Judd Apatow: Fear of Rejection Holding You Back? THIS Trick Will Silence the Inner Critic & Help You Feel Confident to Create

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I had to look at the failure as the path
to success. I thought, well, every joke that doesn't get
a laugh is teaching me what not to do.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Sometimes we wait for the result to make us believe
that we're worthy. But there's a moment that I think,
when you do what you love, you're like, oh, no,
I can do this. It's just a matter of time
before people kind of figure it out.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
And Number one Health and Well Inness Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Jay Shetty Jay SHENNYE shet Hey, everyone, welcome back to
On Purpose, the place you come to listen, learn and grow.
Today on on Purpose, I welcome a true icon, Judd Apatow,
one of the most influential storytellers in modern comedy, and
the filmmaker behind Just the Name of You, the four

(00:41):
year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Funny People. Together, we
explore how to tap into your creativity, push through self doubt,
hues humor to get through tough moments, and build the
kind of resilience that lasts in both life and work.
We'll be diving into Jud's newest book, Comedy Nerd, a
vision usual memoir of his life and career. This book

(01:03):
is epic, honestly I've been flicking through it and taking
moments out that I want to talk about today for
the past couple of weeks, and I can't wait for
you to grab it.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Please.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Welcome to On Purpose, Chad Apatow. Chad, It's great to
have you here.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
It's great to be here.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Truly, thank you so much for being here. I'm like,
I'm so fascinated by your career, your life, and I
feel like there's so many directions with which we can go,
and that's my favorite kind of person to sit down with.
But the first thing I want to ask is you
have a book called Comedy Nerd. Yes, you've made people
laugh for decades. What was the last thing that made
you laugh out loud?

Speaker 1 (01:35):
There's a TV show on Hulu called Such Brave Girls.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
I've not seen it, Okay, I just.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
I'll just recommend that to everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
It's just you make this show.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
I have nothing to do with it other than my
daughter Maud said to me, I think I've seen the
funniest thing ever. And then we watched it together and
we went, yeah, that's about it. And I've been catching
up on the Righteous Gemstones, which which I was behind her.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Okay, I've not seen that either.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
You got two good ones.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Great two recommendations. I love that. I feel like you
and your family just have such a sweet, fun relationship.
Are you always watching shows together and nineteen recommending? What
does that look like?

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah? I mean when they're young, you're just you know,
watching The Iron Giant eight hundred times in a row
with them, or a toy story, and then at some
point you go, I wonder if they could enjoy the
Blues Brothers and you try to slip you know, some
Caddy Shock or Ghostbutchers in there, and maybe a third
of them they like, yeah, like you kind of can't
get them to love the stuff that you loved.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
But then every once in a while, I'll you know,
when they were young, I'd walk by their room and
they're like watching Anchorman or something, and I think, Okay,
they're beginning to get it.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
How long did it take them to get your sense
of humor in your style?

Speaker 1 (02:41):
I don't know. I used to joke all the time
that like, they just so don't think I'm funny, and
you know, I would go do stand up and they
would be like, how long did you put them through it?

Speaker 2 (02:50):
For?

Speaker 1 (02:52):
I'm like fifteen minutes like, oh god, you know, like
they felt so bad for anybody that had to listen.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
To me, anyone who paid to see you exactly.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
But I think that's the fun thing about kids is
they just have no respect for you soever. I mean,
maybe hit it like everyone saw a little sneak out like, oh,
I guess they did like that. They think it's funny
to hold back. Yes, you know, like maud Is in
the movie Funny People, And the running joke for her
in the house is she's never seen it, right, So
when she comes over, I'll just have it playing on
a TV and then she'll just leave the room.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
That's amazing.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Just decided this one I will never watch.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
That's amazing. What's the reason, What does she want to
watch it?

Speaker 1 (03:28):
I think she just realized that it bothered me. And
now it's a lifelong gag.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
That's what it is. That's that's exactly it. I don't
have kids yet, but I can totally relate to the
fact that if I thought something my dad did was cool,
I did not want him to know exactly like I
did not want him to know. And you're just gonna
be prepared for that as a dad, I guess and
a mom that I saw one clipper. I think you
and your wife were talking and I think you said
that her her like best feeling of being a parent

(03:53):
was when you realized your daughter's actually got along.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah. Oh that was a big, big moment. Yeah, because
you know when they don't get along for a while,
then you're like, wait a second, they called each other.
Oh my god, they text each other now, And then
you just get excited that you know, the relationship you
always thought would happen happens.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
How did you get over that as a parent? I
think so many parents struggle with that. Obviously, we all
want to be liked. Yeah, you want to be liked
by your kid, yes, and this is the person you
love more than anything else in the world, But for
years they don't love you, Like I always say, like,
I feel like I was grateful to my parents when
I was like twenty one, Like it took all those
years for me to turn around and be like, thank
you mom and lay in a deep, sincere way. Yeah

(04:31):
I may have said it before. Then, how did you
deal with that? Like, it seems like you have a
really great relationship with your kids, and how did you
get over that hump? Of not them seeing you as
cool and funny and all the rest of it when
you'd achieved so much.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Well, I think that they you know, I think we
all got a kick out of each other. Like we
always thought that they were really funny and we enjoyed
their personalities. And so even when you know, you go
through the rough middle school years, you know, we're still
having fun most most of the time. But I also
think like we're like the kind of parents who were like,

(05:04):
you know, don't go to college, then leave me alone.
Like we were like the pressure parents. You know, we
were trying our best to say, you know, just figure
out what you want to do, and you know, chase
your passion. And that's the main thing I realized later,
which is people who are always obsessing on grades or discipline,
But the thing you're really hoping your kids have is
some sort of fire to chase a dream. And I

(05:27):
had never thought about that before. Oh I need my
kids to have some ambition, some energy to take a
risk and go after something. And so, you know, when
I saw that both of them, did you know, that
was a great, great relief.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
How were you in school? Did you get good grades?

Speaker 1 (05:42):
I was like a very mediocre, mediocre student. I went
to school on Long Island and they used to do
this thing where they would test you, I guess, like
in sixth grade, and they would decide how smart you were, basically,
and they would put you in track one, which was
the smartest, Track two, which is kind of most people
Track three kids having a problem. And if you were
put like me in track too, it was really hard

(06:04):
to get them to ever switch you to a class
and track what So I always thought like that kind
of messed me up because it was very early, like twelve,
where they basically said this is the limit of your intelligence.
You know, that like really bugged me. And you'd see
like the smart kids go to class and you can
kind of tell that the track when teachers were probably
a little cooler than the other ones. And so but

(06:26):
I got my act together. I went to USC Film
School and studied screenwriting. But how I got in was
I just wrote a really funny essay. My grades weren't amazing.
I just sent in a couple ideas from movies. But
my essay was it was meant to be funny. I
just described what the buildings would look like that I
would give them the money to build, So I just

(06:47):
kept promising them how much money I would donate. It
was basically the college scandal what in nineteen eighty five,
And I think it made them laugh. Yea, I said,
you know, you think that George Lucas building is nice?
Get ready for the JUG building. But I still have
not given them any much.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Is that happening? I was, abouts, are we getting a
JUG building?

Speaker 1 (07:06):
I just just so that they're not part of a
bad agreement. I literally have never given them a penny.
I'll go speak there all the time, but I don't
want them to be caught in anything.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Have you ever reconnected with any of your like school
or high school teachers or anyone else who taught you
and you had any interactions with back then that you
remember now you well.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
You know the man who ran the media program and
the high school radio station that I used to interview comedians,
that was named Jack to Macy, and we're still good friends.
And you know, he was the first person to say
to all of us, you know, treat this radio station
like it's real and just you know, use use it.
And so we would like call up and try to
figure out how to get free tickets and free books.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
And live on.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, we would just like use it. You know, people
were interviewing politicians and sports people. My friend was interviewing
bands like Ram and then one day my friend was like,
you should try to interview comics because he knew I
was into it. And then one day I got an
interview was Steve Allen, and then I got an interview
with Howard Stern Sandra Bernhard, and that became how I
educated myself about comedies. I did fifty interviews in high

(08:09):
school with like Seinfeld and Leno, and as I look
back now, I go it helped. Like they did give
me good information and most importantly, they were nice to me,
which I think made me feel safe trying to get
in the business because I thought, oh, there's people like
that in there.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yes. Yeah, What was the most memorable interview that you
remember for yourself at that time because you were fifteen
years old?

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, I was fifteen, sixteen years old. I mean yeah,
Martin Short I interviewed when he was promoting SETV and
he was just so funny. I was always amazed when
anyone would try to make me laugh because I was
just a kid and I just thought, Wow, this is
the nicest person in the world. They're like really like
going for it with me. You know, some people would
seem like, oh, no, this is a kid, I didn't

(08:53):
want to do this, and they'd be like fine, but
a few people would be really funny. Jerry Seinfeld was
hilarious talk to me about how to write jokes and
gave me examples of jokes was working on, and that all,
you know, you know, stayed with me forever.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, it's so subtle. I feel like in those years,
the things that you were and the people that you're around,
and I wish everyone got work experience like that. I
mean that sounds amazing.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Well it was also a lesson in how to treat people, yes,
because you know, I was just a young person and
I would go in and talk to someone and you know,
for someone like Jerry Seinfeld just to say I'm going
to sit with you for forty five minutes and really
take all your questions and seriously and thoughtfully, and that
was a big deal.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, it's such an amazing experience and entry into the
industry too. Like you said that, Oh, if I become
like these people, then I can still be a good
person and a nice person.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah, and I didn't realize that until like a few
years ago, Like, oh, that was a big thing about
how I try to handle myself in the business. Was
I saw these people like Harold Ramis, and they were
just so kind and funny that I just thought, Oh,
that's the vibration you want, go for it.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah. Did you ever worry about it? I feel like
everyone has so many thoughts on the industry. Did you
ever have a negative idea of the industry or worry
or fear that it would change you or make you
different or in any way change your path.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
I was just really excited by it. I think as
a kid in the seventies and eighties, just Variety TV,
Bob Hope and Saturday Night Live at Richard Parry, it
seemed so exciting. And I also thought there's not that
many people in comedy back then. It really felt like
all of comedy was one hundred people. So for some reason,
I thought I can get in there. I think I

(10:34):
can get a job in there, and so I really
was just determined to figure out what is the path?
You know, how do you do it? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (10:45):
I heard an interview where you were talking about how
you almost grew up in comedy with all these amazing
other people that are all icons in their own right
as well, like Jim Carrey and Adam Sandlan, and you
were almost like you were like we all grew up
with our friends in our career, and I was thinking,
what was it that allowed you or to be friends
and not competitors and not see each other as your

(11:06):
art rivals or your auton nemesis in that sense, and
actually say, oh no, you said in that interview, You're
like I saw them as friends, and I was like, Wow,
that's that's special. It's unique.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
I think it's different for everyone. Like for me, I
just thought, I can't compete with Jim care, I can't
compete with Adham saying that, I had an awareness that
these were very special people. I mean, they were great
friends and remain and are so nice. But back then
just a fan, even when I was, you know, around
Adam or Jim, I always thought, oh, that's the guy

(11:41):
that's going to be the guy, you know, like it
was like hanging out with Charlie Chaplin or something. And
it just turned out to be true that they were
the people who were going to change everything, and so
I never felt competitive. Sometimes I was depressed, like I
had lost the competition. That's really what I thought. It was.
Oh wow, I'm not built like that. You know, if
you're around Jim Carrey, you're like, yeah, I can't do that.

