Judd Apatow (; born December 6, 1967) is an American director, producer and screenwriter known for his work in comedy films. Apatow is the founder of Apatow Productions, through which he wrote, produced, and directed his films The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Knocked Up (2007), Funny People (2009), This Is 40 (2012), Trainwreck (2015), The King of Staten Island (2020), and The Bubble (2022).
Through his company, Apatow produced and developed the television series Freaks and Geeks (1999–2000), Undeclared (2001–2002), Funny or Die Presents (2010–2011), Girls (2012–2017), Love (2016–2018), and Crashing (2017–2019). He also produced the films The Cable Guy (1996), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Superbad (2007), Pineapple Express (2008), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Get Him to the Greek (2010), Bridesmaids (2011), Begin Again (2013), and The Big Sick (2017).
Throughout his career, Apatow has received nominations for eleven Primetime Emmy Awards (three wins), five Writers Guild of America Awards (one win), two Producers Guild of America Awards, one Golden Globe Award, and one Grammy Award.
Early life and education The middle of three children of Maury Apatow, a real-estate developer, and Tamara Shad, who ran the music label Mainstream Records founded by her father, Bob Shad, Judd Apatow was born on December 6, 1967, in the Flushing neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens, and raised in Syosset, New York, on Long Island. His family is Jewish, but nonreligious. Apatow has an older brother, Robert, and a younger sister, Mia. Their mother died in 2008. His maternal grandmother, Molly, co-starred in his film This Is 40.
When Apatow was 12 years old, his parents divorced. Robert went to live with his maternal grandparents, and Mia went to live with her mother. As a child, Apatow lived mainly with his father, and visited his mother on weekends. Apatow's mother spent a summer working at a comedy club, which is where Judd was first exposed to live stand-up comedy.
Apatow's deep interest in comedy dates back to his childhood; his heroes were Steve Martin, Bill Cosby and the Marx Brothers. Apatow got his comic start washing dishes at the Long Island East Side Comedy Club, and while attending Syosset High School, he played jazz and hosted a program called Comedy Club on the school's radio station, WKWZ, which he created as a way to meet and learn from comedians he admired. He cold-called comedians during this period, managing to interview Steve Allen, Howard Stern, Harold Ramis and John Candy, along with emerging comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Wright, and Garry Shandling.
Career 1985–2003: Stand-up and early work Apatow began performing stand-up comedy at age seventeen, during his senior year of high school. In the September 1985 issue of Laugh Factory Magazine, he is listed as an associate editor. After graduating from high school in 1985 he moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in the screenwriting program at University of Southern California. While at USC, he organized and hosted a number of on-campus "Comedy Night" events, featuring headliners such as Saturday Night Live performer Kevin Nealon. Apatow introduced the acts at these events with short standup routines of his own. He also began volunteering at (and later producing) benefit concerts for HBO's Comic Relief and performing and seeing standup at the Improv in Hollywood. He dropped out of college during his second year and later moved into an apartment with comedian Adam Sandler, whom he met at the Improv. He competed in the Johnnie Walker Comedy Search in 1989 directed by Saturday Night Live short film producer Neal Marshad.
Shortly thereafter, Apatow was introduced by manager Jimmy Miller to Garry Shandling which resulted in Apatow being hired as a writer for the 1991 Grammy Awards that year, which Shandling hosted. He went on to co-produce comedy specials by Roseanne Arnold, Tom Arnold, and Jim Carrey. In 1992, Apatow appeared on HBO's 15th Annual Young Comedians Special and shortly afterwards went on to co-create and executive produce The Ben Stiller Show for Fox. Apatow had met Stiller outside of an Elvis Costello concert in 1990, and they became friends. Despite critical acclaim and an Emmy Award for Apatow and the rest of the writing staff, Fox canceled the show in 1993.
Apatow went on to join HBO's The Larry Sanders Show in 1993 as a writer and consulting producer, and he later served as a co-executive producer and director of an episode during the show's final season in 1998. He credits Shandling as his mentor for influencing him to write comedy that is more character-driven. Apatow earned six Emmy nominations for his work on Larry Sanders. During this same time, he worked as a consulting producer and staff writer for the animated show The Critic, starring Jon Lovitz.
In 1995, Apatow co-wrote (with Steve Brill) the feature film Heavyweights. Around the same time, Apatow was hired to produce and do an uncredited re-write of the script for the movie The Cable Guy, which was released in 1996 to mixed reviews. It was during the pre-production of the film that Apatow met his future wife, actress Leslie Mann.Stated in interview on Inside the Actors Studio, 2009. Apatow did uncredited re-writes on two other Jim Carrey films: Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty. His next script was titled Making Amends, which had Owen Wilson attached to star as a man in Alcoholics Anonymous who decides to apologize to everyone he has ever hurt. However, the film was never made. Apatow did uncredited rewrites of the Adam Sandler films Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer. He was also featured in four tracks on Sandler's 1996 comedy album "What the Hell Happened to Me?"
