Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Judd Apatow On "Funny People"

I'm looking forward to this movie a whole lot.
Apatow said the film's subject of mortality is one that hit close to home. "I have gone through this too many times, and as I get older -- I’m 41 now -- this circumstance as someone suddenly getting seriously ill is not that rare," he said. "I’ve watched people fight it. My first observation that led to the movie was that it really is difficult for people to survive sometimes because they’re faced with this wisdom when they think they’re going to pass. And suddenly the entire world makes sense, and they know what’s important to their friends and their family, and all the little things seem ridiculous. But when you get better, suddenly all your old neuroses start to trying to return, and the fight to stay in the wisdom is sometimes really brutal. It throws people in a way that I haven’t seen portrayed on film before. That was the part of the story that interested me."

I also love that Apatow admits to testing the film in front of an audience and makes a case for this as an important process to improve the movie, not a typical admission from a director. Most claim this is a way to dumb down the film for studio's sake, Apatow actually relies on the audience instead of sycophants to tell him something is good. That's quite refreshing.

Here is the Jake Tapper's whole podcast with Apatow.

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