Taglines: George Simmons was prepared to die, but then a funny thing happened.
Funny People movie storyline. George is a very successful stand up comedian who learns that he has an untreatable blood disorder and is given less than a year to live. Ira is a struggling up-and-coming stand up comedian who works at a deli and has yet to figure out his onstage persona. One night, these two perform at the same club and George takes notice of Ira. George hires Ira to be his semi-personal assistant as well as his friend.
Over the past few years, writer / director Judd Apatow has shown that nothing—not even losing your virginity or the miracle of childbirth—is sacred. About his third film behind the camera, he says, “I’m trying to make a very serious movie that is twice as funny as my other movies. Wish me luck!” Apatow directs Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Leslie Mann in “Funny People,” the story of a famous comedian who has a near-death experience.
Funny People is a 2009 American comedy-drama film written, produced and directed by Judd Apatow. It stars Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill and Aubrey Plaza, and follows a famous comedian who is diagnosed with a terminal disease and tries to fix the relationships in his life. The film was released on July 31, 2009 and only grossed $71 million against its $75 million budget.
Funny People grossed $51.9 million in the United States and Canada and $19.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $71.6 million, against a production budget of $75 million. In comparison, Apatow’s previous directorial effort, Knocked Up, cost $33 million to produce and made over $219 million in gross receipts, while Sandler’s last three movies had all made over $100 million. In North America the film was released on July 31, 2009 in 3,007 theaters. It grossed $8.6 million on its opening day and $22.7 million in its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office.
About The Production
Judd Apatow has had a lifelong fascination with stand-up and the people who make it their livelihood. One summer, his mother, Tami Shad, worked in a comedy club in Southampton on Long Island, and as a young teenager, his nights at the club kindled his obsession. In high school, he created a radio talk show and interviewed comic performers he admired, from Howard Stern to Steve Allen and Paul Reiser to John Candy. He asked them how they did it…how they wrote jokes, performed and other secrets of their trade. Inspired by their guidance, he began performing stand-up by the end of his senior year.
After dropping out of USC School of Cinema, Apatow worked his way into a full-time gig at the legendary Improv Comedy Club in Los Angeles. While there, he kept at what was, by his admission, a “just okay run” as a stand-up…at least compared to the great performers he saw firsthand.
Following an appearance on a young comics special for HBO, Apatow started to realize it was unlikely he’d set the world on fire as a performer; therefore, he began to transition his focus from the stage to writing jokes for other comedians. It was his longtime roommate and friend who continued down the spotlit path…a young performer named Adam Sandler. But it would take several years honing their separate careers before they would work together on screen.
After the success of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, Apatow decided he wanted his third story to revolve around the people he had grown up alongside in the comedy world. He was curious to explore the reasons performers were drawn into stand-up and wondered why they tried so hard to get attention as they plunged into the “terror of revealing themselves.” Was it a desire to please audiences? Or was it simply egocentrism mixed with an inability to intimately connect with others unless they were on stage? “As a person working in comedy I often think, `Why do I do this? What’s wrong with me? What led me here?’” reveals Apatow.
As he began to write Funny People, he drew inspiration from a freak, life-changing occurrence that happened at his Southern California home in 1994. “When the Northridge earthquake hit, my chimney fell through the roof of my bedroom,” explains the director. “The only reason I wasn’t there was because I was painting the house. For about three days, I really appreciated life… but just for three days. The movie is based on that idea: If you survive, do you learn anything from it that you keep using in your life?”
There were also more intimate reasons that prompted Apatow to create a screenplay in which his protagonist realizes he is dying. He offers, “In recent years, I’ve had people in my life who have been ill. You see how those who know they’re sick struggle with how to live. They also look at how they feel about the way they lived before they got sick.”
He found it sobering to see that people weren’t always thrilled with the results of the self-examination and could easily begin to revert to old habits. “When people get better, I wondered if they can take that fear, terror and opportunity to understand what’s important in life and use it. Or are they thrown by the fact that it’s really hard, and a week later, they’re back on the same treadmill?”
For the primary comedians in his story, he imagined George Simmons, a superstar struck with a rare form of leukemia who is forced to reevaluate his life, and Ira Wright, the up-and-coming comic who idolizes George and whom George reluctantly mentors. “I’ve had a lot of people who have been kind and mentored me, so I understand that relationship,” the director says. “They were kind, generous, normal comedians, some of whom were brilliant. But I thought, `What if one of those comedians I knew was not very nice and had really serious problems?”
