John Fogerty in 'Revival'

DATE September 28, 2007 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Judd Apatow, writer/director of "Knocked Up", and
star Seth Rogen talk about the making of the movie and working
together
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, TV critic for the New York Daily
News, sitting in for Terry Gross.

The comedy "Knocked Up" from the creator of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" is now
out in expanded form on DVD. It's written and directed by Judd Apatow and
stars actor and writer Seth Rogen. Today on FRESH AIR we listen back to my
interview with them both from last May.

Apatow started out doing stand-up comedy as a teenager and also hosted a high
school radio show in which he interviewed comedians he admired. For a while
he wound up working in television, very good television. He wrote and
directed for "The Larry Sanders Show," co-created "The Ben Stiller Show," then
went on to two other outstanding cult comedies, "Freaks and Geeks" and his own
creation, "Undeclared." He produced the movies "The Cable Guy" with Jim Carrey
and "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" with Will Ferrell, then took his
first stab at writing and directing a movie himself. It was "The 40-Year-Old
Virgin," which made Steve Carell a star and Apatow a hot property. He's
gotten even hotter recently by producing the movie comedy "Superbad," which
was co-written by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen.

Seth Rogen was a supporting player in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," both a writer
and co-star on "Undeclared" and, at an even younger age, one of the cast
members of "Freaks and Geeks." Apatow befriended and championed Rogen early.
Like Apatow, Rogen also dared to venture into stand-up comedy as a young teen.

Rogen is front and center in Apatow's "Knocked Up." He plays Ben, a young
slacker who has a drunken one-night stand with a beautiful woman named Alison.
She's played by Katherine Heigl, who just won an Emmy for "Grey's Anatomy."
Both are shocked when it turns out that Alison becomes pregnant. Here they
are on their second date, having dinner at a restaurant, with Ben trying
clumsily to make a good second impression.

(Soundbite of "Knocked Up")

Ms. KATHERINE HEIGL: (As Alison) I thought we could just talk and get to
know each other. Better.

Mr. SETH ROGEN: (As Ben) Cool. OK. I'll start. I'm Canadian.

Ms. HEIGL: (As Alison) Oh, cool.

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ben) From Vancouver. I live here illegally, actually. Don't
tell anyone. But it works out in my advantage, I think, ultimately because I
don't have to pay any taxes. So, financially, that's helpful, because I don't
have a lot of money, you know. I mean, I'm not poor or anything, but I eat a
lot of spaghetti.

Ms. HEIGL: (As Alison) So, you know, the Web page or whatever is just
something that you guys do for fun? Do you have a real job?

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ben) Well, that is our job.

Ms. HEIGL: (As Alison) Oh.

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ben) We don't technically get money for the hours we put in,
but it is our job.

Ms. HEIGL: (As Alison) So how do you...

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ben) How do I pay rent? When I was in high school, I got ran
over by a postal truck.

Ms. HEIGL: (As Alison) Oh my God!

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ben) It's fine. It was my foot more than anything.

Ms. HEIGL: (As Alison) Uh-huh.

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ben) But I got like 14 grand from the British Columbia
government.

Ms. HEIGL: (As Alison) Right.

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ben) And that really lasted me, I mean, until now. I mean,
it's been almost 10 years. I have like 900 bucks left, so that should last me
for like--I mean, I'm not a mathematician, but like another two years.

(End of soundbite)

BIANCULLI: Newsweek critic David Ansen raved about Rogen's performance and
wrote that having him as the leading man was, quote, "casting as against the
grain as Dustin Hoffman seemed back in the day of `The Graduate,'" unquote. I
asked Judd Apatow what he thought about that comparison.

Mr. JUDD APATOW: I'm obviously a big Mike Nichols fan, and "The Graduate" is
a touchstone film. And I remember I was out on the road with Owen Wilson--we
were writing a movie many years ago which we didn't get made--but we sat in
the hotel room, and I can't say that we were sober, and we watched "The
Graduate," and I outlined it as it was playing so I could understand why it
was so good. I didn't understand that, you know, there was so little
exposition. They explained so little about the characters, and I was
fascinated with that. And so the fact that people are saying nice things
about Seth, comparing him to another unconventionally handsome Jew...

Mr. ROGEN: Exactly.

Mr. APATOW: ...is wonderful.

BIANCULLI: Judd, why did you want to make this movie? Why these themes?

Mr. APATOW: I always wanted to make a movie about having kids, because every
time my wife and I went through the process, something heinous would happen.
A doctor wouldn't show up or a doctor would yell at us or a nurse would be
rude or--it just always felt like--we wanted it to be the most pleasant
experience that we would remember forever and the karma would swing back and
say, `You cannot control this.' And I always knew that these things that were
happening, although painful at the time, were very, very funny. And I
obviously wanted to write about marriage and children and what that's all
about.

But, you know, for me, I just really took to the idea of Seth having to go
through a lot of things that I went through. What it's like looking at the
gynecologist before his hand enters your girlfriend. I just--all of those
moments where you find out someone's pregnant and you're in a panic and you
don't know if you can handle the future that lies ahead. I just thought Seth
going through this is the funniest thing ever. And through that story, I
could expand out and talk about relationships.