In 1999, Apatow created Sick in the Head, a multi-camera sitcom pilot starring David Krumholtz as a psychiatrist on his first day on the job, Amy Poehler as a suicidal patient, and Kevin Corrigan as Krumholtz's slacker roommate. The show was not picked up by Fox, which freed up Apatow to serve as an executive producer of the award-winning series Freaks and Geeks, which debuted in 1999. He also wrote and directed several episodes of the series. After its cancellation, Apatow was the executive producer and creator of the series Undeclared, which reused Seth Rogen in the main cast and other Freaks and Geeks cast members in recurring roles. Although both shows were quickly canceled, USA Today media critic Susan Wloszczyna called the shows "two of the most acclaimed TV series to ever last only one season".
In 2001, Apatow created North Hollywood, a pilot that featured Jason Segel, Kevin Hart, Seth Rogen, Phil Hendrie, and Judge Reinhold (playing himself). The pilot was not picked up by ABC. In 2002, he co-wrote (with Brent Forrester) a Fox pilot titled Life on Parole, starring David Herman as a dissatisfied parole officer whose roommate happens to be one of his parolees; it was not picked up. Apatow has screened and introduced them at "The Other Network", a festival of un-aired TV pilots produced by Un-Cabaret.
2004–2008: Career breakthrough In 2004, Apatow produced the feature film comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, starring Will Ferrell and directed by Adam McKay. The film was a box office success. Apatow co-produced the 2013 sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. He made his feature directorial debut in 2005 with the comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which he also co-wrote with the film's star, Steve Carell, for Universal Pictures. The film opened at number one at the box office and grossed more than $175 million globally. The comedy garnered numerous awards and nominations, including being named one of AFI's Top Movies of the Year, as well as taking home Best Comedy Movie at the 11th annual Critics' Choice Awards. The 40-Year-Old Virgin also earned Apatow a nomination for Best Original Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America and received four MTV Movie Award nominations, including a win for Carell for Best Comedic Performance. In 2005, Apatow co-wrote with Nicholas Stoller the feature film comedy Fun with Dick and Jane starring Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni. The film went on to gross $205 million worldwide.
His second film, the romantic comedy Knocked Up, was released in June 2007 to wide critical acclaim. Apatow wrote the initial draft of the film on the set of Talladega Nights. The story concerns a slacker and a media personality (Rogen and Heigl, respectively) whose one-night stand results in an unintended pregnancy. In addition to being a critical success, the film was also a commercial hit, continuing Apatow's newfound mainstream success.
Critical reception of Apatow's films during this period included some commentary on their portrayal of gender and humor. In 2007, filmmaker Mike White expressed disappointment with Apatow's later work, criticizing what he saw as the treatment of women and gay characters, and remarked that Knocked Up at times felt like "comedy of the bullies, rather than the bullied". Media commentary also noted the use of derogatory language toward the LGBTQ community by characters in some of his comedies. Actress Katherine Heigl, who starred in Knocked Up, described the film as "a little sexist", arguing that it portrayed women as overly rigid while depicting men as more sympathetic. Apatow responded that such traits reflected the immaturity of the characters rather than an endorsement of those attitudes, stating that the film focuses on people "who are afraid of women and relationships and learn to grow up". In August 2007, Apatow produced the film Superbad, which was written by Seth Rogen and his writing partner Evan Goldberg. A concept Rogen and Goldberg had created as teens, Apatow convinced Rogen to write the film as a vehicle for himself in 2000. Rogen and Goldberg finished writing the film, but were unable to find a studio interested in producing it. Apatow then enlisted Rogen and Goldberg to write Pineapple Express, a stoner action movie that he felt would be more commercial. After the success of Anchorman and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Apatow was still unable to sell both Superbad and Pineapple Express; it was only after he produced the commercial hit Talladega Nights that Sony Pictures Entertainment decided to produce both.
At this point, Rogen was unable to play the lead for Superbad, as he had grown too old to play the part of Seth. Subsequently, he was cast in a supporting role as a police officer and friend Jonah Hill took his role as the high school student. Apatow credits Rogen for influencing him to make his work more "outrageously dirty".
In August 2007, Superbad opened at No. 1 in the box office to critical acclaim, taking in $33 million in its opening weekend. Industry insiders claimed Apatow was now a brand unto himself, creating movies geared toward older audiences, who would watch his movies even when the films delved into the teen genre.
Apatow served as producer and co-writer along with director Jake Kasdan for the biopic spoof Walk Hard starring John C. Reilly, Kristen Wiig and Jenna Fischer, which was released in December 2007. While the film received positive reviews, it did poorly commercially. In 2008, he served as producer for Drillbit Taylor starring Owen Wilson and Leslie Mann and written by Seth Rogen, which opened in March and earned negative reviews.
For the rest of 2008, Apatow produced the comedy films Forgetting Sarah Marshall starring Jason Segel and Kristen Bell; Step Brothers, which reunites Talladega Nights co-stars Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly; and Pineapple Express starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, both of whom originally starred on Freaks and Geeks. In addition, he served as co-writer for the Adam Sandler comedy film You Don't Mess with the Zohan, which Sandler and Robert Smigel also co-wrote and went on to gross $204 million at the worldwide box office.