(12:05):
I can't think that. I mean I used to help
him at writing jokes and punging up scripts and stuff,
So that felt like the greatest thing ever that he
trusted me enough to be a part of his creativity
in any way.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Well, well that's a great point too, Like I was
looking at it from the other angle, but I love
I love the lens you took it through, which is then,
how did you How did you maintain your motivation and
your drive when you're looking around and you're thinking, God,
this guy's ahead of me, this guy's going to be
the next big thing. Who am I? How did you
channel that feeling that could lead to depression and giving

(12:38):
up to actually going well, no, I still have something
to say.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
I think I just thought something's gonna something's gonna happen.
I don't know what it is. I started out as
a comedian and I was studying screenwriting, and I didn't
really have a vision of if I was going to
be an actor. I wanted to be a comedian. I didn't.
I didn't really think that much about being a director.
I thought about being a writer a little bit. And

(13:04):
everyone was jockeying to break in. And suddenly Jim Carrey
was on a living collar, and then Adam got Saturday
Night Live, and I was beginning to write some HBO specials.
I wrote for Tom Arnold and Roseanne was one of
my first gigs. And then I met Ben Stiller and
we created a sket show, The Ben Stiller Show together,
and suddenly that was happening, and out of some weird fluke,

(13:26):
even though I was very young, we both ran the show,
which was weird. We didn't really climb the ladder. We
got a show on the Fox network, and so I
was just trying to not screw it up. And Ben
was a genius. So I was watching what he was
doing and trying to figure out how I could help
him run the show and not ruin this opportunity. And

(13:47):
you know, he got canceled after twelve episodes, but we
won an Emmy six months later, and so it became
this how.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
Did he canceled? I'm win an Emmy.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
It was a funny thing because I think how many
people really liked it. It was on at seven thirty
against sixty minutes. It was a very weird time slot,
and Ben was really trying a lot of new things
in comedy. You know. Bob Odekirk and Andy Dickens g
and Garoffolo were on the show, and so we knew
this that the head of the network didn't like it,
and so the whole time we were like, Oh, this

(14:17):
isn't gonna last long. And six months later we won
an Emmy, and then people categorized us as people who
are doing something interesting, almost like an alternative rock band,
like we were the Replacements or something, and I thought, well,
that's pretty cool to be a failure.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah too terrible.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, yeah, it did not get ratings, but certain people
that I respect think what we did was great, and
so that kept me going for a while.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah. I love that for two reasons. Because I remember
reading Bob Byder's book and he talked about how Steven Spielberg, Tarantino,
George Lucas that they would all premiere their movies to
each other and ask for feedback. Yeah, and when I
read that, I was like wow. And he goes on
to talk about how they were so confident in their
own style, and they so trusted that every person had

(15:03):
their own style that they never felt someone was going
to steal something or take something off each other. And
I thought, well, that's an incredible, incredible And these they're
all young at this age. It's not like they're you know,
they're adults, but they're not mature people with wisdom. And
for them to have that at that point, and it sounds
like you all had the same where you're helping each
other with jokes, you're putting shows together, you're running together.

(15:24):
Like it almost feels like the comedy version of that.
If that was the film version, this is the comedy version.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Well, when I was young, we would watch you know,
Saturday Night Live or a Monty Python or Second City TV,
and it was these groups of comedy people, these communities.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Where would you do this?

Speaker 1 (15:39):
You know, it would just be on TV. You know,
you'd be home and you'd watch you know, Mounty Python
would be on PBS when I was a kid, and
and you would see them and think, oh, maybe they weren't,
but to me they were all buddies. Yeah, right, And
so Saturday Life felt like a group of friends. I'm
sure they weren't. I'm sure like a couple were teams.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
They were with Jim and with Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
So in my head, I was like, this is so
fun that, like there's a community here in Los Angeles
of people trying to break in to comedy. And I realized, oh,
that was the goal really, maybe more than even the work,
was like to find that community of like minded people
to have fun with.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
What convinced you? What was the first moment you were
convinced that I'm funny, I can write funny, I can
do funny. When did that happen in that journey and process.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out when I thought I
was doing well, because I was very comfortable in not
being good because when I did all the interviews, they
all said it takes like seven years to find your voice.
So in my head, I thought, oh, I started stand
up at seventeen, so when i'm twenty four, i'll be great.
And so when I was nineteen and I was terrible,
I thought, perfect, this is where I'm supposed supposed to

(16:44):
be right now. So I had this clock that was
very aware that this was going to take time and
that I had to I had to look at the
failure as the path to success, and so I thought, well,
every joke that doesn't get a laugh is teaching me
what not to do. And then I'm trying think of
the first thing that I thought was very.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
You thought not that the result worked, because I think
that's a really interesting part, right. I feel like sometimes
we wait for the result to make us believe that
we're worthy. But there's a moment that I think when
you do what you love, you're like, oh, no, I
can do this. It's just a matter of time before
people kind of figure it out.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah. I started writing jokes for comedians George Wallace and
Taylor Negron, and then I got hired to write jokes
for Tom Arnold when he first moved to town and
everyone was like, who's this guy that's with Roseanne? And
he was trying to figure out his point of view
and stand up and so I was a part of that.
And then we did a bunch of HBO specials where
he would try to solve the world's problems, like reality

(17:42):
comedy specials, and we would write these setups for these
reality pieces, which were film sketches, and Roseanna and Tom
would get big people to be in and Frank Zappa
was in one. Fred Willard, I got Jim Carrey to
do one of these intros and Stiller and so these
intros were funny, and so maybe those are the first

(18:02):
things that they shot, Like, oh my god, I wrote
a joke for Frank Zappa and it got a laugh,
and that gave me something that was it. Yeah, to
see Martin Maull do your better and just go wow,
he's my favorite. And I think I didn't screw him up.
I think I gave him a good joke there.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's I mean. The success the failure to
success piece is so interesting. I saw someone you said
something like you that someone sold their tenth script and
so you felt you could not sell nine and it
would take time. And I love that idea that you said,
Hey started at seventeen, and it takes seven years to
be a great comic, and so at twenty four. I

(18:37):
think the reason why I'm picking those two things that
you've said is today I feel like a lot of
young people just feel like they have to be successful tomorrow.
Because there is a sixteen year old who has one
hundred million followers on TikTok, or there is a twenty
one year old that is a billionaire or whatever it
may be. And so and now you're aware of what
everyone's achieving, not just your classmates or the people you're around.

(19:01):
And I wonder if you've ever thought about, especially with
your daughters going into the industry too, how do you
help them reconcile that pressure and that timeline that's just
totally shifted where you can't take seven years to become
an icon anymore. You should be an icon tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah. I think that that must be tough on everybody
trying to do anything, because I look back at when
I was living with Adam Sandler, and I always think
no one was paying attention to us. So we would
go to the improv every night and Adam would experiment
and do weird characters, do cajun Man out of the blue,
and just do all these weird things, and no one
was judging it, no one was taping it, no one

(19:37):
was commenting about it. So there really was this gestation
period where you could be really weird and funny and
take chances and really fail some nights really kill other nights.
And so the idea of people paying attention to that
where when you're really young you feel the need to
put yourself on the internet probably is not great for everybody,

(19:58):
because it's also really fun and fail when no one's watching.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
No, it's fun to play a club if one in
the morning, in front of thirty people and just do
something wild just to see if it would work.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's almost like you've got to
kind of even if you are putting yourself online, you've
got to you've got to feel or remind yourself that
no one's really watching right now, and hey, people won't.
They'll only watch my first videos after I get a following,
which will be okay, And so there's some of that
that you can kind of take forward.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
And I, you know, I didn't direct, so I was
like thirty six, thirty seven years old a movie. I've
done some television before that, and I was better because
I wasn't given the shot earlier. I think I just
knew how to do it. I was more mature, I
had more to say, and so I don't necessarily think
it's always great to get the big break right off
the bat.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
I love hearing these stories, and that's why I love
the book Comedy Nerds so much, is because for me,
like my first experience of Ben Still it would have
been Zoolander or you know, I'm trying to think of
the first Adam Sounder movie. I watching Click or maybe
something like that, and it's like you, I'm across this
work when or like with you, it's like forgetting Sarah
Marshall or like and you're talking about these huge hits

(21:07):
that are like worldwide famous people. You know, people talk
about them, laugh for hours, and that's your first experience
and then you realize, wait a minute, this person had
a TV show that had twelve episodes and got canceled
and then they went on to do something else. And
so I feel like it's so sobering to hear it.
And I feel like for our community that are full
of creatives, people who are entrepreneurs, whether you're building a business,

(21:30):
whether you're launching a podcast, whether someone's trying to create
their own brand or clothing line, it's almost like there's
so much pressure to be first and for your first
thing to be your thing today, I feel, and to
know that your main thing that you do today that
you're most known for directing, happened like you know, twenty years,

(21:51):
twenty years into you're doing the thing as opposed to
two years in and you've continued to build an amazing
career from it. It wasn't it and like that was
lost time. Even you wouldn't say that from seventeen to
thirty six was a waste of time.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
No, And there were fun projects that we you know,
we all learned how to make movies while making so
you know, I worked on a kid's movie called Heavyweights,
and that was the first movie that we shot. And
you know, at the time it was a little ten
million dollar movie that made twenty million dollars and you know,
Ben Steller played the bad guy. Paul Figue was an
actor in it. Keenan Thompson was in it, and our

(22:26):
friend Steve Brill, who I wrote it with, directed it.
And you know, we didn't know what we were doing
and made this kind of super weird Disney movie and
at the time, I guess considered a failure. And now
thirty years later, it's on Disney Plus right now, and
it's like a big movie that kids keep watching. So
even the things where you were learning, sometimes over time
you realize, oh, people love that one. Even the things

(22:48):
that at the time were failures or people didn't quite
get what your point of view was, and then you know,
twenty years later people say, oh, I love the cable guy. Yeah,
I took a beating for that in nineteen ninety six.
And so that's the other thing you learned that it
takes time for the world to really tell you if
you succeeded or failed. You may think that you failed,

(23:10):
and then you realize, oh, that never went away. Like
people like that, Yeah, and they watch it. So now
when I make things, and that is crazed about the
immediate reaction because so many times I've seen things bubble
back up.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah. That's why I guess making what you believe is
so important. And that's one of the reasons why I
love TikTok so much, because songs that are five, ten
years old, yeah, twenty years old, some of them will
have a full refresh because they hit the TikTok algorithm
and now a whole new generation is in love with
that song. Would you say, though, Judge, that you felt
that way or you've felt that way over time? Did

(23:43):
you have you always made stuff that you believed was
funny and was made for you and your friends, or
did you always put the audience at the heart of it,
and it was their response that designed it. Because I
feel like in creativity there's these two versions where people
are like, I don't care what any one else thinks.
I just make what I believe is funny and what
my friends would laugh at. And then there's like, no,

(24:05):
I'm listening and learning and taking all the outside notes,
and then that's what I'm focusing on. What was your
process in the days when it wasn't working. Yeah, externally,
you know.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
The main thing is do you like it? So as
a comedy fan or just someone who wants to make
things that are great, that's the main bar, Like do
I like it? Am I proud of it? And then
the second question is how many people would like it
the way I like it? Because you can make something
and you know, oh, this is a very niche idea.
There's going to be a small crowd of likes it
and certain ideas. You're like, I think this is great,

(24:37):
but I actually think everyone will like it.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
And I was always a big fan of James Brooks
from when I was a kid, you know, watching the
Mary Tyler Moore Show and broadcast news, and I got
a chance to working the show he did called the critic,
and I just saw that he really cared if the
if the audience liked it, and he would always say,
if the audience doesn't love it, you failed. Yeah, like

(24:59):
that's it's a but it's a simple as that. If
they're not touched emotionally, if they're not laughing, you didn't
do a good job. And you know, he was a
big support of table reads and getting input from people
and doing test screenings and seeing how people were interpreting
the work. So it's a weird process because on one level,
you're trying to be an artist and stay true to

(25:19):
what you believe in and what you like, but you're
also having this conversation with the audience because they don't
get it. It's bad.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think now creativity has become, in
one sense, more difficult because the idea of a trend
and everyone doing the same thing is far more normal
and common, whereas in what you're talking about, there was
a sense of uniqueness and ingenuity and everyone's kind of

(25:47):
doing that, Like Jim Carrey's not doing the same thing
Adam Sands doing, you're not doing the same thing if
you're working with them on a project that's different but
you're not doing the same thing they're doing, and it's
almost become harder to start now when once that you
could argue to I'm easier to stand up because lots
of people are doing the same thing. But it's almost
like creativity has very much become about what the algorithm

(26:10):
rewards exactly.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
And I'm glad to have escaped that era because I
think that is really dangerous to doing something very unique,
because the next great thing is the thing no one
saw coming. It's just the wild idea or a band
that doesn't sound the way anyone else sounds. And so
there's a lot of great stuff that all sounds the

(26:33):
same in music, and you think, yeah, that's good, but
it does sound like these other twelve things. Yeah, and
then there's this other thing where it's like Radiohead or whatever.
And I think, especially in comedy, you do need someone
to reinvent the whole thing. Like when you saw The
Hangover and you're like, where did this come from? It
was so black?