BIANCULLI: Judd, what gave you the confidence to cast Seth as a leading man
in the first place?

Mr. ROGEN: Self-sabotage.

Mr. APATOW: Exactly.

Mr. ROGEN: It's not comedy; it's masochism.

Mr. APATOW: You know we've been working together since Seth was 16, which
always sounds wrong to say.

Mr. ROGEN: Exactly. Very intimately.

Mr. APATOW: It sounds like I'm a member of a the Man Boy Love Association or
something. But Seth came in and read for "Freaks and Geeks" back in '98 and I
just thought, this is a very strange young man. This guy really makes me
laugh, and I don't know what it is about him, but he had this very deep
Canadian voice back then.

Mr. ROGEN: I had a really thick accent.

Mr. APATOW: Yeah. That's slowly disappeared. But as we did more episodes
of "Freaks and Geeks" I noticed that Seth was able to carry emotional
storylines while still having this very caustic sense of humor. And I
remember, after watching one particular episode where he had a girlfriend and
he discovered that she had been born with ambiguous genitals--yes, that was
what the episode was about.

Mr. ROGEN: Yes.

BIANCULLI: This was on NBC.

Mr. ROGEN: This was prime time.

Mr. APATOW: Yes, this was on "Freaks and Geeks."

BIANCULLI: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: We still don't know why we were cancelled. But it was a really
kind of a beautiful episode. It was nominated for all sorts of awards...

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah!

Mr. APATOW: ...and things for its sensitivity. One would not expect that.

Mr. ROGEN: No.

Mr. APATOW: And I thought that Seth really carried it. And afterwards I
thought, `I'm betting this guy could carry a movie. This is a movie star in,
you know, in the same, you know, universe of people that I like, like John
Candy and Albert Brooks and people like that.'

BIANCULLI: Well, it's really funny that you say that, because that's the
episode that, as a TV critic, really stood out to me as being bold back then.
And I'd like to play a little chunk from it...

Mr. ROGEN: All right.

BIANCULLI: ...just to get your reactions to it. It's a scene where Seth, as
Ken Miller, confides in his friends about that secret--you've already said
what the secret is--that his new girlfriend has told him. The friends are
played by James Franco and Jason Segel, both of whom are in "Knocked Up."

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

BIANCULLI: So let's play the clip. Here we go.

(Soundbite of "Freaks and Geeks")

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ken Miller) OK. Look, I'm going to tell you guys something
now, and you have to promise not to be jerks about it and not to tell anyone
ever. OK?

Mr. JAMES FRANCO: (As Daniel Desario) Yeah, that's cool, man.

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ken Miller) Amy's not really a girl.

Mr. JAMES SEGEL: (As Nick Andopolis) What?

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ken Miller) I mean, you know, she is. She's a girl, but
she's kind of, she's kind of part guy, too.

Mr. FRANCO: (As Daniel Desario) What's that mean?

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ken Miller) It means that when she was born she was packing
both a gun and the holster.

Mr. SEGEL: (As Nick Andopolis) Well, does she still have, you know, the gun?

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ken Miller) No! The doctors took care of it.

Mr. SEGEL: (As Nick Andopolis) OK. Well, then she's a girl.

Mr. FRANCO: (As Daniel Desario) I don't think it works that way. I think
you better get rid of her.

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ken Miller) I don't want to break up with her. You know, I
really like her. I might even love her.

Mr. FRANCO: (As Daniel Desario) Really?

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ken Miller) Yeah.

Mr. FRANCO: (As Daniel Desario) Yeah. Does that mean you're gay?

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ken Miller) I don't know. Does it?

Mr. FRANCO: (As Daniel Desario) I was joking.

Mr. ROGEN: (As Ken Miller) Oh.

(End of soundbite)

BIANCULLI: Seth, what do you remember about filming that scene?

Mr. ROGEN: I remember thinking this was the weirdest idea ever, that I
couldn't believe--it's funny because it was--the episode was actually like
brought up like really close to the beginning of when we starting shooting. I
mean, John Kasdan co-wrote the episode and he's around my age. He's actually
only like a year older than I am, so we kind of became friends and we'd hang
out and he'd talk about it a lot. And I just remember thinking like, `We're
not going to do that, that sounds crazy.' Like, `They're not actually going to
do that.' And then they actually did do it. And it's funny listening to it.
It made me realize "Freaks and Geeks" should have been a radio play.

Mr. APATOW: It works so well on radio.

Mr. ROGEN: It works really well like that.

Mr. APATOW: It was a controversial episode with the staff.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: I had heard someone talking about this topic on Howard Stern one
morning, and it struck me that we could do a sweet episode about tolerance and
also show how freaked out that someone like Seth would get. And a lot of the
writing staff got really mad at me because they thought that it would just be
either maudlin or just so awful that we would never, ever be able to live it
down. And it actually, you know, it came out very well. Mainly, I mean, you
could tell in that radio performance. It's an amazing performance by Seth.
And even hearing that, it makes me understand, you know, what I saw in him way
back then.

BIANCULLI: Judd, I think maybe the boldest thing you did in this movie, even
though you're getting an awful lot of credit for casting Seth, is casting your
wife and kids in the movie. And it looks like you're going to get away with
it. I mean, they're terrific in it. But wasn't that a big risk to do that
all in the same film and give them so much to do?