When developing the project, Apatow chose to work with frequent collaborator, producer Clayton Townsend, and another longtime friend, producer Barry Mendel. Although Apatow and Mendel have known one another for more than 15 years (early in Apatow’s career, Mendel was his agent), this is the first film that brought them together professionally. Mendel recalls: “Over the years, Judd has invited me to give feedback on scripts, sit in on table readings and visit his sets, and he’s helped me out on films I’ve produced. In February 2008, he invited me to read a very early draft of the script; we had some conversations about it, we decided to work together.”
Mendel was impressed by how the world of comedy writers and performers is so connected. Judd’s assembled a group of collaborators over the years, and everybody really enjoys each other and the process. Usually directors with such a clear signature and stamp like Judd tend to be less collaborative; they fear diluting their `vision.’ But Judd’s process is a unique and incredible collaboration where he takes in a tremendous amount of input from his inner circle. He’s more willing to accept criticism than anyone I’ve ever worked with; it’s a very healthfully self-questioning process.”
Townsend returns to produce his third comedy with Apatow. Of their working relationship, the filmmaker offers: “I know what’s important to Judd and work to provide that atmosphere. We have a rhythm. There were days we just nodded and smiled and maybe said three words to one another…but it’s just that nothing needs to be said.”
Once he’d assembled his team, the director took a moment to reflect how this might become the defining project of his career to date. “My whole life has been about family and comedy and my friendships and relationships with funny people,” Apatow offers. “It’s all in this film, especially when you add into it life-or-death issues and how people decide to live when they’re dying and when they get better.”
Soon after Judd Apatow wrapped Knocked Up, he showed an early cut of the film to longtime friend Adam Sandler and mentioned he had a project they might do together. Sandler called Apatow and said whatever the project was, he knew he would be on board. Recalling the process of shooting Funny People, Sandler laughs, “We decided to do this whole thing before I even saw a script or knew the full idea. Apatow just told me what it was about and then I said, `All right, I’ll do it.’”
Sandler liked that, at a young age, George faced something we must all deal with: our mortality. “The film is about a man’s struggle with what he should have learned and didn’t,” he says. “George isn’t tight with family or any friends. He’s a sad soul who doesn’t like to cry. You never see him going, `Oh my God! Life’s horrible!’ You just see him being a dick throughout life…but having a fun time being a dick.”
The two friends discussed how George lives an existence that either-or both-of them could have reached if, “we never got married and we went crazy,” says Apatow. “At the film’s core is our dark sense of humor…us at our worst.”
About filming Sandler, he adds: “I didn’t talk a lot with Adam about the movie’s darker aspects. I knew he’s a great actor who is brave and willing to be emotionally available, and I trusted his instincts. There were moments when I needed to push something or ask for a little more or less, but his struggle with those emotions is what the movie’s about.”
Apatow was surprised by his reaction when filming key scenes for Funny People with Sandler. “When we shot the scenes where Adam was sick, it was just devastating,” he relates. “I’m used to doing somewhat light comedy, and we would show up on set and suddenly we had to think, `How do we make this feel like a guy is really going to die?’ Then you realize Adam has to go there. He was performing a scene, and I was at the monitor trying to stand in a way that no one could see I was crying on the set. At the same time, some of the dramatic scenes that were the hardest to shoot had the biggest laughs.”
When creating the part of struggling stand-up Ira, Apatow was inspired by his days watching Sandler as a young comic. This role would go to the director’s frequent actor, Seth Rogen, who describes Ira as “a pretty good writer, but not great performer. He works at a deli and lives with two guys who are arguably funnier and much more successful. Ira meets George and catches a break when George hires him as his assistant and joke writer.”
George has grown into someone few want to be around, and he takes his anger and frustration out on Ira. Rogen rehearsed with Sandler so they could find the comedy that came from George’s behavior to his new assistant/confidante; they decided how the two men would argue and, subsequently, bond. The role play gave both men a sense of how it would develop: George enjoying incessantly bagging on his young protégé as Ira enjoyed the career break and access to the big time…while slowly gaining a sense of confidence as a performer and as a young man.
While Rogen-who based much of his performances on an impression of Apatow-was supposed to be a rookie comic, it would prove difficult to convince audiences who saw his stand-up to buy that during filming. Apatow explains: “Seth’s character was written to not do so well when he does stand-up. But he just kept bringing the house down. He can’t even fake being a bad comedian.”
