s the Christopher Nolan of coffee. Dunkin’ Donuts is lowbrow, authentic. It is the simple, real pleasure of a Judd Apatow movie. Not showing off. Actual. Human. Don’t compete with me, Christopher Nolan. You will always lose. I know who you are, and I know I am the smarter of us.
Charlie Kaufman (Antkind)
Ensō.” And
Judd Apatow (It's Garry Shandling's Book)
know meditation is healthy. Everybody says it slows your heart rate and everything, and the basis of religion seems to be that when you pray…I don’t know what people who are religious think when they pray, but it’s very close to what meditation is. It’s sort of ritualistic, it’s habit, it’s like exercising, so you might be able to get something out of that. I’m sure some people enjoy thinking it’s out of their hands. There’s all these people who think it’s “meant to be.” But I don’t buy that.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Diaries of Garry Shandling,
Judd Apatow (It's Garry Shandling's Book)
Barris spoke longingly about the comedic collective that Judd Apatow had built, and said that he wanted to create something like it—“a contemporary, racially eclectic, gender-eclectic, experience-eclectic salon.
Emily Nussbaum (I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution)
If it’s funny, you’re funny, and people like you.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Starbucks is the smart coffee for dumb people. It’s the Christopher Nolan of coffee. Dunkin’ Donuts is lowbrow, authentic. It is the simple, real pleasure of a Judd Apatow movie. Not showing off. Actual. Human.
Charlie Kaufman (Antkind)
And since leaving, what has been the best part of not working that busy schedule? David: It used to be really fatiguing, the fact of doing it every day. Now when I do something, I think, Wow, this would be great if I could do something like this once a month. You still get the little jolt, and the hope of self-esteem, but you’re not in the makeup chair every day
Judd Apatow (Sicker in the Head: More Conversations About Life and Comedy)
The only true stereotype about Black women is how Black women will say, “Well, no one’s doing it, so I guess I’ll do it.” Once you put that lady in your office, no matter what your office is, if you treat her right, she is going to do your job and her job. And I think people are slowly realizing that.
Judd Apatow (Sicker in the Head: More Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Harold: As my first job out of college, I worked in a mental institution for seven months. I learned how to deflect insanity, or how to deal with it, and how to speak to schizophrenics, catatonics, paranoids, and suicidal people. It sounds funny, but it really expanded my tolerance for the extremes of human behavior, which turns out to be great training for working with actors.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
The work can really bring out the worst side of you when you feel like someone else is ruining it. I can completely lose my mind.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Nobody knew it yet, but the president and his staff would not be so solicitous. They had, in fact, been eagerly awaiting Trump’s arrival in Washington from the moment the news became public, recognizing the occasion as the perfect opportunity to exact a humiliating revenge. Obama’s writing staff even brought in a ringer, the comedian and director Judd Apatow, to
Joshua Green (Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising)
Plus, I was the youngest boy in my grade, so I was small. This size deficit led to me always being picked last in gym class—every day for thirteen years. When you’re always picked last, you always get the worst position, like right field in baseball. Then, since you are always in the worst position, the ball never comes your way, so you never get a chance to show anyone that you are, in fact, good at this sport. But the truth is, you are not good at this sport because you are never involved in a play, because you are always in the worst position. When it is time to step up to bat, you feel so much pressure to do something incredible, like hit a home run, that you usually whiff. If you somehow manage to get a hit, your accomplishment is ignored by your peers, who chalk it up to luck. (No child in history has ever gone from last one picked to first one picked. That is a universal law that will never be broken.) Then the kid who is picked last never gets a girl to like him, because he has been labeled a loser. Therefore, what else is there to do except decide that everyone else is the loser and you are the cool one? That is how the cocky nerd comes to be. So
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Amy Schumer: I did an interview with Jerry Seinfeld the other day. Judd Apatow: You did? Did you know him at all? Amy: We met a bunch of times at the Cellar, but I didn’t know him well. He picked me up in a Ferrari, and then it broke down on [the] West Side Highway. It was a real piece of shit. It was smoking, it was real scary. Judd:
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