Mr. APATOW: Well, it was a risk to my marriage. But my wife is a hilarious
woman. She never thinks of herself as funny, necessarily, and...

BIANCULLI: We should say it's Leslie Mann who plays Debbie in the movie,
right?

Mr. ROGEN: Mm-hmm.

Mr. APATOW: Yeah. You know people know her as a drunk driver in "The
40-Year-Old-Virgin," and she was in "Big Daddy," and "The Cable Guy." She's
just hilarious, but she also has this very raw method acting De Niro spirit to
her. She's not messing around.

Mr. ROGEN: No.

Mr. APATOW: She's really going there.

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. APATOW: When we shot the movie, Paul Rudd really thought that she hated
him, and she tried to explain to him, `No, I hate Judd.'

Mr. ROGEN: `And you're Judd right now.'

Mr. APATOW: And so that wasn't a difficult decision. And we had talked a
lot about things from our lives and people that we knew that made us laugh,
about marriage and the obstacles to getting along over the long term. So I
knew that would be exciting, especially since it was fun working with her in
"The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

Hiring the kids was an idea that I came up with, you know, probably partially
inspired by old John Cassavetes movies where people would be playing a scene
and his kids would be just running around, and it made it feel more real,
almost like a documentary. And I think that kids in movies are generally
pretty terrible because you don't believe that that's that woman's kid, and
they're stiff and scripted. And I've worked with kids, and it's pretty tricky
to make it seem natural. And the key to the movie was to really see what a
family feels like so Seth can see his future. So I knew this would be a good
idea, and I knew my kids were adorable and very funny. But...

BIANCULLI: How old were your daughters at the time of filming?

Mr. APATOW: They were eight and three. But I had a--so anyway, you know, I
kind of asked my wife's permission. I kept asking her, but saying, you know,
`Don't worry about it, honey. You don't have to answer now, but think about
it. It might be a good idea. Think about it.' And then about a week before
shooting, she claims I said, `Well, we have to have them. I don't have anyone
else. What are we going to do?'

Mr. ROGEN: `We're shooting in a week!'

Mr. APATOW: So she claims I manipulated her into it. So I was just very
careful during the shoot to have the set pre-lit before the kids arrived.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: I would buckle them into a chair for, say, a scene when they're
eating. I would not feed them much before the scene, put a lot of food in
front of them, and I knew that when they were done eating the bacon, they
would ask to leave.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: And that I would not be allowed to force them to stay.

Mr. ROGEN: It's like how to you get a tiger to work in the movies? With
food.

Mr. APATOW: Exactly. And slowly my daughter Maude got very, very good at it
to the point where, right now, I'm trying to convince her that she was
terrible in the movie so she will not pursue this.

BIANCULLI: Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen, collaborators on the comedy film
"Knocked Up." It's now out on DVD. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to my conversation with Judd Apatow, the writer and
director of "Knocked Up," and Seth Rogen, the film's star. The movie is now
out on DVD.

Seth, it's true, I guess, that the guys playing your best friends in the movie
are your best friends in real life.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah, pretty much.

BIANCULLI: So does that make filming...

Mr. ROGEN: Is that sad?

BIANCULLI: Does that make filming easier or just more fun or take longer or
what?

Mr. ROGEN: I don't know if "easier" is the word. It makes it more fun, you
just hang out with your friends. And I guess it does make it easier to kind
of have that natural rapport and banter with people. I mean, it's funny that
in like in the movie, Martin's the guy with the beard and everyone makes fun
of him, because in real life that's exactly how it is, is when we're all
together everyone makes fun of Martin. And it's just kind of nice to be able
to have those kind of dynamics in the movie. You know, for us it just makes
it really fun. And I don't know--if it reads at all, that's a bonus, but..

Mr. APATOW: I mean, for me, you know, the reason to do that was because I'm
lazy.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: And I could just tap into a dynamic that already exists, as
opposed to using creativity...

Mr. ROGEN: Yes.

Mr. APATOW: ...I could just tap into the natural comedy of these guys giving
each other a hard time. The only person that it was really hard on was my
wife, Leslie Mann, who is in the movie.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: Because she would have to, you know, sit with all of them in
these scenes and, in between takes, there's literally no difference between
shooting and not shooting.

Mr. ROGEN: No.

Mr. APATOW: And so while they're lighting she has to sit there while they
discuss fetish porno Web sites.

Mr. ROGEN: It's true. We keep talking about this like what we were talking
about after they cut. That's what I would notice. I mean like, `We could
just keep rolling right now.' It's sad. Is that sad? It's embarrassing a
little to be admitting that.

BIANCULLI: Well, in terms of improvisation, I guess this is a question for
Judd in terms of framing it. When you've got these people who know each other
so well and like each other so much and you've got to film and build upon and
write around their improv, how do you go about doing it? How many drafts are
there? How much, you know, what's the shooting ratio? How do you get the
creativity out of them and then get it back from yourself to them?

