[IMG:L]”Because of him I’m currently not carjacking all of you tonight.” —Seth Rogen on Judd Apatow.
And that, in a nutshell, is why Hollywood.com has picked Judd Apatow as 2007’s Entertainer of the Year.
Sure, we could have gone with a flashier, more marquee-level name, one of the acting superstars Hollywood counts on to put butts in the seats at the local multiplex, but we decided to go with the writer-director-producer whose unerring instinct for mixing outrageous, did-he-just-do-that? comedy with a sweet, relatable everyman sensibility made sure those butts left the theater thoroughly entertained. And instead of relying on tried-and-true comedy stars, Apatow routinely introduces audiences to a brand-new or reinvented crop of actors who are inventing entirely new ways to make us laugh.
This year, Apatow became a Hollywood brand as reliable in the comedy realm as Bruckheimer is for big budget blockblusters or Disney for family friendly fare. Apatow‘s name attached to a project is a guarantee moviegoers are in for a good, R-rated time watching likeable characters finding their way through life, even as they endure some of the most sexually startling hijinks and humiliations imaginable–in a lot of ways, just like us.
[IMG:R]Even before his recent raucous run at box office, the guy’s been shaping some of the sharpest comedy of the last 15 years. Apatow burst on the scene as a writer for the edgy, cult favorite sketch comedy series The Ben Stiller Show way back in 1992, and sharpened his storytelling skills on one of the greatest TV sitcoms of all time, The Larry Sanders Show, where Garry Shandling taught him the value of character-driven comedy. His pals Stiller and Jim Carrey tapped his comedic chops to help shape The Cable Guy, which fizzled at the a box office but has grown in stature as a classic dark comedy. Better yet, Apatow met his wife, actress Leslie Mann, while making the film, and added her as a cornerstone of the off-kilter ensemble of players he would assemble.
Many members of the Apatow ensemble (and indeed, a good sampling of the next wave of young Hollywood film and TV stars) would be discovered on his next venture, Freaks and Geeks, perhaps the best TV show about high school ever made. Introducing the likes of Linda Cardellini, James Franco, Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel and more, the series was unappreciated in the ratings but captivated a small but intensely devoted audience that spread the gospel and has made the show a DVD phenomenon since its single season. Equally undervalued was his follow-up, Undeclared, where he hired his teenage protégé and Freaks and Geeks alum Seth Rogen as a staff writer.
[IMG:L]His critical acclaim would finally be matched by his commercial success when he produced 2004’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, in which he figured out how to turn Will Ferrell’s wacky characterizations into a genuine comedy centerpiece whom audiences invested in, repeating the feat in the Apatow-produced Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. His career shot into the stratosphere when he wrote and directed 2005’s The 40 Year Old Virgin, a sex farce with a sweet center that not only put hip teens and middle aged moviegoers into equal fits of hysterics, it reinvented Steve Carell, previously put to use primarily as an out-there sidekick, into a full-blown leading funnyman who could also bring a realistic relatable quality to his booty-beleaguered character.
But it was 2007 that turned into Apatow’s banner year, with no less than three comedy gems to his credit: he wrote and directed Knocked Up, which deftly mixed raunch, romance and unplanned parenthood to make a movie star out of Katherine Heigl and a slacker hero out of Seth Rogen; he produced Superbad, which dragged callow 80s teen sex comedies into a whole new world of scatological scenarios and soft-hearted male bonding thanks to a clever script co-penned by Rogen and star-making turns by Jonah Hill and Michael Cera; and he produced the mock-rock biopic Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, lampooning the Academy friendly true life stories of recent years and even earning unlikely awards nods for star John C. Reilly, whom Apatow helped reinvent as a skilled dramatic actor into an emerging comedy superstar.
[IMG:R]Along the way, the Apatow touch has elevated his troupe to iconic status. Leslie Mann has emerged as perhaps the saltiest, sexiest supporting actress since Madeline Kahn. Paul Rudd (who introduced himself to Apatow over email to congratulate him for using an obscure Steve Martin reference as his e-address) was once trapped in bland support as the object of affection for female comedy stars, but thanks to Apatow, Rudd’s emerged as a surprisingly snarky bench player who steals scenes with his acerbic ad libs.
