-Our next guest is a writer, director, and producer
you know from his work on "Trainwreck,"
"Knocked Up," and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin,"
as well as "Girls" and "Freaks and Geeks."
His new film, "The King of Staten Island,"
is available on demand now.
Here's my conversation with our friend Judd Apatow.
Judd, it's great to see you. How are you doing?
-I'm doing well.
I've been home for over three months.
And this is the result.
-It's lovely. It's beautiful.
I mean, you're in bloom. You're in full bloom.
-Do you know that I did my own makeup today?
-No. Get out of here.
-This is -- you know what,
I always have these makeup people.
I can do it myself, which is basically Irish Spring.
I use Irish Spring.
-Yeah. -And then this is it.
I don't even have beard oil in.
-How do the women --
the three women that you live with feel
about your look right now?
-They feel the same way you feel, that it looks great.
-Yeah.
-That I'm glad that we found this.
-A lot of support. A lot of support.
-No, they are so annoyed because they think it's too big
and they're mad I won't trim it, but I'm going kind of
for a Benjamin Harrison look. -Yes.
-And they're mad at me because I keep saying,
"Well, then I'm going to shave it all off."
And they're like, "No, we don't want to see your face!"
You know, they want a little beard,
but they hate my face.
And I try to remind them, "It's your face."
-Right, right. -Like my face looks
kind of like your face.
You can't hate it that much. -No, of course not.
That's very fair.
Although, it's not really their fault,
but it's a fair assessment.
So, the movie's great.
And I want to talk, because I feel like you always do
such an incredible job with casting,
especially casting that people wouldn't expect.
I mean, obviously Marisa Tomei is so great in this movie.
Steve Buscemi.
You know, Pete is so much fun to watch.
Bill Burr is fantastic. -Yeah.
But maybe Action Bronson steals the movie.
-People aren't really talking yet enough about
that Action Bronson has a key role in the movie.
You know, we needed a strange neighborhood figure.
I don't want to give away what happens in the sequence.
And Action Bronson was the only one who was hysterically funny.
And also Machine --
Machine Gun Kelly is in the movie as well
as a mean tattoo shop owner.
So, you know, I love having cameos like,
RZA is in "Funny People." -Yeah.
-And Ghostface Killah is in "Walk Hard."
And Method Man is in "Trainwreck."
So I'm just working through the whole Wu-Tang Clan.
-Yes.
-It's my tribute to Staten Island over a career.
-That's very -- that's very nice of you to do.
We had Pete on and he talked about, you know,
writing a first draft of this movie.
I imagine, like, for somebody like him
who's playing the lead in a film that is also,
you know, to some degree pulled from his own life,
did he have anxiety in the early days of shooting?
-You know, he got very nervous
right before we started shooting.
So, you know, we were having fun writing for a couple of years.
And then the night before shooting started,
I just started getting these e-mails from him.
And he was sending me the IMDB resumes of actors he thought
should be better than him.
And he was like, "Can I not go to work tomorrow?
What about Emile Hirsch?
You know, what about Cole Sprouse?"
And all these resumes keep popping up.
And I'm at home laughing thinking, oh, he's hysterical.
This Pete, he's hysterical.
And then the next day at work he's like, "I'm serious.
You should have called Cole Sprouse."
-[ Laughs ] -"I really --
I really don't want to be here today, Judd."
But then after the first day, he got really comfortable
and had a blast making it.
But he certainly was a little nervous heading into it.
-A directors fear, one of their many fears on set is something
will change with an actor and there will be continuity issues.
-Yes.
-What was your biggest continuity fear about Pete?
-The biggest fear I had was he loves getting tattoos.
-Yeah.
-That's just like the after like,
"Oh, look how good it looks."
I think it's the process of getting it.
He talked a lot about enjoying the fact that it hurt
and that it focused him and helped him think clearly.
And we talked a lot about trying to understand that.
And so, he kept asking if he could get a tattoo
in a weird place that wouldn't be in the movie.
And I'm like, "I don't know when I need you naked.
I might need you naked one day. You can't have a new tattoo."
And then I was worried he would go
like full Post Malone at some point.
-Right, sure. -Because that would happen --
When we were doing "Girls," in between seasons,
they would get tattoos and they wouldn't ask anybody.
They would just show up and go, "Do you love these tattoos
I got all over my hands?
And I'm like, "I guess your character just got tattoos
on her hands." -Man, yeah.