Mr. APATOW: Well, it's not a rushed process. It starts very early. I
finished writing the screenplay for this movie in 2005. I had a draft. And
I, you know, immediately get as many actors as I can who I know I'm going to
put in the movie and I have them read it out loud and rehearse. So about
seven months--six, seven months before we shoot, I'm already rehearsing a
little bit to see if I'm on the right track and to figure out some character
details that are left open. And then, you know, by the time we get to
shooting we've table read a few times and we've done a lot of rehearsal. So
we love the script and we're really happy. But it's always better if I can
tell the actor that after a few takes it really can move in other directions.
Because when they surprise each other...

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. APATOW: ...that's when you get all sorts of real moments, and that's
when the magic happens! No, a lot of times the things that they're
improvising are things that we've already worked on in rehearsals or ideas
that came up during auditions. I'll yell things out, ideas I think of in the
moment. You know, I always know the beginning, middle, and end of every scene
and what I need to get out of it, but I find that the details can change. So
if I have Katherine Heigl telling Seth that she's pregnant for the first time,
I have a couple of funny lines that Seth could say. But I know that the best
one will probably be the eighth one that Seth says off the top of his head
when he's not thinking about it too much.

BIANCULLI: In terms of filming improv scenes...

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

BIANCULLI: ...Seth, there's one in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" which is, I
guess, a famous example of what you can do with improv. It's the waxing
scene.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

BIANCULLI: Can you talk about how you filmed that and prepared for that, and
how you guys reacted once the cameras stopped?

Mr. ROGEN: That is a good example of just kind of, you know, our little
mantra of `What would you do?' you know, as Stanislavsky said. We just put
many cameras on it. There was a lot to talk about that day leading up to it
and how, you know, exactly it would go down. And Judd just said, `Well, do
it. We'll just do it. We'll just wax him with six cameras filming it,' and
he told us just to react, you know, exactly how we would react. There's
absolutely no acting going on there. I mean, we are watching Steve Carell get
waxed, who's in a lot of pain. And it was disgusting, and we reacted. Again,
it was very hilarious to watch. And that's a very good--that's a good example
of just, you know, why try to script that? You know? That's all I would say.
Look...

Mr. APATOW: For a minute it becomes a snuff film.

Mr. ROGEN: Exactly. It's like watching "Jackass." But like, why try to
script that? Like, what are we--what are you going to think of that will be
as funny as your actual reaction when watching a man get his hair ripped off?
So, you know, that's a very good example of Judd just kind of trusting
everyone to react naturally and, you know, hope that, you know, that would be
funny. And, you know, in that situation it definitely was, to me.

Mr. APATOW: Mm-hmm.

BIANCULLI: Talk about your co-star, Katherine Heigl. I really like her. I
think she's one of the best actors on "Grey's Anatomy." And I was impressed
here by how much she committed to both the comedy and the reality...

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

BIANCULLI: ...in her scenes. What was it like to act against her?

Mr. ROGEN: It was awesome, I have to say. I mean, she's very--she's tall
and--physically speaking--and she's loud, kind of, and she's just like a real
presence like, you know, I'm a loud kind of big guy, you know. And I can
curse and I'm just, you know, if you have a small actress against me then it
might just look like I'm going to eat them or sit on them or just do something
terrible to them. But she really scared me. I mean, she really put me on my
heels. And she's a lot, you know, smarter than I am in a lot of ways. So it
was great. It made it so it was a real, you know, balance, you know.

It was important to us going in that, you know, it wasn't too one-sided. It
wasn't always like she was wrong and I was right or the other way around. It
really had to be viewed, you know, from both sides of the situation. And she
was just really strong and could really articulate her point of view well. So
it made it great for me. And I remember thinking, like, I could be a lot
funnier with her just because, you know, I can scream and curse at her and she
can just bring it right back, and it will really just up the volume and anger
of the entire movie.

BIANCULLI: Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow, the star and writer/director,
respectively, of "Knocked Up." More in the second half of the show. I'm David
Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. We're talking with Judd
Apatow, the writer/director of the comedy "Knocked Up," and Seth Rogen, who
stars in the film. They also collaborated on "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." They
first started working together when Apatow cast Rogen in the critically
acclaimed but short-lived TV show "Freaks and Geeks." Rogen went on to write
and act in Apatow's next series, "Undeclared."

Seth, did you learn anything from your experience in the TV shows that carried
over into film, in terms of your acting or even your writing or your improv?

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah. I mean, all those things, without a doubt. I mean, I feel
like if you watch "Freaks and Geeks" and pay attention only to me--as I
do--you can pretty much chart the growth of my acting ability and comfort
level from episode to episode. I mean, if we had shot--I mean, it just so
happened we shot that hermaphrodite episode like near the end. If that was
near the beginning, we would not be here right now talking. Judd would not
have thought, `I should put that guy in a movie.' He would have thought, `Why
did I take him out of Canada?' And, you know, it just, I grew immensely
more--I mean, that was literally the first acting I ever did. I grew way more
comfortable in front of the camera as we went on and just kind of learned how
to do it.

And then "Undeclared," I really learned how to write. I mean, I felt like I
could write funny dialogue at that point. But I really didn't understand, you
know, structuring a story, you know, looking at the emotional side of it first
and then kind of filling in the humor holes as needed. And that's something
Judd really, you know, taught me how to do. And I, we, you know, to this day,
when me and Evan are writing, we talk about things that, you know, Judd told
me during "Undeclared" days, you know. I mean, that was really--we all called
it Comedy College. And it really felt like that.

