Word: apatow
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Feedback Machine For all his master planning, Apatow as a moviemaker is known for his collaboration. His least favorite part of the process is writing, which for Funny People involved his speaking the characters' parts into a tape recorder. Even then, he'd call people for feedback. "The moment you think of a joke is the best moment," he says. "I put on a big show when I write something I think is funny. I'll talk about it a lot and call people and tell them, 'I thought of this joke where Steve Carell pees in his own face...
...real writing starts after casting, when Apatow re-creates his characters based on the actors. He's not interested in having anyone do a Meryl Streep-like transformation. "Initially my character in Sarah Marshall was an English author, a bookworm character," says Russell Brand, the English comedian who played a rock star in the movie. "Eventually it was decided that no one could expect me to do any actual acting. I think he's very interested in truth, so he has a good intuition about people's essence." Sean (Diddy) Combs co-stars in next year's Apatow-produced...
...every movie he produces, Apatow makes the director shoot and keep shooting, yelling suggestions at the actors until they're so worn down that they can't think of anything to say other than something personal - or funny. After a scene in Get Him to the Greek, director Nick Stoller runs off triumphantly, shaking his fists in the air. "We did it! We got Sean to make a gay joke!" he yells. "They got me. They turned me out," says Combs, shaking his head as he walks away. One night, with 1,300 extras at the Greek Theater...
...Once Apatow has a three-hour-plus version of the movie, he shows it to every funny person in L.A. and asks for notes. "Judd is like a feedback machine," says Feig. "He wants feedback of the person he doesn't even like or trust. And he's got the brain trust of comedy at the moment, old and new." The next stop is test audiences - 10 for Funny People. "We had a debate over how much is too much for a comedian to talk about his penis and testicles," Apatow says. "The answer there is, No amount...
...Then Apatow gets back inside his own head and agonizes over the final details. On the last day to make changes to the Funny People print, he is sitting in the office building in Santa Monica, Calif., that his assistants call the Apatower, mulling over which of several jokes to put in. One dilemma: Should Sandler dislike Mann's elder daughter because she doesn't laugh at his jokes or because she's old enough to have her period? Mind you, this is Apatow's real daughter who's playing the character - so when he asks me, as a warm...