“I feel like Peter Frampton after Frampton Comes Alive,” Apatow told Hollywood.com earlier this year, believing that the time for his brand of comedy has finally come. “It’s the same stuff we’ve been trying to do from the beginning. We’ve always wanted to make movies like these. We weren’t allowed to. We tried since I started, and suddenly they’re letting us. And I think as they do well, they give us a little more reign each time. And because we haven’t screwed it up, that reign allows us to take chances. The budgets are small enough that people aren’t too anal about what we’re doing, and I think there’s something natural happening that will soon screw up and we’ll all price ourselves out of the business. That’s what I’m looking forward to.”
Do you need more proof that Hollywood.com’s picked the right man as Entertainer of the Year? Just check out what some of the members of what Entertainment Weekly dubbed the “Apatow Gang” told Hollywood.com this year about the man who made crass comedy–with the right touch of compassion for his characters–cool all over again.
[IMG:L]Seth Rogen (Freaks and Geeks, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Undeclared, Superbad, The Pineapple Express)
“What’s amazing about Judd is about how open the set feels: you can do no wrong, which is nice. He’ll never tell you not to say something – he may tell you not to say it again, but he won’t tell you not to say it in the first place. You know you can do whatever you want; he gives you the time, the film, and the focus to really get the best out of people. People who have one line in Knocked Up would say it was the best acting experience they’ve ever had because they would have gotten a whole role of film to get the funniest version of that line. Everyone kind of gets their moment in the sun and the opportunity to do whatever they think is funny.”
[IMG:L]Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up)
“They toss a lot of ideas out and they’re always running jokes through each other and seeing what will work and what doesn’t work. It’s like hanging out with a bunch of friends, because they know each other so well…They get each other really well and they get each other’s humor, and so I think it just makes the jokes that much funnier.”
[IMG:L]Jonah Hill (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall)
“I met Judd when I auditioned for 40 Year Old Virgin, and then I think I’d found the appropriate people I was meant to be working with. And that’s how I ended up here. I got really lucky, basically.”
[IMG:L]Jim Carrey (The Cable Guy, Fun With Dick and Jane)
“I need Judd. I love Judd. We practically started out together. He was one of the first guys that kind of saw me doing some of the crazy, different stuff – for years I was an impressionist and I stopped doing that for a couple of years and I came back as a standup trying to kind of discover myself and he was the one that was like kind of running around telling people, ‘This guy, if he doesn’t clear the room because of some horrible thing he says, he’s really wonderful to watch.’ And he was kind of my champion.”
[IMG:L]Michael Cera (Superbad)
“He would depend on the people he hires, people that he really trusts. And then he discusses it a lot, like a night beforehand, and goes over everything and makes sure we’re all on the same level. And then he just kind of leaves each of us to our own devices.”
[IMG:L]James Franco (Freaks and Geeks, The Pineapple Express)
“When I did Freaks and Geeks it was early in my career and I knew it was a good show, but I didn’t realize what a great environment that was. I took it for granted and after working on a bunch of movies I realized how great that experience was. I wanted to do this movie so I could be around those people again and also just to do a comedy. I think they do the best comedy around.”
[IMG:L]Linda Cardellini (Freaks and Geeks)
“I think that Judd just knows what’s funny. I think he’s not afraid to take risks and it’s just paying off. I’m so happy for him.”
[IMG:L]Leslie Mann (The Cable Guy, Freaks and Geeks, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Drillbit Taylor)
“He creates such a nice working environment, a very safe working environment for an actor, so you feel like everything you do is okay and good; you’re more willing to try things and explore, and you never feel judged by him, like you’re doing something wrong and stupid. That’s how he gets great performances out of people.”
[IMG:L]Paul Rudd (Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Walk Hard, Forgetting Sarah Marshall)
“You never are in a case of wondering, ‘Oh God, did I just go too far with that? He just won’t use it…Sometimes in an improvisation or something it will go in a completely different way than what might be in the script, and he’ll encourage that. He certainly feels comfortable enough to spend the time going in a direction that is completely new, and he can process all that in his head while knowing that this will fit into what the next thing’s going to be. And he’s so funny himself; he’ll yell out a line while we’re shooting a scene, and we’ll just incorporate what he says into the scene.”
[IMG:L]Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall)
“Judd Apatow tells me that this point in his career is kind of a dream come true. And now I’m really happy to call those people my friends. And I hope to be one of the improv artists they draw upon in the future that can be a part of their ensemble.”
[IMG:L]Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad)
“Everything he does is genius, really.”
McLovin has spoken.
