In the years since Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared were canceled, the TV landscape has changed. Apatow has happily discovered that now there's room for creators like him to take risks. "Freaks and Geeks got canceled because it only had 7 million viewers," he says. "That's more than Girls has right now. You can have a niche audience and survive." He laughs. "I'm trying to trick myself into feeling less pressure."
Instead of writing his next script, Apatow is going back to his first comedy obsession: the microphone. He'd prodded Schumer to make a movie. Schumer elbowed him to reclaim the stage he quit 25 years ago. Why not return to where his love of comedy began?
During Trainwreck's four-month New York shoot, every night he'd call "cut" around 8 p.m., jump into a car and ride to the Comedy Cellar to do a stand-up set. Young Judd would've panicked at going on sandwiched between Andrew Dice Clay and Louis CK. Older Judd was finally able to relax. Even if he wasn't as good as the rest of the acts, "I would have nights where I was semi-charming."
"I wasn't that great at doing it when I was young because I didn't have that much to say," he continues. "To come back and do it at 47, I have a lot more stories and ideas. And I don't have to be terrified that if it goes badly, I won't eat."
If he's temporarily run out of life events for a full movie, he's bursting with zingers for the stage — so many that at the end of a hysterical 75-minute set at Largo, Apatow literally pulled his joke ideas from a bucket. He riffed on everything: his mother's refusal to breast-feed him, his weight, the two times he's met Obama, "dad bod," his paranoia that David Schwimmer hates him and his therapist's revelation that he used to treat O.J. Simpson. "So I go, 'Oh, you're the worst therapist ever,'0x2009" he cracks. Apatow's common theme is, as ever, his own insecurity. But onstage he has no reason to be insecure. He kills.
"I didn't like not being thought of as a comedian," he admits. "A friend of mine said, 'Why would you do that? You're a director.' I'd rather be thought of as a comedian than a director."
It makes sense that Apatow might be most happy holding a mic. To get honest in This Is 40, he had to write a script, raise $35 million, hire hundreds of people, work for over a year, put his loved ones in emotional jeopardy and hold his breath to find out if his struggle was worth it.
"There's so much pressure when you're making movies, and then maybe when it comes out you have a moment of joy — or humiliation, if no one else likes it," Apatow says. But stand-up is simple and immediate. He speaks. And the audience either stares back or laughs. Apatow smiles. "The laughter's what tells you that everything is going to be OK."