Speaker 2 (26:54):
It was definitely that. Yeah, Will and Kman was completely that.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Will and Adam had their sensibility of what they want
to be in a big comedy, and there really wasn't
an exact precedent for it. We loved movies like The Jerk,
but they had their real take on you know, this
kind of arrogant American man who needed to learn some lessons,
and that changed, you know, the game for a lot
of people.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, what was what was your sliding doors moment or
like moment of like if that didn't happen, my life
could have completely gone on a different trajectory or in
a different format.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
I mean, there's so many of them, you know. I
met Ben Stiller online at an Elvis Costello Unplugged taping,
and you know, we thought of this sket show idea
and pitched it two weeks later, and everybody thought we
were old old friends and we had known each other
for fourteen days and suddenly we were just you.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Know, and it was just natural.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
From the moment you met, we just got along grade
and and creatively were insanc. So if I didn't bump
into Bend that day, I mean, that was, you know,
a pretty big one. I remember seeing Jim Carrey at
a comedy club and thinking, I think I've just seen
the best comedian in the world. And I called my
manager and I was like, you have to come see
what Jim Carrey's doing, and that was a big moment

(28:09):
just to witness it. And in movies. Yeah, it's just
like an opportunity. Steve Real saying, Hey, I wanted to
make a summer camp movie that's about a camp for
overweight kids. And I just said, oh, that's hilarious. If
you need help, let me know, and just him saying yes,
you know, it changes your whole life.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Was there anyone that you felt was so good but
then you know, didn't have the creer. Did you see
people that you were like, oh my god, this person
is amazing, but they didn't have the career that you
thought they would.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, there's so many comedians who are in incredible but
they didn't necessarily transition to movies or sitcoms. But they
remained the best comedians of all time. Yes, or they
were just road comedians were just way funnier and better
than other people. But some people never had that energy
to go, all right, how would I work in a movie?
I think it's a very specific understanding of yourself and

(29:21):
story and what you do. Adam Sanders started writing screenplays
for himself when he was right out of college, when
no one wanted him to write a screenplay for himself.
No one was saying, hey, write a movie for you
to star in. He just had the sense of, oh,
this is a path I think that I could succeed in.
And so even when no one thought you could be
the lead of a movie, he sat in a room.

(29:43):
I remember we sat with my friend Joel Madison. They
just wrote a movie, and I was like, Wow, you
just sat down and wrote a movie. You can do that.
You can get out the computer and do that. But
not anyone had that belief in themselves.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, why did you feel that turn was so important,
that connection between comedy and becoming a writer and director.
Why was that calling important to you? Where did that
come from? Like you're saying, not everyone made that crossover.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
Well, when I was interviewing people, you know, some people
like Harold Ramas said that he made a living by
selling jokes, and I just thought, oh, I don't have
to make burritos. I could like sell a joke for
fifty bucks, a joke to somebody, or you know, because
I had, you know, worked in a restaurant for a
long time as a busboy and a dishwasher. So some
of it was just I need money, and most comedians

(30:27):
didn't want to write for other comedians because they wanted
to be famous. Yes, yeah, And I thought, I think
I can do it and still do my stand up.
And I think what it really was is I enjoyed
hanging out with other comedians and I enjoyed collaboration. Like
my desire to be successful solo wasn't very strong. I
think on some level, I thought, oh, this is fun

(30:49):
hanging out with Ben, and I'm not looking to be isolated.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
That's such a great sense of self awareness. I love that,
Like I love hearing that for everyone who's listening, because
I think there's again and I'm just looking at thinking
about our community that watches our show and listens to
our show and has dreams and has aspirations, And how
often by wanting to be the face or wanting to
be number one in a certain way, you can lose

(31:15):
out on like this, Yes, you know, tapestry of stories
and experiences and amazing friendships and relationships where you're like, yeah,
I just I didn't really care about being the guy
who was on the screen telling the joke. I was
happy being the person who wrote and built these universes
that these comedians played in.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah, I mean it was so fun, Like I would
go to rose Ane's house and just write jokes with her.
On Sunday, let's go like at breakfast time, sitator breakfast
table with She'd bring out legal pads, and to me,
that was success. I mean almost to the point of
if it didn't get much farther than that, I was
already pretty happy, Like, Wow, there are people that are

(31:52):
the best at this who will let me be a
part of their thing. And so I was just so
excited to be allowed in the room. You know. Sometimes
I joke that the only reason why I even wrote
anything was to get to be allowed in the room,
you know, like I had to prove I was credible
to have these relationships with everybody.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, when do you feel most creative and when do
you feel most creatively blocked?

Speaker 1 (32:15):
I mean, I work so hard to try to figure
that out. I think it's just an ongoing, uh search
for flow state. And so I used to never understand
anything about how the brain works, and so you know,
I would, you know, when I was young, I would write.
My process was I would sleep till noon, I would
get up to write. I'd watch MTV like Road Rules,

(32:40):
or some like I would just said watch TV for
like six hours, and then at six I think I'm
gonna write. Then I would eat dinner, and then after dinner,
at some point I slowly moved to the computer and
now it was like seven, eight o'clock at night, and
then I would write to like two in the morning,
and that was like my my foot, my flow, and
I realized, oh, this so it's almost like a post
food relaxation, burnt out all my interest in TV in

(33:03):
the world, and then my brain would just like get
so tired it would relax, and then stuff would come
to me. But then, you know, when you have kids,
you can't work from eight till two in the morning,
and then you have to figure out, oh, I guess
I have to almost set an appointment, like okay, from
nine to twelve, I'm just going to sit in this chair.
And that's something I learned from David Milch, you know

(33:25):
who created Deadwood, who always said you can't think your
way into writing. You have to write your way into thinking.
So if you just start writing, your brain will eventually go, oh,
we're doing this now, and that if you do it
at a similar time, the second you hit the chair,
your brain will go it's time to do the thing

(33:46):
that we do. And I even took a class on
flow states, one of those Stephen Kottler classes, and it
just totally worked like it was like kind of hilarious.
And you know, there were people giving advice about all right,
I get it, don't have breakfast, just drink a little
bit of black coffee, try not to eat lunch till noon,
don't let your office interrupt you. And then suddenly I realized, Oh,

(34:09):
I'm really getting a good four or five hours done
just by listening to some very simple advice about not
being distracted. Because I could look at the news feed
on my phone and be in a bad mood for
three days, and a bad mood that will prevent me
from being funny. I won't be able to go to
my world of imagination because I'm thinking about some problem

(34:30):
in the world, and so I really have to protect
my mental state to disappear into imagination.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, how do you balance that then in staying informed?
And then and does that ever inform your comedy? Does
that ever informed the messaging you want to put out there?

Speaker 1 (34:44):
I mean, yeah, as who's the writing's over, I go
deep down you know, a terrible rabbit hole of tracking everything.
And I have to, you know, be aware that it
could just put you in a massive depression because we
know too much. Like when I was a kid, we
didn't really know what was happening in the world. Like
I lived in New York and I knew a little

(35:06):
bit about what like ed Kotch was doing, and I
knew they were trying to capture the mob, and occasionally
you hear about some crime or a murder. I didn't
really understand what was happening in Congress as a kid.
I watched the news all the time, even in like
middle school, And now I know the major, terrifying problems
of every country in the world. And it's too much.
It really is too much. And if you find it interesting,

(35:28):
which I do, like I'm fascinated by how politics work,
how people treat each other, the problems of the world,
the drama of crime, the drama of corruption, I could
really I could read it forever. I just find it
so interesting as a storyteller, too, Like, look, that person
was in this position, and there's the choice they made.
They could have gone this way or that way, and

(35:49):
they went this way. So for me, one of my
flaws is I'm looking at too much, And when I'm
in a good writing groove, it's usually because I've found
a way to limit it so that i could go
in my own head and see what's there.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah. Yeah, I read a study that said we're exposed
to more tragedy today in twenty four hours than we
were in our whole lifetime twenty five years ago.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Just today there was like, it's the equivalent of today
that there was eleven Pearl Harbors in the last three days.
And so I was like depressed the other morning, and
I thought, how would you not be depressed just based
on what you read this morning? Yeah, Like it's a
trauma response to all of that.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
So for me, what do you do with that? What
do you personally do with that? Because I feel like
that's an issue everyone who's listening, and really.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
I mean I try to find things that I can
do to support people or organizations and causes that are
fighting for values that I agree with. You know. You know,
every month I do a benefit at Largo in LA
for a different charity. You know, my first job was
working for Comic Relief, the homeless charity, and so I've
always tried to, you know, be connected to philanthropy. And

(37:03):
you know, then some part of your brain's like, okay,
you're doing something. You're doing something, and it never feels
like enough. But I think everyone has to do something
and just hope that its collective that there, you know,
you know, move certain causes forward and helps take care
of people. Because it is rough to hear about so
much suffering and and then you know the guilt response

(37:26):
like should I be doing more? So I try to
spend some time every day thinking about it. And I
remember I went and had lunch in Dorman Lear, and
Norman Lear had the newspaper out, and I said, what
are you doing? And he said, this is something that
Frank Sinatra taught me, which is he would open the
paper every day. He would look for somebody in a
bad situation and then he would get on the phone

(37:47):
and writing a check and you know, someone's house burnt
down or like he would just follow up, you know,
and just someone's got a tragedy, Sinatra, just write him
a check, not tell anybody, just And Norman le Or
tried to do that. So you know, I like that
type of thinking.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I feel like if you
if you feel like you're a part of the solution,
and even a small part, then the big problem feels
a little bit smaller, and you know.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
So you can go and go fund me or something
and help out in some way. The hard part is
you go and go fund me and there's two million
people with really difficult problems. So that gets in your head.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
How do you choose?