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. ROGEN: It was really all the writers and actors learning, you know, how
to be funnier.

Mr. APATOW: And, you know, the culmination, I think, of all of that work is
that Seth and his partner Evan wrote this movie called "Superbad" that--Seth
is in it, and plays the cop, and Bill Hader from "Saturday Night Live" is
another cop. But it stars Jonah Hill and Michael Cera from "Arrested
Development," and it's a really filthy but very sweet high school movie. And
it's something that Seth started writing when he was 15 and we would table
read it during "Undeclared," and we never could get anyone to make it because
people were just not up for making an R-rated high school movie.

But in a lot of ways, I mean, I'm very, very happy that it's coming out after
"Knocked Up" because it's so freaking funny, I really think that "Knocked Up"
would pale.

Mr. ROGEN: No.

Mr. APATOW: It wouldn't be received in exactly the same way because this
"Superbad" movie just rips the house down in a way that, for me, just as a
comedy fan, I haven't seen in forever. I literally cannot think of a movie
that gets laughs this big. And I think it actually works like the best
possible "Freaks and Geeks" episode, if "Freaks and Geeks" was really going as
hard as it could at comedy, also. And that--you know, that's a lot, the
result of Seth being a writer for "Undeclared"...

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: ...and being a producer on "40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked
Up."

BIANCULLI: How important is the R?

Mr. APATOW: It's all about the R.

Mr. ROGEN: All about the R.

Mr. APATOW: I think that life is R.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: If we followed you home, within 15 minutes, some of your
behavior would put your life into an R rating.

Mr. ROGEN: I mean, exactly. For me, it'd be 30 seconds.

Mr. APATOW: You know, there's no way to show honest human behavior with a
PG-13.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: You can do something funny and creative, and I've worked in that
rating and I'm proud of the work, but if you really want to be realistic, you
fall into the R very quick. And you can't show how people get pregnant, how
the baby comes out, the fights you get in when you're pregnant when you say
awful things. It just all instantly is an R.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah. Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: So we enjoy it because we just think it because it allows us to
show things as they are. At least in our dirty little life experiences.

Mr. ROGEN: Exactly.

Mr. APATOW: Maybe William F. Buckley's life is clean.

Mr. ROGEN: No, maybe not.

Mr. APATOW: You know.

BIANCULLI: Seth, with "Superbad," if you started writing it when you were
15...

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

BIANCULLI: ...and you actually became a writer even on "Undeclared," weren't
you on the staff of that...

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

BIANCULLI: ...before you were 21?

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah, I was 18 when we did that.

BIANCULLI: So, I mean, we hear a lot about child actors in Hollywood, but you
actually have a legitimate claim to being a child writer.

Mr. ROGEN: I guess so, huh? What does that mean?

BIANCULLI: How did you get started so young, and what got you so interested
in actually putting jokes to page?

Mr. ROGEN: I just loved comedy, you know. I just--I knew that was what I
had to do when I got older. As soon as it became clear that you didn't have
to get an actual job and that there were people out there getting paid to just
kind of be funny, that's all I wanted to do. So there was really no other
option. I really had no other career ambition in any way. I've never had
another job. I've literally never done anything other than this. I started
doing stand-up when I was 13 at my parents' encouragement. You know, a lot of
people's parents wouldn't encourage that.

It's funny, when me and Evan were actually writing "Superbad," I would
always--his mom thought we were wasting our time. Like, admittedly she'll
talk about it still. She really thought we were completely wasting our time.
And my mother would encourage us to write, you know, into the wee hours of the
morning if, you know, we were enjoying it. So I think, you know, my parents
really had a lot to do with me having the confidence to actually, you know,
try to do any of this stuff.

BIANCULLI: How do you do stand-up at 13? I mean, who are you standing up in
front of and how are you getting there?

Mr. ROGEN: I'd go to bars and stuff. You could go to bars. You're allowed
to perform in bars. I would have to leave immediately after, generally
speaking. But I was embraced by the other comics in Vancouver. They really
liked me. And I think it's because I wasn't--I didn't try to use my age as a
gimmick. I tried to speak honestly about things I was going through, but I
always hoped that these jokes would be funny, you know, if a 30-year-old was
saying them or a 13-year-old was saying them. I just tried to be honest. I
knew that was kind of my one thing I had that the other comics didn't is that,
you know, anyone can talk about what they went through when they were 13 or
14, but I actually was 13 or 14. So it kind of gave me a little, you know,
extra insight, maybe. But it was all about my grandparents, you know, and my
bar mitzvah and trying to touch nipples on women and just kind of, you know,
real--I tried to be as honest as humanly possible, really.

BIANCULLI: Judd, we talked about Seth getting an early start in terms of
comedy. You did, too. How did you get interested, and what led you to it?

Mr. APATOW: Well, my grandmother was friends with this comedian named Totie
Fields, who was one of the first really edgy Joan Rivers-like comedians. And
so when I was a kid, when I was about 10 years old, we used to go see her do
stand-up at the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island. And it seemed like a
pretty good way to make a living. She had just had diabetes and had her leg
amputated, and she was doing this big comeback tour. And she...