I’m appreciative of the guys that can come along for the ride and not feel alienated because this isn’t some “pro-women, down with men” thing, but the reality is, I’m speaking to the women and trying to keep the guys interested enough that they still want to come to the shows. Judd: And what are you saying to them? Amy: “You’re doing the best you can and you’re good enough.” And that came from just sitting around with my girlfriends in high school and not having to pretend. You could just be like, “Well, I haven’t washed my hair in almost a full week, and do you want to hear what I ate last night?” You would feel so human—and, as a result, less apologetic. Judd: Your act is like that now. Amy: Well, I think it’s really comforting to people. It makes everyone feel better to acknowledge that no one has it together. I mean, I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have this big, dark cloud hovering over them. Just knowing that makes me feel better. Judd:
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Amy: I’m taking this responsibility seriously. I’m looking at it as an opportunity. What do I want to say? What have I really learned? Where am I, really? I’m not interested in just saying something for shock value anymore. I do feel more of a weight about the message that I’m sending because I know what it’s like to be on the other end of that and I don’t want to be in denial about what success means—and like how many people I’m reaching now. I want to make people feel better.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Judd: You like being scared? Louis: I remember when I was a kid, Billie Jean King was doing that Battle of the Sexes thing—I don’t remember if it was happening when I was a kid or if I saw a show about it. But I was so impressed with her. She reminded me of my mom and I just thought she was the coolest person and I hated Bobby Riggs because my mom was a single, working mother. They toured together and did these interviews together, and he was always going, like, women should just go back, put on a tight shirt, and make me a steak. He said this amazing shit and she’s just sitting there with a smile on her face. And they turned to her and they say, “How do you feel about all this?” And she says, “Well, all this does is put pressure on me. Everything he says just means that I have to beat him.” She gets this big smile on her face and says, “I love pressure.” Judd: Wow. Louis: And I never forgot it. I was like, fuck that. That was such an interesting notion—that pressure, give me, give me, give me, because all that’s going to do is make me better. Like, eating pressure. Having it be fuel. I like that.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Stephen: I wouldn’t say I was the first person to do it, because Jon certainly was doing it on his show. Judd: But not to his face. Stephen: Well, you don’t get an opportunity to do that very often. Judd: Yeah. Stephen: You know, there’s a woman I get my coffee from every morning. She is not a native to our country, she wasn’t born here. And she said to me the week of that dinner, she said, “Stephen, you look so tired, why do you look so tired?” I go, “Well, Anna, I been working late after the show. I’m writing a script to get ready for the Correspondents’ Dinner. I’m going to perform for the president.” She said, “You perform in front of the president?” I said, “Yeah, I’ll be like five feet from him.” She goes, “But you’re a satirist. You’re a critic. You’re going to do your jokes right next to him?” And I said, “Yeah.” She took my face in her hands and said, “This is a good country.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Four completely sober men on the set of Pineapple Express.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
Stephen: You know, there’s a woman I get my coffee from every morning. She is not a native to our country, she wasn’t born here. And she said to me the week of that dinner, she said, “Stephen, you look so tired, why do you look so tired?” I go, “Well, Anna, I been working late after the show. I’m writing a script to get ready for the Correspondents’ Dinner. I’m going to perform for the president.” She said, “You perform in front of the president?” I said, “Yeah, I’ll be like five feet from him.” She goes, “But you’re a satirist. You’re a critic. You’re going to do your jokes right next to him?” And I said, “Yeah.” She took my face in her hands and said, “This is a good country.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
I’m always assuming things are going to crash and I’m trying to figure out what could go wrong before it happens. It’s helpful for work. But it’s a terrible way to live your life.
Judd Apatow (Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy)
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.
Judd Apatow
Happiness is wildly indiscreet vibrators that make your whole clapped-out building quake and Jill Scott sex jams and Judd Apatow comedies set in L.A, preferably featuring Leslie Mann. Yes! Happiness is Leslie Mann because she's joyful and she always laughs like she's got an abundance of delightful secrets.
Diriye Osman