Speaker 1 (38:26):
As you can make yourself crazy, but you still have
to find a way to do it if you have
the means.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
What was the biggest creative risk you feel you ever took.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
I don't think of any of them really as creative risks.
I usually just try to only work on things that
I think can be really good that I care about,
so it's not like there's any one decision. I just
think I want to be proud of everything I tried
to do, and if it fails, I'd like to feel
like I understand why I thought it could work, and

(38:59):
I like for things to have a good heart and
to say something positive. I want to be aware of
what I'm putting into the world.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
It's almost easier to deal with failure when you've really
believed in what you were doing to some degree. Because
if you didn't believe in it and then it fails,
then you're like, well, I didn't believe in it anyway,
I knew it would fail.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
Well, it's a miracle that anything works, because everything in
comedy is an experiment. There's no precedent that lets you
know this will definitely work, So you're always on the
verge of massive humiliation and failure. And then that's just
the spirit of it, like, I guess this will work.
And sometimes things work for some people but not other people.
You go, oh, this does work, but for a way

(39:37):
less people. And then some things, you know, out of
the blue, like the entire world loves Bridesmaids. Ye, right,
And it's the same efforts that everyone puts on. And
then just sometimes things, you know, connect in a big way.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Such a great movie, such a great movie. Absolutely, there's
something you say in the book. You say in your
book Comedy Nerd, you say, when I stopped performing to
pursue my writing career, on some level, I betrayed myself.
The truth was I didn't believe in myself. Yeah, So
that's a part of that story too, was that there
was a sense of sure belief lost.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
Well, as a fan I was weird the difference between
me and the people that I was hanging out with.
And I also felt very self conscious. I look back
and I think, oh, I I think I was pretty
in my head. I didn't really know who I was.
I didn't have a strong point of view. You know,
some comedians are very like surreal. Some comedians are very angry,

(40:31):
and they tell you how you should do this or that,
And I was always right in the middle. I was
just more talking about things I was confused about and
I didn't have solutions to anything, and I wasn't that weird.
So when I first did stand up when I was young,
you know, I was on all the talk shows and
did all that stuff, but I knew on some level, oh,
I'm not reaching the heights of some of the people
that I admire. And then I started doing stand up

(40:52):
again about ten years ago, and it's much more fun
and I have a lot more to say, and I
don't feel pressured, you know, to feed myself with it. Yeah,
and so I can really be experimental in that fat.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
I love knowing though, that you could be that uncertain,
confused and have some self doubt and still find your way.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
I gets something beautiful about that.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
I mean, the standard is very confrontational because every time
you go on stage, you're like saying to people you
should listen to me. I'm worth hearing. And you're also
saying I'm entertaining, like they should delight you for twenty minutes.
So there's a certain amount of confidence and arrogance to
do it at all. Some people do it out of neediness,
like they so need the approval that even though they're terrified,
they'll do it anyway. Yeah, you know, to get it

(41:36):
like crack or something. But it's like writing, Like sometimes
like when I don't want to write, I realize, oh,
I'm not writing today because I feel like I'm going
to find out today that I've lost it, you know,
like literally by yeah, because every time you sit down
to type, you're like, this better be good and I'm
going to find out how good I am right now.

(41:57):
And that's the most unhealthy way to do it. Like
that's the opposite of flow state, is like that the
critical voice is just there the whole time.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
And you have the pressure to be good right now
in this moment. What do you do with that thought?

Speaker 1 (42:10):
You know, sometimes I have to play tricks on myself.
So if I'm going to write a scene, the thing
about you know, you say you're using a program like
Final Draft, and it looks all pretty, and so when
you type, like it has to be good because it's
so formatted. You know, it looks so beautiful. It looks
like a screenplay. So sometimes I have to write without
the format. So I'll just open up a word document

(42:31):
and if I'm going to write a scene, I'll say, okay,
take the next fifteen minutes and just babble, you know,
with no punctuation, ideas for the scene, and just keep
going and maybe like do it experiment, like you're not
allowed to stop typing for ten minutes, just anything, lines
of dialogue, things that could happen, crazy stuff, and try

(42:54):
to get in a state of just pure spewing, and
then take a break and then read it with a
highlighter and go was anything in there good? And usually
there is, you know, it may be very little, or
maybe it's like the whole thing's garbage, but this one
idea is so good I can't believe it. But you
kind of have to let your subconscious speak and get

(43:17):
out of the way.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, and get that perfectionist out of the way that
was blocking you in saying every line you write down
has to be almost like this final line that will
make it into the scene.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
It's like if you were trying to think what would
a woman say to break up with me? And you
just sat for ten minutes and just wrote the speech
of why she's bringing up with you over and over again,
and maybe the twentieth time you did it, you have
reached some bizarre place in your brain and it would
be something you never would have thought you'd written. Yeah,
from just some old injury, like because I really don't

(43:49):
even understand how the brain works, but it certainly stores
up a lot of stuff, yes, and it pops out
if you keep coming at it from different angles.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Do you believe there are rules to good comedy or
there are I don't.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Really understand any of it, you know, Like I'm not
one of those people that can really lay out why
things work or don't work. I tend to try to
think pretty simply about if I write it as a drama,
like the construction would work if there were no jokes,
that it won't be hard to figure out a way

(44:22):
to make it funny. So I try to not chase
the joke, try to chase the emotional story and then
look at it like, how can I make it funny?
Because I think all the situations in life which are
painful are really close to funny. That's why, like in movies,
there's so many movies, it's just like someone's breaking up
with you, and it might be funny because you start crying.

(44:45):
It might be funny because you start screaming. It might
be funny because you run away. So I just trust that,
you know, I that that sense of why things are
funny that are challenging or awful, that'll just come. Yeah,
you know. So when I think about like knocked up
and Seth's trying to talk to Katherine Heigel and she

(45:06):
wants to tell him that she's pregnant with his baby,
and so the idea is before that, she's just asking
him questions about his life because she doesn't know anything
about him, because he had one night's stand and everything
in his life sounds like the worst information. If he
was the father of your child. Yeah, no, he he
has five grand in the bank, he thinks of the
last two years. You know, he got it because he

(45:29):
got ran his foot got run over by a postal truck,
and you know, just on and on and on. So
but on another level, you think, well, that's what you
would do. So if you were going to have lunch
with someone to tell them that you're pregnant, you might
in the warm up go how's your life and try
to get some info out about what am I in
for here?

Speaker 2 (45:45):
That's the emotional need of safety and certainty.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, and she's not getting any safety and he's oblivious,
which is funny. He doesn't know what he's walking into
a buzzsawa and so it's inherently a very real situation,
but for some reason with certain people it's it's funny.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
I love how much you love the scenes and even
the characters you've created, because I find sometimes creatives get
quite jaded when something's passed on. You don't feel that way.
Through the book Comedy Nerd, through talking about it with
you today, through all the interviews that I watched in
preparation for this, I don't you don't sound when you
talk about your characters and your movies it's like you're
in them and we're in them, and like it's fun,

(46:23):
Like how is that stayed? And have you seen other
people get jaded. How have you held on to that
joy of what you created?

Speaker 1 (46:30):
Usually, like when it's done, I feel disassociated from having
been a part of it. It's it's just a feeling
like that world exists. It's almost like it happened. I
don't think of it as the construction. And I know
about all the construction, the levels and the rewrites and
the rehearsals of how we got there. But when the

(46:50):
movie's done, I feel like it's a real world, like
it's in another dimension and those people are there and
they're still going, you know, and I like them, you know,
like I know, you know, for all of them, Like
I like the characters. I spent so much time with them,
and if the movie came out really well, a lot
of times I don't, you know, I don't watch them

(47:11):
just because I work so hard. There's no part of
me that's like looking to experience it again. So I
don't have that that that viewing of a movie that
other people get because I know the story. I'll never
really get to see the movie the way someone else
gets to see it, because I just know what happens,
and I've slaved over like the music, you and the
sound effects. But recently, I went to see the fourt

(47:32):
yie old version for the first time in twenty years.
We did a standing wow at the Academy Museum and
I had literally forgotten eighty percent of the jokes. I
didn't remember any of it. And it was the first
time in my life it felt like I wasn't a
part of it and I could just enjoy it and
I was laughing. I was proudly like, Wow, look at
these lunatics go. They're really funny. They're they're going hard everybody.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
I love that. I love that. What's a joke you
could make twenty years ago that you call make now.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
I think people are sensitive to how we define people,
how we goofund people. You know, when I rewatched this stuff,
there's not like a ton where I'm like, oh God,
why do we do that? But there's a few where
you think, yeah, today, I wouldn't have done that joke,
you know, making fun of people for just being themselves,
whatever that is. But a lot of the times we

(48:20):
were talking about people who get made fun of. So
when I worked on super Bad with Seth and Evan, yeah,
you know, we were talking about how in every Marx
Brothers movie they would always have a really rich guy
punch Harpo marks in the face, like in the first
ten minutes, because then Harpo could do anything to them, right,
and you know, they represent rich people or power. But

(48:42):
because they did something really mean to him, Harpo had
free reign to cause massive pass And so when we're
doing Super Bad, they had, you know, one of the
kids spit on Jonah, you know by the seven to
eleven type place, and that was it, Like whatever Jonah does.
I know where he is in school, I know how

(49:04):
he's treated grades, and I kind of want him to succeed.
I want him to, you know, have something nice happen
to him. Yeah, that's I always looking at it that way.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Yeah, I love that. What's your take on what's your
take on the impact of AI and chat GPT on writing? Yeah,
creative block, you're a fan. Do you feel it's going
to be useful for writers? Now? Do you feel it's
a hindrance? Where where do you land on the fisation.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
I think that the danger of it is it allows
you to shut off part of your critical thinking, and
so if you really were into it, I think that
you'd be losing something while gaining something. So if you
think about GPS and you go, I kind of couldn't

(49:46):
drive around LA because I don't know where anything is anymore,
or I don't remember anyone's phone number anymore. I think
that if you were asking a machine to do certain
work for you, like oh, fix my letter. Uh, it
seems kind of good, but at some point, if your
JUDGBT went down, you you might not be able to
do the letter. And so that's the thing that makes

(50:09):
me nervous. I think it's very helpful for research. So, yeah,
I'm writing a movie that takes place in college, and
I'm trying to think of classes to go, Oh, what's
the what's an interesting class about music? What's a that
is like really really helpful. But if you start going
write me the scene about that clause, I think that
you're in danger. And then you have to ask yourself, well,

(50:29):
why do I do it? You know? I mean, if
you're just in it for the money, I guess you
could use it as a tool. But if you're also
in it to learn about yourself and through creativity have
some self knowledge and it's an expression of you either,
then you don't want it in your world.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
That way. It's almost like how hard you hand hurts
when you try and hand right now? Not used to
it anymore? Yeah, wait a minute, if I'm to write something.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Now, No, there's no cursive And they say that you're
more creative when you write in cursive when you type. Absolutely,
And so we've kind of eliminated this thing, which probably
led to a lot of you know, beautiful expressions of
how people are feeling in letters and notes and when
people would write novels, you know, long hand mel Brooks.
I'm doing a documentary on mel Brooks. He would write

(51:19):
all those scripts of the legal Pad.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
Yeah, and there's all the research around how doodling helps
our connect ideas. And now when we'd be on the phone,
we would doodle while we would talk to someone and
it would help us.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
You get in the flow state, yes, I mean, and
so okay, so now no one doodles. How much creativity
have we lost as a result of it. But I'm
scared of all AI stuff. I mean, I go on
YouTube and I just watch videos about what could go
wrong every night, all night, so, you know, because I'm
always terrified by the fact that the people who are
in charge of AI are also scared of it. So

(51:53):
even the people are doing it, they're like, you know,
it's great, it's going to change your life. It may
solve some diseases. It also made decide to murder all
of us and not want us around. But I do
think it's also going to be good at teaching you
how to play the guitar.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
Yeah, great, Trader exact. Another line that stood out to
me Jad in your book, you said I learned later
in life through therapy that I had projected all of
my childhood divorced drama onto the network executives who'd rejected
or abandoned me. Yeah, and so I want to dive
into multiple parts of that. Let's first start with I

(52:28):
think you've talked about how you've done therapy for like
twenty years. Yeah, it's been a big part of your journey.
Walk me through how the questions have evolved in therapy
twenty years, ten years, five years, zero years today.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
It's amazing how many new things you learn as you
get older that you didn't quite understand before. Because and
some of you understand that there's a lot of projection
happening in your life, but no, in maybe the last
five years, I think I learned a lot more about
trauma responses to things and the ways that we just

(53:01):
change a whole way of dealing with everything based on
trying to avoid past pain. And that was something I
didn't learn about for the first two decades of therapy,
the idea that a lot of time we're just in
a fight or flight or freeze response to everything. You know,
at a therapist say, you know, when you walk in
a room, like say you're walking in a party, the

(53:22):
first thing you do, you might get anxious and you
scan for threat, and then your brain assesses the threat
and they might go, oh, looks like these people seem
nice enough, we can enter the party. And then he said,
the thing you're supposed to choose is opportunity, and Okay,
I'm going to actually go try to talk to that person.
Maybe something nice would happen if I talk to them.