Mr. ROGEN: That's a lot of material.

Mr. APATOW: Yeah. And she talked about losing her leg, and she was really
happy and got standing ovations. And I think somewhere deep in my psyche, I
thought, `Wow, that's pretty cool.' Because I felt like a legless person.

Mr. ROGEN: A legless diabetic.

Mr. APATOW: So, I mean, for me, I was like, `Wow, that's pretty powerful
stuff.' And I think that's what lit the fuse.

BIANCULLI: Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen, collaborators on the comedy film
"Knocked Up." It's now out on DVD. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to my conversation with Judd Apatow, the writer and
director of "Knocked Up," and Seth Rogen, the film's star. The movie is now
out on DVD.

Seth, describe your style of acting.

Mr. ROGEN: Well, or lack thereof. I really just, you know, try to be real,
you know. I mean, that's pretty much my main priority when I'm doing these
things is just, `How would this go down,' you know? What would this be like
if it was actually happening, you know. I try to think of it like...

Mr. APATOW: That's an Uta Hagen term, how would it go down?

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah. Exactly. That was Stanilavsky--did he say that? `How
would you do this?' Yeah. I mean, I'm not--I don't feel like I need to
create, you know, odd affectations in order to feel like I'm giving a
performance, you know, or, you know, I don't need to limp or have a monocle or
something like that. It just doesn't--to me, that isn't what makes it, you
know, challenging or interesting to me. I really just, I just try to make it
seem real. I just, you know, ideally I don't want people to even think about
the acting, you know. I don't want to give--I just want to--I think of it as
a writer more than anything, I think.

BIANCULLI: Mm-hmm.

Mr. ROGEN: When I read the script, I think, `If I'd written this, what would
I want these actors to do to bring this story to life?' And that's basically
all I do. I mean, I just try to serve the story while improvising many
genitalia-related jokes.

Mr. APATOW: But, you know, the best compliment we've ever received was when
"Freaks and Geeks" was on the air, somebody--maybe it was you...

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: ...said that it was almost a voyeuristic experience, like you
were watching something that you shouldn't be watching.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: And on some level, everything we're doing is trying to emulate a
movie like "The Last Detail"...

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: ...the Hal Ashby movie where you...

BIANCULLI: Wow. Mm-hmm.

Mr. APATOW: ...just believe that it's happening.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah, exactly.

MR. APATOW: I want people to forget that I exist, and I don't want people to
be paying attention to any of the cinematic construction. I'm just trying to
trick them into believing this reality level.

I always go back and watch "Tootsie," which is a movie that is very simply
shot, but effective, and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" is another movie that,
it's shot in a simple, but incredibly effective way. And, you know, we have a
couple of rules. No push-ins.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: No craning down from tree branches.

Mr. ROGEN: Exactly.

But, you know, I will say like going into this, the one real thought I had
that I'd never had before going into a movie was like, `How do I make sure I
don't really annoy people, A, and how do I make it that people believe that a
woman would actually want to talk to me?' So I actually thought of movies like
Albert Brooks movies and Woody Allen movies and just thought like, `How do
these Jews pull it off?' Literally what it was. It was like, Albert Brooks
doesn't really annoy people. How does he do that? Woody Allen seems to get
hot girls, how does he pull that off? And there was actually--if there was
any thought I put into the movie, it was how to do those two things.

BIANCULLI: And then, finally, one last question for Judd. In the "Freaks and
Geeks" DVD set, in the booklet that came with it, you wrote--let me quote
here--"I shall use the warm feelings that this country showers on this show to
prolong my career well past the point where I have stopped making comedy
work." And I just wondered...

Mr. ROGEN: That's good!

BIANCULLI: Are we there yet?

Mr. APATOW: We are so close. I was saying to somebody this morning, I'm so,
you know, everything about comedy for most people, but especially me, is based
on feeling unappreciated...

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah.

Mr. APATOW: ...and insecure, feeling like a freak, if you will. And the
amount of positive reaction that we've been getting to the work pretty much
guarantees that the rest of my work for the rest of my career will be awful.

Mr. ROGEN: It'll suffer.

Mr. APATOW: Yeah. It will beyond suffer. I will lose all connection with
my crowd and just be writing...

Mr. ROGEN: Exactly.

Mr. APATOW: ...a movie about my relationship with my housekeeper.

Mr. ROGEN: Yeah, like if Kafka won the lottery.

Mr. APATOW: Yes.

BIANCULLI: Well, I don't buy that for a second. I love the work you guys
have done together, and the work I hope you keep doing together. Judd Apatow,
Seth Rogen, thanks for being on FRESH AIR.

Mr. APATOW: Thank you.

Mr. ROGEN: Thank you.

BIANCULLI: Writer/director Judd Apatow and actor Seth Rogen of the comedy
movie "Knocked Up." It's now out on DVD in an expanded edition.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Ken Tucker reviews the new John Fogerty album, "Revival"
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

John Fogerty began recording hits in the late '60s with his band Creedence
Clearwater Revival. Right from the start, Creedence reacted against the
commercial and counterculture of the time by making music rooted in rock's
earliest era. Fogerty's subsequent solo albums in the '80s and '90s have
continued this distinctive sound. Rock critic Ken Tucker listened to
Fogerty's new one, called "Revival," to hear how his approach is aging in the
new century.

