Judd Apatow elevates our most awkward moments into high art. First, he explored adolescence with Freaks and Geeks, his cult-hit TV series. Created by a longtime friend, writer Paul Feig, the show followed the lives of uncool teens who got more noogies than nookie in high school. Then Apatow graduated to Undeclared, another single-season flop about a crew of dorky college freshmen fumbling with beer kegs and bra straps. Like Freaks, it has enjoyed a robust second life on DVD. Apatow finally scored with The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which made middle-aged prudery credible — even universal. Now, with Knocked Up (out June 1), nature is taking its course: The nerd procreates. No doubt Knocked Up will find a broad audience, but like all of the director's work it's made for us pencil necks. An oral history of Apatow's coming-of-age chronicles.
1999 - 2000: High School Hell
Freaks and Geeks
Freshman Sam Weir (John Francis Daley) is a geek. His sister, Lindsay (Linda Cardellini), is a freak. They, along with their offbeat classmates — Rush-loving burnout Nick (Jason Segel), his buddy Ken (Seth Rogen), and nerd nonpareil Bill (Martin Starr) — try to make their way through high school circa 1980, a melee of big rock, Monty Python skits, and enough Star Wars to choke a Wookiee.
Apatow: We wanted a show that was about the truth: High school is really hard. It was always about taking horrible physical and emotional beatings.
__Feig: __When I was that age, I wish some- body had given me an honest accounting of what they had gone through. That would have been much more comforting than watching TV shows where everyone is sexy and good-looking and has adult problems. I was afraid of girls, awkward with my friends, and just trying to get through the day without getting my ass kicked.
Starr: I was 16 when I got the part of Bill, and I was a weird kid. I think being a strange and uncomfortable kid helped create that strange and uncomfortable character.
__Segel: __My favorite moment is this scene where they're playing softball, and a fly ball is coming toward Bill. He's terrified, but he manages to get his glove up and catch it. It's this beautiful, victorious moment. And then they pull back, and you realize it's only the first out.
__Apatow: __While he's celebrating, everyone is tagging up. They're actually losing the game. That was* our* version of a victory.
2001 - 2002: College Acceptance
Undeclared
Apatow's next series followed Steven Karp (Jay Baruchel) and his fellow undergrads as they ventured into college life. Rogen played Karp's suitemate, and Segel had a supporting role as an off-campus meathead. While not as complex as Freaks, Undeclared was refreshing as a study of college underdogs that wasn't a feeble Revenge of the Nerds knockoff.
Apatow: We thought college could be a fun setting for these young people who are trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives. I remember going to summer camp as a kid and thinking, "No one knows me here — I can trick them into thinking I'm an athlete." And I'd always get found out within a week. That's kind of the premise of Undeclared in a lot of ways: a guy thinking he can change his reputation at college, and it doesn't really work.
Feig: Our goal was to capture the college experience. Everybody thinks they're an outsider. That's just the human condition.
Apatow: I work with the same people over and over because it's hard to find actors who are really funny and willing to give up all their personal problems and conversations and use them in the story. So when I find someone great, I tend to stick with them.
Scenes from Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Knocked Up 2005: Action Hero
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Steve Carell stars as Andy Stitzer, a middle-aged guy who has yet to do the deed. When he reveals his secret to his crass coworkers (played by Rogen and Paul Rudd), they band together to get him some action. Virgin is loaded with puerile gags, but Apatow's message is surprisingly mature: Your love of a Six Million Dollar Man collectible figure can't compare with that of a genuine woman.
Apatow: There's nothing wrong with Andy except that with every year that goes by, he's more and more afraid to try. It was a big decision to make him a normal, shy guy who is unable to face his fear: He thinks he's a freak and that if he hits on a woman she'll confirm that he's right.
Rogen: We came up with the rest of the characters in rehearsal. I would go to Circuit City and see these stock guys who were so burly-looking, but they had such a dumb job. You know they're not tough — they're into audiovisual equipment. I thought, "That's funny."
Apatow: My favorite scene is when Trish (Catherine Keener) is trying to have sex with Andy, and she knocks his toys off the bed. He uses it as an excuse to not have sex with her, and then they have this terrible fight. The scene was a huge influence on Knocked Up, because it was brutal but it got big laughs. I tried to make an entire movie that was like that scene. It's very real and confrontational but a lot of fun to watch.
2007: Pregnant Pause
Knocked Up
When is it time to grow up? Rogen, this time playing a slovenly, sarcastic, unemployed Internet "entrepreneur," finds out when a drunken night with a woman who's way out of his league (Grey's Anatomy's Katherine Heigl) turns into something more serious. Meanwhile, buddy Paul Rudd risks his marriage to pursue a shameful passion: fantasy baseball.
Apatow: Knocked Up is about a guy who gets a girl pregnant who would never consider being in a relationship with him. Forced intimacy with good-looking people, this is the common thread. It's like The Breakfast Club. Everything I do is based on The Breakfast Club.
Rudd: Throughout the writing of Knocked Up, Judd and I would talk about problems in our own marriages. I'd call him and say, "Here's something that drives me crazy about my wife, and here's something my wife can't stand about me." I recently had a kid, and one thing my wife took — understandably — as a hostile gesture was the fact that I never read any of those baby books. I said, "People have been doing this for thousands of years! Cavemen didn't have What to Expect When You're Expecting!" That's in the movie.
Apatow: On some level, most people are very immature. In Knocked Up, it's a wife who has children but still wants to go dancing at nightclubs. And her husband, who says he has an appointment but is actually seeing Spider-Man 3.
Rudd: There are things in the movie that are straight out of Judd's life. This is why his shows are so good — a lot of problems are universal, and he wants to make them realistic. The more specific and real you can get, the more identifiable it is for everybody else.
Apatow: I write about the stages I'm going through. That will probably continue until I write my version of Cocoon. The characters will be the nerdy older people, afraid that their Viagra won't kick in soon enough.
Robert Capps (rcapps@wired.com*) is a senior editor at *Wired.