(53:43):
And in some way, we're doing that all day long.
We're like scanning, where's the problem, where's the problem. And
I think that's something that has been very destructive for
me as someone who's always looking to solve problems in
a very OCD type way, like what's the problem, how
can I solve it before happens? And then you realize
that you're consumed all day long running potential problems, and

(54:07):
so that's been a big thing, Like, how do you
let go of a mind that wants to look for trouble?

Speaker 2 (54:14):
How do you?

Speaker 1 (54:16):
It's uh, I mean, obviously it's some some version of mindfulness,
some version of noticing the process and having some higher
self separation to go, oh, I'm doing that thing again,
and can I connect that the one who's observing is
me and the rest is just kind of mental clutter.
But it's really hard. It's really hard.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
It is really hard, especially if you get caught in
those cycles and they just repeat themselves around and around around,
and you're back in square one. What was the particular
aspect the one that I quoted that you're talking about
projecting all of your childhood divorce drama onto the network
executives talk to me about that exactly.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Well, I feel like there's always healthy and unhealthy reasons
to do most everything, and that's what's tricky, right. So
one level, you're like, I love to be creative, I
love comedy, But in your unhealthy part, you feel like
I want validation, I want to succeed, I want safety.
Like if I succeed, I'll have safety and they'll have love.
And so you have both this very pure creative love

(55:15):
for something and then this trying to protect yourself through it.
And so then you're doing work. Let's say you hand
in a script and then someone says I hate your script.
The studio hates your script. So in your mind you
could go, oh are they Are they correct? So maybe

(55:35):
I should read it again? Or you could go, why
are they trying to murder me? Why are they trying
to destroy me?

Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (55:43):
And then you're mad at them because you've given them
so much power and now you're irrational. You're just in
they don't care about me? How come they don't see me?
How come they don't understand me? And then you have
just that insecure what if they're right? What if I'm
terrible at this? And so you project all these old
wounds and needs onto a creative relationship. But I didn't

(56:05):
know that because I was just a young person. Yes,
so you know, when people would give me notes that
I didn't agree with, I really felt like, oh, you're
trying to destroy me. Yeah, And you know, to learn
how to have those conversations in a healthy way, it
took a long time. For me, it was literally a
moment where I went, oh, I'm treating the head of
the of the network like it's my mom. I'm mad

(56:28):
at her in the same I felt like I'm mad
at her in the same way i'm mad at my
mom when she's not there for me. Yeah, and I
need to take that energy out of this. But it
is a fight or flight response. Oh you don't like it, Well,
if you don't like it, I'm not gonna be able
to eat and now I need to fight you. Yeah,
and it's heated, right, and so you know, as you

(56:48):
get older, you know, maybe your testostero levels dropping helps
as well. You just go, oh, that's what that is. Yeah, Okay,
take a breath. What are we really talking about? What's
their note? And you may decide you'd completely disagree, and oh,
maybe let's not do the project together. Maybe I'll take
it to someone else. Yes, But you can't be rational
till you calm down and go, oh, everything i'm filtering

(57:09):
this through has nothing to do with what we're doing.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
That's such a great note. And I love the visual
of you saying I'm treating the network exact like my mom,
and I'm thinking about just the moments in my life
where my reaction has been totally based off of a
trigger response or a trauma response, that now you're turning
this scenario into something that it totally isn't and it's

(57:33):
coming from something in the past and something you've experienced
and feels real, but this isn't that.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Yeah, you're having a tantrum like a kid. Yeah, and
it's also embarrassing to realize that you're wired that way, Like.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
Oh man, I'm so basic.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
Yeah, I mean I would just be so hurt. You know,
when Prees and Geeks was basically about to be canceled,
and they would give me notes, and the notes were
usually notes which would have made the show not as good.
You know, it was like I was at war and
and my back went out. I had to have like
bag surgery. I was putting myself under so much stress.

(58:08):
I had made it so important. And the hard part is,
you know, can I work just as hard and not
make it emotionally important?

Speaker 2 (58:18):
Can you with creative tasks? That's a great question, like
can you Because Freaking Geeks was super successful because you
pushed yourself to that limit.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
And because we didn't give in correct.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
That's that's the give in part so important. And so
I'm like, have you found that you've been able to
not give in but not emotionally carry all that load
and still create something that successful? Is that even possible?

Speaker 1 (58:44):
Yeah? Yeah, you can, and you realize that, like, oh,
I didn't get emotional and we had a good conversation,
and you know it's but it's it takes a lot
of years to see it. Yeah, because what it is,
it's because it's a trigger response. It happens fast, your
emotional reaction. So do you have that extra five seconds
to go, oh, I'm getting heeded, you know, And you

(59:06):
still have those moments where you snap and then like
years later, you'll wake up in the middle of the night, Oh,
I feel so bad about young and that guy, you know,
And it just happens out of nowhere. And it's usually
around the idea of are we about to ruin the work?
For me, it's always about is the work going to
be good? It's ever about like the release, the success.
It's always My only thing that makes me crazy is

(59:27):
if I think someone can get me to ruin it.
That really kind of freaks me out, you know, and
that's not healthy. The level to which it freaks me out.
And I worked for people like Gary Shanling who were
so sensitive and they really felt like, you're trying to
destroy me. And I always thought, oh, I feel so

(59:48):
bad for them that that's how they experience this, And
then I realized, oh, I do it. I'm doing it
in my own way. I have a variation of this
need for the work to be good and why for who?
Like can I make it so people can enjoy it?
Or is it so I can make a living and
people like me? You know? Can I separate the healthy

(01:00:09):
from the unhealthy? I always think about Rhamdas talking about
I guess it's part of like the idea of like
all Dharma's dreams that like, you live your life and
then you also realize that life is ridiculous and meaningless,
and so you still have to be in the game
and you still have to do your best. But can
you hold at the same point like this is all
so silly? Yes, yes, and when I think about that,

(01:00:33):
I do better. Yes, But it's really hard because you're
trying to care and not care, like have attachment and
non attachment at the same time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Yeah. Absolutely, It's like, how do I realize what I'm
doing is valuable and at the same time embrace my insignificance.
And it's like, it sounds beautiful and it is possible.
But I hear what you're saying there there's a level
of focus and due diligence that's healthy. And then it's
only as healthy when it's matched with detachment as opposed

(01:01:01):
to when it's so addictive. And where we're going through
our first set of TV and film projects right now
that I've ever done in my life, and I have
that same feeling because I can everything you're saying. I'm like, wow,
Like I can so relate to it, because up until
this point also a lot of what I've created has
been fully like, it's never been funded by anyone else.

(01:01:21):
We've never worked with a studio or a production company.
It's all us, and so I have a lot of
and as time has gone on, I've built more confidence
and conviction in my intuition that I'm aware of what
I believe will work and what won't. And I've sat
with it for long enough, and I've done this for
twenty years and all the rest of it. And then
someone comes and given me a note that I'm like,

(01:01:42):
I know that's not going to work, and then we
incorporate in the pilot. We make the pilot, and then
the only feedback we get from the audience and everyone
is we didn't like that bit. And I'm like, I
told you, like I knew it, And so then what
do you do with that? Because it's such a human
experience of.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Well, it's always picking your collaborators. Yeah, everything my career changed,
you know when I started working with the Universal Studios
and Donna Langley because her and the executives there, Peter Kramer,
Eric Byer's you know, they just got it, and so
then most of that goes away. Yeah, because you have
a good relationship, but also they get what you do

(01:02:19):
and they understand your process. But I had a lot
of relationships with people, you know, like with Freaks and
Geeks where they told me like, we don't like the show.
It was funny. There was a documentary about Freaks and
Geeks and they interviewed one of the executives who canceled it,
and you thought in the doc he would admit that
he made a mistake, but he didn't. He was like
kind of still proud of it. And so I think

(01:02:39):
a big part of it is who should I collaborate with?
How you know? Part of it is picking the person
that you can have a healthy discourse with. And that's
tricky because sometimes you don't know everybody. Yeah, only by
going through it do you go, oh, I like that person,
I'm gonna bring them the next one, or I need
to run away from that person?

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
How did you get better at doing that and making
that process quicker? Is there ever a way to get
better at knowing that earlier?

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
No, you just have to like meet them and then
treasure it. Yes, just go oh, okay, I'm going to
stay here because and to value that because it really
is a special thing when it works and people give
good notes and they understand you and they're excited for
you and they encourage you. So I try to remember

(01:03:42):
there as those people and then go back to them
as often as they'll have me.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Yeah. If fear in doubt would disappear from your life
and mind tomorrow, what would you do differently?

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
I don't know. I mean what I would do differently is,
you know, just probably be happier. Know so much about
like work, but just like in life, I would like
to have lightened up you know, a few years ago,
I was just feeling terrible and then in my mind
I just heard the phrase lighten up, and I thought

(01:04:15):
to myself, Wow, you're in comedy and you're so heavy,
Like you just really need to lighten up. Why do
you look at everything in such intense terms? But that
only works because you know, if I remind myself of it,
I can lighten up. But what if I go like
a year and go, oh, I forgot to say lighten
up in the last year. I forgot. You know, I'm

(01:04:36):
one of those who like I'll write all these things down,
like I'll have like a piece of paper, and you know,
one of the things I wrote write down a lot
is just try to do better today, Like just look
at today. Don't look at the long arc of it, Like, Okay,
what am I going to do today? Will it be fun?
Can I make it fun? And at the end of
the day, go, that was a good day. And if
I think about the next year, I'm usually in meltdown.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Yeah, you're reminded me of this beautiful story where a
student once asked the buddher what do you gain from meditation?
And he says, I didn't gain anything, and then the
student says, so, then why do you meditate, And the
buddher says, well, I don't meditate because of what I gain.
I meditate because of what I lose. I lose fear,
his anxiety, his insecurity, I lose envy and ego. Yeah,

(01:05:21):
and it's what you're saying. It's like, hey, if there
was no fear and doubt anymore tomorrow, how do you feel?
And you said happy. That's a beautiful answer actually, because
it's not something that's blocked you from taking action, but
those are emotions that make living and breathing a lot harder.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
Yeah, because your mind's just going, like I like to meditate,
but I just don't do it enough. And every time
I do it, I'm thrilled. After I'm like that totally worked.
I feel better for the next five hours, and then
I might go eleven days not to it again. And
I always say, what is the part of my brain
that's fighting doing it? Because clearly there's something resisting just