(Soundbite of "Don't You Wish It Was True")

Mr. JOHN FOGERTY: (Singing) I dreamed I walked in heaven
Just the other night
There was so much beauty
So much light
Don't you wish it was true?
Don't you wish it was true?

An angel took my hand...

(End of soundbite)

KEN TUCKER reporting:

John Fogerty may sing from the swamps and the bayous, but he derives his
idealism from his San Francisco 1960s roots, where his three-minute single
instincts were a joyous anomaly and his composed politics an enduringly
satisfying accomplishment. There's a reason why movie makers go back to songs
like "Fortunate Son" and "Who'll Stop the Rain" over and over to make their
didactic points more nuanced and humane.

As a solo artist, however, John Fogerty has maintained his skills without
broadening or deepening his original inspirations, and as a result, his
post-Creedence work can sometimes be dismayingly self-absorbed.

(Soundbite of "Creedence Song")

Mr. FOGERTY: (Singing) Daddy had a band
Playing him a little guitar
Traveled in a van
Living that rock 'n' roll
Night after night
People coming up to the bandstand
Say you can't go wrong
If you play a little bit of that Creedence song
It was late one night...

(End of soundbite)

TUCKER: It's only John Fogerty's casual phrasing that keeps that tune, called
"Creedence Song" from seeming kind of sad. Borrowing riffs from his 1969
songs "Green River" and "Keep on Choogling," he's crafted a tune about how
people enjoy hearing Creedence Clearwater oldies. Well, true enough. I like
it when I come across "Fortunate Son" or "Down on the Corner," too. But
"Creedence Song" seems like something the band's albums never used--filler.

Another song here, "Summer of Love," quotes Jimi Hendrix guitar figures and
offers a hymn to counterculture idealism in a way that Fogerty never did as
baldly at the time. He seems to have come down with a case of nostalgia on
this album--that is, until he starts reading the newspaper and the bile rises
in his throat on a song such as this one.

(Soundbite of "Long Dark Night")

Mr. FOGERTY: (Singing) Georgie's in the jungle
Knocking on your door
Come to get your children
Wants to have a war
Come on
Lord, you'd better run
Be a long dark night
Before this thing is done

(Unintelligible)...in the outhouse
Katrina on the line
Going to be disaster
But Georgie says it's fine
Come on
Lord, you'd better run
Be a long dark night
Before this thing is done

(End of soundbite)

TUCKER: One thing that consistently gets Fogerty's dander up is government
policy. In 2004 the title track of his solo album "Deja Vu All Over Again"
excoriated the Iraq war as the repetition of a Vietnam quagmire. On the song
I just played, "Long Dark Night," Fogerty is ridiculing the president,
referring to him as Georgie and ticking off government problems from Iraq
ranging to Hurricane Katrina.

The structure of this album is interesting. Fogerty front loads the record
with lots of sunny, optimistic music, but as it proceeds, the mood grows
darker and more intense until he explodes here on the album's 10th track,
called "I Can't Take It No More."

(Soundbite of "I Can't Take It No More")

Mr. FOGERTY: (Singing) I!
I can't take it no more
I can't take it no more
(Unintelligible)...your dirty little war
I can't take it no more
You know you lied about the casualties
You know you lied about the WMDs
You know you lied about the detainees
All over this world

Stop talking about staying the course
You keep on beating that old dead horse
You know you lied about how we went to war
I can't take it no more
No!

(End of soundbite)

TUCKER: On that song Fogerty works with a band that includes long-time Tom
Petty keyboardist Ben Mont Tench and John Mellencamp drummer Kenny Aronoff.
It's blunt, it's simple, it does without any of the niceties of melody, sung
in a strangled yelp. Even putting aside the content of what he's yelling,
these are pretty interesting musical choices.

And he follows "I Can't Take It No More" with "Somebody Help Me," the album's
best song, a chunk of melancholy blues that finds him pleading with a woman
who could be a stand-in for the mass audience he's continue to court.

(Soundbite of "Somebody Help Me")

Mr. FOGERTY: (Singing) I been all around the world
Searching for my baby
Tell me where can she be
Looking high and low
Way back in Kosovo
It's still a mystery

Somebody help me
She don't want me no more
Somebody help me
I can't do this alone
I....

(End of soundbite)

TUCKER: Creedence Clearwater Revival, as it was led by Fogerty, was one of
the best American rock 'n' roll bands ever. If I conclude by saying I think
this Fogerty album is ultimately a fascinating failure, well, it's not a
completely negative summation. There aren't many acts 40 years on that make
music as prickly as this. Plus, the guy can still come up with some really
catchy hooks.

BIANCULLI: Ken Tucker is editor at large for Entertainment Weekly.

Coming up, David Edelstein on the new Wes Anderson film. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: David Edelstein on "The Darjeeling Limited"
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

In director Wes Anderson's fifth feature, "The Darjeeling Limited," Owen
Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman play estranged brothers who travel
by train across India. Anderson shot the film on a real train that actually
was moving through the Indian countryside. It arrives tonight, in a manner of
speaking, in New York as the opening night attraction of the New York Film
Festival. Film critic David Edelstein has a review.