(01:05:59):
being pre and quiet, and it doesn't make any sense
now because I like it, yes, but there's a little
part that's like, don't do it. Yeah, you know, I
guess some people go you know, that's your ego, and
your ego doesn't want to be destroyed, so it's trying
to figure out a way and get you not doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Yeah. Absolutely. Earlier that's reminding me of before we start taping,
you said something to me. You said, it's surprising of
the things were not addicted to, and then I asked
you if you ever did drugs. And the reason for
my question was, I feel like there are so many
people today who feel their creativity is dependent on something
about creation or whatever it may be. Your life, as

(01:06:37):
you explained it to me before we start taping, was
not like that, and they were scared away from drugs.
And you can share that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Well, my grandfather produced the first Janish Joplin album, Big
Brother in the Holding Company, and so my entire childhood
they always talked about the fact that she was the
best thing who ever lived, and she took drugs and died.
In fact, that's why it's in Freaks and geekshen Joe
Flaherty says, what I happen to Janna Japlin, She's dead? Yeah,

(01:07:02):
it was because that was this mantra and so all
that really really scared me. And then the few times
I did it when I was young. Usually I would
just get paranoid or I never had like the great
experiences that would make me go, let's do more of this.
There was one moment where I did try to buy
some pot and my brother found out who's older than me,

(01:07:24):
and told the guy not to sell it to me.
But I always think if my brother didn't tell that guy,
you better not sell pot to my brother, maybe I
would have found the you know, the part of me
that loves it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
So I got a good long run of that. I
never loved drinking. I would always get tired and fall asleep.
I think it's just my chemistry doesn't get that kick
out of it where I like, I know people who
who will say, oh, I wrote that entire series you
love High, And I'm like, I literally can't write one joke.
Like the second I'm high, I'm just like, let's just

(01:07:56):
watch you know, great British bakeoff. You know, like I'm
not in cree creative mode, you know. So, but thank
god it because that's just a random thing. Because I
think if I loved it, it would have been a
real problem. But I was very aware that I wanted
to succeed, and I thought, that's not going to help me.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Yeah, you know. Yeah, you've said you've read a lot
of self help books. I was wondering if you had
to pick three that have really had an impact on
your life and a lesson you've learned from each, what
would they be.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
I mean, the three that I go back to all
the time. One is called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer,
and I'm always going back to that book. Although there's
tons of YouTube videos of him talking, they're all great,
and with anything really good, usually they're saying the same thing,

(01:08:46):
just in a different way. So it's one idea and
it's just kind of rewritten to find another way to
get you to soak it in. And his thing is
that he feels like people these energy blocks, and you know,
something happen happens to you, you know, like say someone
punching the face of a party, and so then you think,
all right, I guess I'm the guy who doesn't go

(01:09:06):
to parties, and that by the time you get older,
you have one hundred of these or you have a
thousand of these, and everything that you do is avoiding
certain things, certain types of people you didn't get along
with once and so I guess he described it as
like it's like if you had a thorn and instead
of pulling it out, you put it like a metal
thing around it, and then you realize you needed a
bigger metal thing, and then you could go to the

(01:09:27):
party and you couldn't let anyone bump into it, as
opposed to just taking it out and to just like
live with the pain of it and to let the energy,
whatever that experience was, move through your body and see it.
And I find that's really helpful. And those books are great.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
I always read Pima Chodron books, just all of them.
When things fall apart, start where you are. And I
think she writes better than almost anybody about Buddhism. And
she talks about Tondlin meditation, and I guess there's a
lot of slogans, but the thing she mentions is that

(01:10:14):
she does a type of meditation where you try to
breathe in someone else's problem and then breathe so you
take it in, and then you try to send out
like fresh clean air, like you breathe in there like
dirty muck and take it on and then give them

(01:10:34):
clear fresh freshness, right, and then you might run, Okay,
I'm gonna do that for the person I hate. Now,
I'm gonna do it for myself. I'll do it for
my friends, and I'll do it for all my enemies,
and I'll do it for everyone in the world. And
that's a beautiful piece of meditation that really changes your
chemistry when you do it, because you're always trying to

(01:10:57):
fix help yourself, so like a pure giving meditation just
changes everything absolutely. And then the third one. There are
these books by this guy named John Wellwood and their
relationship books. They they're just some of the best written
relationship books. But he basically talks about how in your relationships,

(01:11:21):
they're meant to bring everything to the surface and confront
you with it. So in your relationship and your marriage,
it's all gonna come up, and you have to look
at that as a sacred thing that you both help
each other with what comes up. And it's not like
I'm so mad at you for telling me that I
do this, but really the relationship is that we're in

(01:11:43):
this together and that these things are going to keep
bubbling up and can we figure out how to address
them and address them in a positive way. There's another
guy named Harvill Hendrix, who had books about this where
it really was to embrace it when it comes up
and not be annoyed, Like, yeah, no, this is the
whole point of the relationship, is that you're going to

(01:12:04):
tell me how annoying I am.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
Yeah, yeah, No, those are beautiful recommendations. And I hadn't
heard of The Last World Wood, so I'll have to
go and grab a couple of copies of that. But no, no,
beautiful examples and beautiful lessons so deep and profound. When
did your fascination with that work start?

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
When did that begin? With all of this reading and writing,
I mean it sounds like you're voracious reader. On the
other side too, you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
Know, my parents never talked about religion ever, not positive,
not negative. They didn't talk about it, and so even
though you know they're very nice people with good values,
there wasn't a system. So I think I really had
a hole there in an existential dread from the idea
that there was no structure to the universe or how

(01:12:50):
I should think about the meaning of life. And when
I met Gary Shandling, he would recommend these Buddhist books
to me, like feather on a fan or turning problem
into happiness. Ye, drating problems into happiness. Had This was
based on the idea that anytime anything bad happens, you're
supposed to be happy because it's giving you an opportunity
to work on something. Oh, I could work on patience

(01:13:11):
or fortitude or or something. I had never heard anything
like that in my whole life. That's what you're supposed
to do. Like, wait, problems are good. I never ever
had heard that, And so I became interested in those
those books, and then probably somebody it's almost like mental hoarding,

(01:13:31):
Like I would just buy so many self help books,
and I think sometimes it's hurt me because it's just
too much, and then I just drown in it. Like, oh,
I'm supposed to not want anything, but I'm also supposed
to list what I want so I can manifest it.
You know. I'm supposed to be here now but don't
live in the future. But I have to plan for it,
you know, Like, and I just started passing out.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
I love it me too. I get that. It's yeah,
you've got to be selective and focused on what you
pick up. I feel like there's always been this. I
don't know whether it's a myth or it feels like
something people have said for a long time, and therefore
we feel it's true, And I guess you're the right
person to ask. But comedy is often or humor has
often been seen as hiding something or carrying a certain

(01:14:16):
weight behind it, gain behind it, or a coping mechanism.
Is that true and what is it for you?

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Over the years, what I realized is a lot of
times what I'm writing is I'm trying to figure my
own thinking out, Like what am I thinking about this?
I'm just trying to explore myself, maybe a struggle, maybe
a question. So I would you know, some people say,
you know, you write the movie to figure out why

(01:14:43):
you write the movie, and you're not even sure what
you're working on. So, you know, in my career, I've
been a person who's worked on projects about high school
and about college, and about getting somebody pregnant, and about
maintaining relationship, about getting sick, and about you know. So
I feel like I hit these major life turning points

(01:15:05):
because I feel like, oh, I really need to work
this through, But when I'm doing it, I'm not conscious
of that. Yeah, And then maybe later I'll go, oh,
I must have been thinking about these issues like friendship
and the value of your work. When we were doing
funny People, you know, my mom had been sick, and

(01:15:27):
I noticed that when she thought she was going to
get better, she was happier than when which she thought
she was going to die. When she had cancer, she
was always happier than when she thought the medicine was
working and she was going to get better all her
neuroses would come back. But when she thought she had
no hope, she kind of dropped everything and became this

(01:15:48):
very much more serene person. And so I thought, oh,
so I started writing a movie. You know, it's an
Adam Sandler movie about him having an experience like that.
But at the time I realize that's what I had done. Yeah,
it took like a while for me to go, oh,
this movie isn't about me and comedy. This is about

(01:16:08):
my mom, and you know what she went through.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
So you'd say that comedy heals pain, not hides it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:15):
Well, it certainly is a road to understanding yourself. Sometimes
when I'm working with a writer, if I'm overseeing a writer,
you know, I'll say, I feel like a lot of
these movies are about a problem, usually an emotional problem,
and then you think what would have to happen to
the character for them to hit bottom enough to make
a change, Because in life, usually you make a change

(01:16:38):
of something happens, usually something that's not great, and so
in a movie there's usually some sort of bottom. Even
in the silliest movies, someone crashes. And then I always say,
and what would health look like? So if they figured
it out and at the end they were doing better,
what would better look like?

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
I like that, And I guess do you feel after
you've made something that you feel better like you when
you do have that reflection?

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
Yeah? Yeah, sometimes you know, at the end of it,
I have a good feeling. You know. When I worked
with Pete Davidson the King of Saten Island, we talked
a lot about sacrifice because I was thinking, oh, I've
never worked on a movie that's about being there for
other people. Most of the movies are about, you know,
emotional situations and people having meltdowns and fighting with other

(01:17:23):
people and just trying to make their lives work. I've
never made a movie about people who are willing to
risk their lives for other people. And I think, you know,
we all felt a great responsibility to show you know,
the lives of first responders and to be respectful and
to show the challenges of that for families, and so,
you know, when it came out really well, I was
especially proud of it because I wanted to do right

(01:17:44):
by all those people.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
Yeah, that's beautiful. That feels like a really nice Like
three sixty.

Speaker 1 (01:17:52):
We met all those you know, the firefighters, and a
lot of them lost a lot of people in nine
to eleven, and we knew like how sacred this space
was that we we were t talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
Yeah, your movies have made people laugh, made people happy,
made people you know, have great memories around them. Like
would you say, are you happy?

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
Am I Happy's that's the right question. I mean, I
think I'm always trying to figure out how to be happy,
and I think I ebb and flow. I think I
have periods where I get like really lost and caught
up in my head and in things, and then every
once in a while, like it clears up for a
little while and I'm like, oh, yeah, I feel good

(01:18:31):
about how everything is and what's going on. I feel
in between tragedy, you know, like like oh, this is
a good period. But then sometimes I just lose it
like I lose touch with the thing that makes me
feel like I understand where I am in the universe
because sometimes, you know, especially now as everyone's talking about

(01:18:52):
computers and everything changing and the world is changing where
we're like, is something happening right now? I can really
get through own and just obsess on it all day along,
like what's the point of all of this? What are
we doing? You know? To just like it's almost like
feeling really happy and loose in my mind sometimes feels

(01:19:15):
like I'm not doing what I should be doing to
make something positive happen, and that's not really fair on myself,
but it is the feeling like I can't just be
like we because like, look, have you seen what happens today?
Like what are we supposed to do about this? And
it's you know, like a deep kind of guilt that

(01:19:38):
is again some sort of fight or flight response and
a childhood thing too, like you know, just stay on
top of things, you know, don't don't let anything slip
by you as a survival strategy. So like actually being
happy sometimes feels like a violation of my survival strategy. Wow,

(01:19:58):
And that's a big thing to like, can I let
go of that, and sometimes I can and then sometimes
I totally can.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
Yeah, And it's so interesting. How thank you for going there,
because it's so interesting how those things that make you
successful and make you organize, it makes you good, great
at what you do. Everything comes as this double ed
sort of stopping you from having an experience. And then
at the same time, there's a beauty to how you feel,
because it's wonderful that you feel a sense of responsibility
and empathy and compassion because those are all good things

(01:20:27):
you want to feel. At the same time, you don't
want to steal your joy, and so it's such a Yeah,
it's interesting living in that, in that landscape. And as
I was listening to you, I was thinking that I
think happiness is never not being lost. It's knowing that
you've been lost and found multiple times. And so that

(01:20:48):
ebb and flow that you spoke about, it's almost like
knowing that, oh, I've been lost before. Yeah, And there's
there's joy in that, and there's happiness in that, and
that this is the journey back and forth. But I
love that what you're saying about needing a overarching structure
and a overarching almost believe you have you ever discovered anything,
read anything that that feels that way, that started to

(01:21:10):
kind of scratch that itch or well or is it something.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
You seek well, kind of like the meditation thing that
you're talking about, you have this idea of returning when
you're lost. It is the experience of meditation, like you're
you're trying to not think, and then suddenly you realize, oh,
I've been thinking for twelve minutes in my meditation, and
you're not supposed to beat yourself up about it. You're
supposed to celebrate that you realize to return to your

(01:21:34):
empty mind again, and that every time you return it's good.
And even if you only let's say, in twenty minutes
of meditation, you were running stuff for two giant hunks
and you only got back twice, that you should celebrate
it as the greatest success. That that is a way
to look at all of life, like, you know, like

(01:21:55):
life is suffering. It we soldier on right, and it's
just it's it's a it's a mix, and it's always
going to be a mix. It's always going to be
up or down, up and down. But I've never really
gotten the exact way to kind of keep returning to
something that feels good. But I did do ayahuasca a
couple of years ago, and it was a really it

(01:22:16):
was a wild experience, and most of it was about
like trying to let go, because I really felt like
I was like not letting go, not just being open,
like that's my issue. And and then at the end,
after this you know, long experience, you know, you're like
you're vomiting, you're you know, you're, you're you know, you're

(01:22:37):
you've gone through it. I don't recommend this to anyone,
by the way, because it's crazy, and I feel like
I don't know if it's safe for people, you know,
So it's not anything you can say to do. But
the but the end of it, like I had this
like image of Jesus, which is weird because I'm Jewish
and so it's not like the thing that I would
think of and something I see Jesus on the cross

(01:22:58):
at the end of this like eight hour trip, and
in my head, I'm like, oh, I get what that is.
It's He's there for us and we should be there
for each other. And the whole idea of it just
like landed with me and I thought, oh, I guess
that's it. It's just like being there for other people.
And that's the one thing that I try to go

(01:23:19):
back to.

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
Wow, that's beautiful. Where did you go to do ayahuasca?

Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
I did it in the state of California.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
Oh okay, I'm pretty sure it's illegal, but.

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
It definitely was, you know, for me, very meaningful.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
Did you ever do it again?

Speaker 1 (01:23:35):
I had done it one time before, but I got
really scared and took very little, and which is a
mistake because if you take very little, you're not having
the experience. But the shaman is because the shaman takes
the ayahuasca also, that's part of it. So then suddenly
like I'm not high and the shaman singing to me
for eight hours and I'm not really even feeling anything,

(01:23:56):
so then he just got to watch someone dance and
sing with a drum. Went back again that I committed
to doing the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
Yeah, wow, wow, I mean that. I mean, that's a
pretty special experience to see Jesus and to have that
as a take home. Yeah, that's pretty powerful.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
Yeah, No, it really was, and I tried to take
it seriously and hold on to it. And the funny
thing was that after ayahuasca for about six eight months.
I would wake up and it was as if my
mind had been working on problems all night, and when
I woke up, it was like telling me what it
had figured out. And so I would just like wake

(01:24:34):
up to these like messages, and so I'd be like
a sleep and then I would get up and in
my head I would hear, you're not doing any of
the things that you ask Leslie to do.

Speaker 2 (01:24:43):
Oh oh, you know things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
You know, like you know, you know, all that matter
is is love or you know, whatever it was. But
like it was different every day.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:24:53):
And it really felt like I was stepping into a
conversation you know that was happening.

Speaker 2 (01:24:58):
Wow. And then then a final and then you realize
there was just Leslie so whistering my hand. That's amazing.
What you've been married for twenty eight years, twenty seven
you've been married for twenty seven years. What's the secret
to a twenty seven year marriage that looks happy and
fulfilling and wonderful?

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
Uh? Married, Leslie? Man, that's the that's the main thing.
I mean, it's you know, it's it's a lot of work,
and you do realize that, you know, so much of
it is like the courage to be honest about what's happening,
what you're feeling, what you're going through, and you know,
to really be there for each other. But we really
enjoy each other, you know, like, you know, we love
each other, but we're also I think, kind of engaged

(01:25:40):
and amused, and we're creative together, and we love our kids,
and I think that we have a really you know,
nice relationship you know, with them. But at the same time,
it's like the work of you know, what's coming up?
You know, you know what what am I struggling with?
You know what? How do we make life work? You know,
our kids moved out and it's like, all right, what's
life now? And you're just in this very beautiful partnership

(01:26:05):
to you know, make the best of this life.

Speaker 2 (01:26:07):
Yeah, how is that curiosity that musing, that amusement stayed? Like,
what what does it being that you've practiced to keep
that alive?

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
I think it's it's just her. I don't think, you know,
I don't think it's there's like work there, you know.
I think like in life, you can get distracted and
you can get kind of pulled into things and consumed
and off track. But it's really about kind of getting
centered and present, which you know is hard if you're
a hyper vigilant person and you're just worried about everything

(01:26:38):
being good, you know, to kind of clear it all
away and be there. I mean that's like the you know,
the work of a lifetime to figure out how to
clear it all away and just be there.

Speaker 2 (01:26:48):
Were there moments where you felt you were moving at
different paces in Korea's work life, family, and to find
a way to stay connected.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
I mean, I think like we always you know, supported
what we were doing in work creatively. I think that
we realize that, you know, we're not always going to
work together, but when we do something really special happens
and we get to a deep place and you know,
it's very like funny and real and people feel it.
But we're talking about things that are that are meaningful,

(01:27:17):
and she's so funny and creative and comes up with
these amazing ideas. So it's a real collaboration when we
decide to do that kind of work together. And then
we're always supportive on you know, if I'm doing a project,
you know she's you know, watching cuts and giving me notes.
Like we try to just like wow, help each other.
You know, do a good job.

Speaker 2 (01:27:34):
Yeah, Yeah, she's she's fantastic. I mean yeah, whenever you
guys work together, I feel like you're spot on. It
is magic, and and that that must be just such
a bonus because there's you obviously have this loving relationship
at home, You're having this great relationship at work. Yeah,
and to hear that it's her and that there's not
necessarily a work behind it sounds I mean, it sounds wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:27:57):
So yeah, I mean it's terrifying also because you you
put yourself out there and so if you go, Okay,
we're going to make a movie as a family and
the kids too, on some level it's crazy because it's like, well,
if this goes bad, this is a worldwide humiliation. So
I would really feel the pressure, you know, as the
captain of it to not make anyone, you know, look

(01:28:20):
terrible or you know. And but I also think it
made it better because I just cared at such a
high level. They obviously cared and and did an amazing job.
But I think it really like focuses you and then
you're having kind of an amazing conversation about what do
we want to say, you know, about life, about relationships,
about marriage, about kids, and so you know for years

(01:28:42):
we have common purpose and I think that was you
know the best part about it was really all of
us as a family moving towards the same goal.

Speaker 2 (01:28:52):
Yeah, that's so special. I love seeing that. I know
you were recently, you know, just seeing your daughter and
have her mone both of them have their moments. It's
like it must be so fulfilling. What do you think
was the most important lesson you taught your children when
they were young that you see the mirroring today.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
Leslie and I tried to tell Iris and Maud that
the most important thing is, you know, to care about
the work and be passionate about it and to be
proud of what you're saying in it, and that all
that matters is that. And then you shouldn't take any
work just for your career. You shouldn't, you know, try
to figure out how to get successful. That it'll always

(01:29:30):
come because you have something to say. It's something that
that you want to express, that you're that you feel
good about. And we talked a lot about just having
the courage to take the risk because it is scary,
you know, making things and you do have to gird
yourself for rejection, and you know, careers which have highs
and lows, and so in a way, you know, you're saying,

(01:29:52):
you know you can handle this, like yeah, let's you know,
or maybe you don't want to do this, which we
also said to them many times, like if this isn't
fun for you, because it's it is hard. It's hard
on the people have a creative life, because you know,
you can go through periods where you're like, no one
understands me anymore, and then suddenly it's better again, and uh,

(01:30:14):
it's it's uh, it's like being an adrenaline junkie in
a way, and you don't you don't want them to
experience in that way. You want them to be proud
of what they're contributing. But it's hard to explain that
the kids, like, you know, it's all about you're making
a contribution, like what you know, because it took me
decades to realize, like you know, everyone's al someone walk
up to me and tell me they like something that

(01:30:35):
I did or it made them laugh. It's easy to
not take that in, but when you do and go, oh,
that is the only reason why I did it, because
this person I bumped into has watched it eleven times. Yeah,
and it's the thing they turned to that makes them happy.
Like that's actually the only reason to.

Speaker 2 (01:30:51):
Do it, absolutely and to be able to eat. How

(01:31:11):
do you try and let people down lightly when you're
rejecting them? I imagine people am pitching you crazy? How
all the time? What have you learned you've told us
about how you deal with rejection? What about when you
were rejecting other people's ideas?

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
I think, you know, being direct with people and also
trying to be constructive with people, you know. I remember
working for James Brooks on this cartoon The Critic, and
when he would listen to people's pitches for stories, he
always gave them a lot of time, and even when
the idea was terrible, he would kick it around from
all these angles to see if the room would find

(01:31:46):
something in it, like maybe it would lead to some
other inspiration. And that really had a big effect on me,
because someone would pitch something and I would think, this
is the worst idea. We go on to another idea
and he would go, what if this and what if that?
And he never seems annoyed, He seems fascinated by the thought,
and like could it work. If he did this, does

(01:32:08):
she have to be of that? And I think when
you do that to people, even when you say, you know,
I don't want to make your movie, but you give them,
you know, the time to say, here's why I'm not
passionate about it. Here's what's interesting about it. Because the
truth is, you know, I've turned down things that became
big hits, and that's happened to me. It doesn't mean

(01:32:28):
I'm right. It just means that I don't connect to it. Yes,
you know, someone else might.

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):
What was one of the ones that got away that
you may not have loved but went on to do
something great?

Speaker 1 (01:32:39):
I don't know. I can't think of when off the
top of my head. You know. Usually usually it's because
I don't move fast enough. Someone sent me a script
and it took me too many days to read it,
and then they sayld it to somebody else.

Speaker 2 (01:32:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's yeah. But I like what you said
that it's not about because it's not about whether it's
successful or not. It's about whether it's meaningful to you
or not. That is such a great metric because if
it becomes about what's successful mean, there's gonna be a
million things that's successful, and you're going to miss out
on all of them because there's so many things that
are successful every year. But if it's meaningful to you,

(01:33:12):
you want to be involved. And I think that's such
a great lesson I find when I speak to anyone
who's creative. You know, we had Rick Rubin in here
and it was talking about music in that way. When
I'm talking to you, I'm like, I feel like I'm
understanding comedy in a different way because this isn't just
it's never been as simple as oh yeah, we're just

(01:33:33):
trying to make that person laugh. It's like there's there's
so much more. There's just so much more deep intention
behind what you're creating and how you're doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:33:42):
Well. I love Rick Rubin's book. Yeah, And you know,
years ago Gary Schanling said to me, you should get
to know Rick Rubin. I think, I don't know. I
think there'd be something there. And so I got to
know Rick and he would show me music and I
put some music from the band the Avid Brothers and
this is forty that he had played for me. And

(01:34:02):
then one day he said, they're about to do a
new record with me. You might want to do a
documentary or something, and I thought, well, maybe I should
do it because Gary said, you know, Gary was my
mentor and and I'm going to follow that. I'm going
to follow it through as if it's like a message
from Gary. And then we followed me. My friend Michael

(01:34:25):
won Figulio followed David Brothers around for a couple of
years and made this movie called May at Last about
them making a record with Rick. And it was about
two these two guys who who are just good guys,
and it was so funny. Thing is we were making
this documentary and we're like, where's the drama because it's
like two good guys making music and working with Rick

(01:34:48):
and and we realized, well, that's the point of the movie.
It's almost like a meditation on creativity and that like
some people aren't assholes, some people are kind of great.
And we thought, oh, that's kind of beautiful thing if
you could figure out how to make this like uh,
you know, fascinating about a band being good to each other.
And so I always think about about wreck.