DAVID EDELSTEIN reporting:

A colleague once said of Wes Anderson, `You either get him or you don't,' by
which he meant you appreciate his genius or you're a philistine with weak
antennae for wit and beauty. Well, I get him and I like him, but I'm not in
the cult. It's true that "Rushmore," which made him a god among hipsters,
captures the narcissistic bubble of a gifted adolescent. But Anderson has no
distance on that narcissism. The hero's obnoxious self-centeredness is meant
as a state of grace. In "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic with
Steve Zissou," his twee rectangular dollhouse frames, with their lush colors
and coy off-symmetry upstage his characters.

"The Darjeeling Limited" is more of the same, but its lyric melancholy is
remarkably sustained. It's too bad it's not showing at a theater near you
with Anderson's "Hotel Chevalier," the short film preceding it at the New York
Film Festival that serves as an overture to the feature. You can see it
online, though, and you should because, for a change with Anderson, form and
content magically gel. It's set in a Paris hotel room. Its protagonist, the
forlorn Jack, played by Jason Schwartzman. A phone call breaks his reverie.
His unfaithful ex-girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman, has tracked him down.
She arrives and takes off her clothes. Is she here to stay or just
reaffirming her hold?

In "The Darjeeling Limited," Jack turns out to be Jack Whitman, one of three
brothers who haven't seen each other since their father's death a year before.
They're reuniting in India for what's meant as a journey of self-discovery on
a train called "The Darjeeling Limited," another overdesigned dollhouse but
moving through a real countryside, which adds texture.

It's apparent these brothers, children of privilege, are nevertheless
floundering in the void left by their dad. Owen Wilson's Francis, his face
bandaged from an accident, organized the trip and has assumed a patriarchal
role, planning the brothers' days down to breaks for meditation. Adrien
Brody's Peter is six weeks away from becoming a father, which for some reason
spurred him to leave without mentioning this trip to his pregnant wife. Jack
is still running from his girlfriend. They drink, smoke and pass narcotics
bottles back and forth. The brothers are wary in one another's company.

(Soundbite of "The Darjeeling Limited")

Mr. ADRIEN BRODY: (As Peter) Let's go get a drink and smoke a cigarette.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. OWEN WILSON: (As Francis) I want to start by thanking you both for being
here.

Mr. BRODY: (As Peter) Thank you

Mr. JASON SCHWARTZMAN: (As Jack) Thank you

Mr. WILSON: (As Francis) You're the two most important people in the world
to me. I've never said that before, but it's true and I want you both to know
it. I love you, Peter.

Mr. BRODY: (As Peter) Thank you.

Mr. WILSON: (As Francis) I love you, Jack.

Mr. SCHWARTZMAN: (As Jack) I love you, too.

Mr. WILSON: (As Francis) How did it get to this? Why haven't we spoken in a
year? Let's make an agreement.

Mr. BRODY: (As Peter) Of what?

Mr. WILSON: (As Francis) OK? A, I want us to become brothers again like we
used to be and for us to find ourselves and bond with each other. Can we
agree to that?

Mr. BRODY: (As Peter) OK.

Mr. SCHWARTZMAN: (As Jack) Yeah.

Mr. WILSON: (As Francis) OK. B, I want to make this trip a spiritual
journey where each of us seek the unknown and we learn about it. We agree to
that.

Mr. SCHWARTZMAN: (As Jack) Sure.

Mr. BRODY: (As Peter) I guess so.

Mr. WILSON: (As Francis) C, I want us to be completely open and say yes to
everything, even if it's shocking and painful. Can we agree to that?

(End of soundbite)

EDELSTEIN: The train becomes a movable circus, with a tall disapproving
steward played by Waris Ahluwalia, who struggles to keep the boys in line.
He'd fit in a Marx Brothers movie. Even more delightful is the stewardess
named Rita, played by Amara Karan, who has a dizzy attraction to the woebegone
Jack.

Anderson wrote "The Darjeeling Limited" with Schwartzman and his cousin Roman
Coppola, and they clearly understand the psychology of kids who are both
spoiled and bereft. But they don't have much perspective on their characters'
overentitlement. There's a tragic interlude in rural India, when the brother
happen on three boys who tumble into rapids. Is the boys' fragility supposed
to mirror the Whitmans, or is their tightly knit patriarchal community
supposed to offer a contrast? I'm not sure what Anderson's going for, but the
sequence, the movie's centerpiece, feels creepy and exploitive.

The final sequence saves the film. It's set in a convent in the foothills of
the Himalayas, where the brothers' mother, played by Anjelica Huston, has fled
to become a nun. Huston gives one of her irrationally great performances.
The mother's fear of her sons' demands is between the lines, not in them. The
best thing about "The Darjeeling Limited" is that it's gorgeous in ways that
have a larger meaning. Rural India turns out to be the perfect Wes Anderson
locale. You almost believe that its intense colors represent his own
spiritual longing, that he's reveling in the beauty as a way of warming up a
universe of absent fathers and mothers.

BIANCULLI: David Edelstein is film critic for New York Magazine.

Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman will be on the show Monday. Here's music
from the soundtrack of "The Darjeeling Limited."

(Soundbite of music)

(Credits)

BIANCULLI: For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.