Speaker 2 (01:35:09):
That's so funny. I didn't know that I loved where
he said that. You two obviously Gary being one of
your mentors, how important of mentors being in your life gigantic.

Speaker 1 (01:35:18):
I mean the entire, the entire thing. When I look back,
I'm so grateful, you know that. You know, I bumped
into Gary at a comedy club and he asked me
to write jokes for him for the Grammys, and then
hired me at the Larry Sanders Show. Then he asked
me to co run it the last year, and then
he asked me to direct it. I never directed before,
and you know, so he was like a real angel

(01:35:39):
who just believed in me and kept giving me opportunities.
And now I look back and go, wow, those are
giant opportunities. I didn't know anything he really taught me.

Speaker 2 (01:35:47):
And how do you explain those? How do you make
sense of that now when you reflect on those huge
moments that he gave you when you were learning the roads?

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
I mean, I remember, like he you know, he wanted
to hang out when when I was young and writing
jokes for him, and he was living with Linda Dussat,
and I would go over there and I just eat
with them sometimes and watch TV. And he was beginning
to develop the Larry Sanders Show, and he would show
me all auditions and scripts and I remember thinking why
is he doing this? You know, like it was hard

(01:36:17):
for me to go, oh, he's just a good guy,
Like this is so weird because he's like the most talented,
funny guy in the world and he likes having me around.
And then later in life, I thought, you know, he
never had kids, but I feel like that was like
his way of doing it. It was like through me
that it was like an experiment in fatherhood. And I

(01:36:41):
think that, you know, when he was a kid, his
brother died when he was little, and his parents never
really talked about the brother and it was discouraged that
they just kind of moved on in a very kind
of early nineteen sixties way, and it really hurt Gary
and it made him very sensitive in a lot of

(01:37:03):
ways after that. And I thought that he was nice
to me in the way he wished his parents were
to him. That's what I thought he was doing. Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:37:15):
Wow, So in one sense, you were able to give
him a gift too.

Speaker 1 (01:37:18):
Yeah, Like I think he was trying to prove it
was possible to be purely giving like that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:37:25):
I never knew it at the time. I just thought, Oh,
Gary's a great Friend's so sweet. But then later other
people would tell me like, oh, Gary, you know felt
very paternal with you, and I thought, oh yeah, because
I went through all my emails after he died from him,
and every email where I asked him for something he

(01:37:46):
said yes for like ten years. I just like scrolled
through and I'm like, he said yes every single time.
And other people would be like, he says no to me,
to everything, and I just started crying. It was just
such a beautiful thing to scroll through, like someone just
consistently just being there and so beautiful and asking for

(01:38:07):
not that much in return, you know, other than to
not screw up the Larry Sanders show.

Speaker 2 (01:38:13):
That's FRUI. What's beautiful is You've done that for so
many others too. I feel like that seems to just
something you live on.

Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
Yeah. And it's the fun part too. I mean it's
you know, I like to do it. A lot of
it is from Gary, but also it's really fun to
work with somebody who is very inspired and needs some
help understanding what they're doing. Yeah, but you know they're
doing something amazing and you can help them, and you go, oh, yeah,

(01:38:40):
just I could give them some of the wisdom that
I learned over the years, and this person can actually
pull off the thing that they're trying to do, like
they're good enough without me. But I can make this
way easier if I say, watch out for this, watch
out for that.

Speaker 2 (01:38:53):
Yeah, that's beautiful, Judd. It has been amazing learning from you.
I feel like I've gained so much wisdom about whether
it's the comedy industry, whether it's about resilience, whether it's
about breaking through barriers, believing in yourself even when you
don't all the way through to just how much work
that you've done. We end every on purpose interview. The

(01:39:13):
final five he's questioned have to be answered in one
sentence backay, although I break that rule often, So okay,
well we'll see how well we do. But chud apataw,
these are your final five. The first question is what
is the best advice you've ever heard or received?

Speaker 1 (01:39:28):
Don't live in here, live in here. Ram Das said
that to me when I interviewed him for his podcast
he Goes Here, Bad, Here Good.

Speaker 2 (01:39:39):
Tell me about your interview with him.

Speaker 1 (01:39:40):
It asked me to interview him and it was over
zoom and in the middle of it, Gary Shannling. I
invited Gary Shandling to sit in, and halfway through he
showed up at the two of us. We're just trying
to make him laugh saying dumb jokes. You know, you're like,
are you mad at Eckhart Toole because you're like the
be your now guy and he's he's the now guy.

(01:40:03):
And he was just laughing. But he also said, you know,
I am loving awareness. And you know, he said a
lot of things that were really reducible at that anytime
I think about them, you know, deeply affect me. And
the other thing I noticed about it, I have a
photograph of of me and Gary. You know, it's like

(01:40:23):
a still of our side of the zoom and in
the in the photograph, Gary looks purely happy, and I thought,
I don't know if I've ever seen Gary look happy
and serene like how he looked when he was talking
to Rondas.

Speaker 2 (01:40:37):
Oh that's beautiful. I love that. Question Number two, what
is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

Speaker 1 (01:40:43):
Stop crying and I'll give you or I'll give you
a reason to cry. That was like a parental thing
when I was a kid. But someone said to me,
and they meant it in the best possible way, But
I probably took it the wrong way. They said, you know,
when you're doing your TV pilot and they give you notes,
if the note is wrong, don't do it because if

(01:41:05):
you screw up your show, they won't say, you know what,
let's make your show anyway, because I gave you that
bad note. But I took it like to really fight
and I would just like refuse to take certain notes
out of self protection. I took it too seriously. I
didn't realize that there's a real give and take and
you have to respect the people that you're working with.

Speaker 2 (01:41:26):
Ye and.

Speaker 1 (01:41:28):
Later on I realized, like if the people who are
trying to help you, if they think you think they're idiots,
they'll try to destroy you. You know that there's a
lot of ego involved in this exchange, you know, for
people when they kind of take a risk to tell
you what they think of your thing, and that you
have to be very respectful to their you know, their
mindset and their ego in the same way I'm so sensitive.

Speaker 2 (01:41:53):
Well, that's that's profound. Question number three, What makes a
good friend?

Speaker 1 (01:42:00):
It's funny because I was talking to David Milts, was
one of my mentors, and he was talking about he
had a friend when he was a kid growing up,
and he said we would just laugh so much. They
were like twelve and they would crack up. And he said,

(01:42:22):
you know that way you behave with your friends where
you never ever have to think about what you're going
to say to them, because you just know they're going
to get it. You know they're okay with it, and
so you're in this crazy, joyful flow. And then he said,
that's what I think writing should feel like, and that's

(01:42:43):
how I think you're friendship it at its best.

Speaker 2 (01:42:45):
Yea.

Speaker 1 (01:42:46):
You know, is that feeling of total relaxation, confidence, hilarity, connection.

Speaker 2 (01:42:52):
Yeah, well said I love that you have so many
great friends in the industry outside and it's beautiful to
hear that. And that's I can agree more. I feel
like I'm around my best friends when I don't have
to filter anything. Yeah, and we can hash it out
if we have to, but yeah, there's no filter. Question
number four, what's something that you used to value that
you don't value anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:43:15):
Well, I'm a hoarder, so I've always saved everything, like
I've really saved everything. The book, it's five hundred and
seventy pages of scanning of my like childhood autographs.

Speaker 2 (01:43:27):
My it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:43:27):
James Garner and Jack Klugman autographs, like I saved things
when I was ten, like I was the Smithsonian and
you know, you know the thing. We're like, oh, there's
an art about you in a magazine and instead of
getting one company, you get twenty and then you put
them in a box and you can't throw it out,
like you literally can't throw it out. And when I
put this book together, I thought, I need to let

(01:43:50):
go of this stuff because it's it's mentally unhealthy. And
also if I could let go of it, I could
probably connect more to the spirit of all of it.
I shouldn't need to, you know, hold on to you know.

Speaker 2 (01:44:08):
I'm glad you did.

Speaker 1 (01:44:09):
Yeah. So I scanned it all and put it all
in the book. So now I should throw out like
seven storage spaces worth of crap, but I haven't yet.
But I'm really working towards like not needing it anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:44:21):
That's great. I'm glad you didn't. I thought it was remarkable.
I mean, the amount of stuff you've saved and scanned
and shared the book, it's unbelievable. I wish, yeah, I
wish everyone was able to tell their story that visually. Yeah,
because that's what takes you back to that time. It's
it's it's so hard to do it through imagination, and
you saving all of this means we don't have to

(01:44:42):
so well.

Speaker 1 (01:44:43):
I you know, I thought, I want, I want to
go through all my stuff. I scanned everything and then
I had like four hundred thousand photos. So I spent
a year laying the whole book out with no writing,
and then I took about six eight months and I
tried to do the book with a lot of like
little essays and captions so that it felt like I
was explaining the book to you.

Speaker 2 (01:45:04):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:45:04):
Yeah, So if you open any page, me going, oh,
let me tell you what that is. And I think
it's a fun read because of that, because you could
open to any page totally. And I also have all
the projects that failed and explained what they were and
why they failed. It's not just a success things.

Speaker 2 (01:45:19):
No, absolutely no. I think that was the best part
about it. It's so real. Even today, You've shared so
many things that I feel are not the highlights. There's
so much. Fifth and final question we asked this every
guest has ever been on the show if you could
create one law that everyone in the world had to follow,
what would it be?

Speaker 1 (01:45:37):
The thing that you know, it's such like a corny
bumper sticker, but every time I hear it, I think, Wow,
if people really live this, it would be meaningful, which is,
you know, you don't know what anyone is going through.
Be kind. And I did this documentary about mel Brooks
for HBO that's going to be on in January. And
you know, he's ninety nine years old. So I said,
you know, what do you tell you know, you're like

(01:45:57):
your grandkids. What advice do you take from you know this,
you know, century on Earth? And he said, be kind?
And I think that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:07):
Yeah, well, said chat Out at the books called Comedy Nerd.
We're going to put the link in the description to
go and grab your copy. I want you all to
clip on TikTok and Instagram the pieces that really resonated
with you, that connected with you, the stories that you're
going to remember and share again. I learned so many
nuggets of wisdom from Juds today, and Judd, I'm so

(01:46:27):
grateful that you not only lived your life, shared it
in this beautiful visual way with all of us and
I hope I get to spend a lot more time
with you because this was too much fun. So thank
you so much, thank you, so grateful to you and
really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:46:41):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:46:42):
If this is the year that you're trying to get creative,
you're trying to build more, I need you to listen
to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break
into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods
that lead to success, and the secret to genuinely loving
what you do, trying to find your passion and your lane.

(01:47:02):
Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you.

Speaker 1 (01:47:05):
Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value,
Like as an artist, if you like it, that's all
of the value. That's the success comes when you say
I like this enough for other people to see it.

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