To play the love of George’s life, Laura, the filmmakers asked another longtime collaborator in Judd Apatow’s world to serve as the film’s third lead: Apatow’s wife, actress Leslie Mann. Naturally, Sandler has known Mann for many years, and the two have a shared history in comedy; they worked opposite each other in the blockbuster Big Daddy. Mann describes the character: “Laura is George’s ex-girlfriend, now married with two kids. She’s not happily married, and she’s going through some tough times.”
Considering that this marks their latest collaboration, Mann has grown more comfortable working with her husband behind the camera. “When you can be more relaxed as an actor, you’re better,” she shares. “I’m very relaxed with Judd. I can say anything and not hold back because I’m not worried he’s going to judge me. We have fun being creative together, so it works out easily.”
Apatow adds that it was amusing to see his old friend and his wife act as though they were a couple that broke up 12 years ago. One unexpected reaction from his actors was how their close friendship affected their performance on camera. Says the director: “Leslie so adores Adam that pretending he’s sick devastated her the very first time they rehearsed. She’s so committed and doesn’t always see herself as a comedy person; she just plays it real. In that first rehearsal, just thinking about Adam dying reduced her to tears. So, right off the bat, she forced everyone to go to that level.”
Eric Bana, who plays Laura’s philandering husband, Clarke, praises his on-screen wife’s talents: “I’m in awe of Leslie as an actress; she has that unique ability to be deadly serious within a very funny moment. She’s bloody hilarious. The first day of shooting I had with her, I struggled to keep a straight face. It took me so long to get into the rhythm and not ruin too many takes.”
Non-Aussie audiences mostly know Bana as a serious performer, but he began his career doing stand-up and sketch comedy on such programs as The Eric Bana Show Live; he continued for close to 12 years before he started acting in film. Bana welcomed the opportunity to revisit his roots and play a character that is a comic wild card.
Of his interest in the part, he says: “Barry Mendel, who I worked with on Munich, called me up and said `Judd’s doing a comedy with some serious elements to it, and there’s a character in there that we think is right for you.’ I read the part and told Barry I would love to play this character, but I thought he should be Australian. I felt I would have a lot more ideas if able to play the character as an Aussie, and that ultimately he may be funnier.”
Bana and Mann developed their roles as a loving couple that has grown apart. When George contacts Laura and tells her he is going to die, the floodgates of their past open wide. Producer Mendel explains: “George loves Laura, and she’s not getting along with her husband. So Clarke, who’s cheating on Laura, has to somehow redeem himself enough to deserve another chance. It’s fun in that there are a lot of balls in the air here. As an audience member, who you want the characters to land with keeps shifting, and it probably ends up different than how you’d expect.”
For the roles of the younger generation of comics, the filmmakers approached several performers who have all spent time in the stand-up world. The parts of Ira’s roommates, Leo and Mark, went to, respectively, actors Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman. The three roommates are good friends, but highly competitive with each other. Rogen explains that art is imitating life: “That’s the part I have most closely lived. I have been friends with guys who want the exact same thing I wanted, were up for the same opportunities I was and were doing better than I was.”
Jonah Hill explains his approach to the very driven stand-up Leo, who goes head-to-head with Ira: “I decided to play him just like a lot of comedy writers I know. You don’t become a successful person in comedy unless you’re really driven. Rarely do you see people who get success by accident. Comics spend so much of their time writing and performing; the ones who become really successful are insanely hard workers and take it very seriously.”
Apatow selected Jason Schwartzman to not just play Mark; he had another part to play on set-the musically talented actor also composed the score for the film. Schwartzman began his career as the drummer in the band Phantom Planet and has recently release two critically acclaimed solo records under the banner Coconut Records. Mendel, who produced Schwartzman’s acting debut, Rushmore, says: “Incorporating Jason’s music into the film was one of Judd’s great strokes. It gives Funny People its own sound; it’s not like any film score you’ve heard.”
Of his primary role in Funny People, he explains: “Mark stars on a hit TV sitcom called Yo Teach…!-a cocktail of Dangerous Minds and Head of the Class. Mark makes $25,000 a week and flaunts it like a peacock in front of Ira and Leo.” Interestingly enough, Apatow and Sandler had an old friend who used to do the same thing to them.
For the role of Ira’s love interest, Daisy-a recent East Coast transplant trying to make a name for her- self in the comedy boys’ club-the filmmakers cast newcomer Aubrey Plaza. It was her innovative approach that landed her the role. Plaza states: “I submitted an audition tape and went in for a live audition, where I read through a scene with Seth. After some time, the casting director told me that the filmmakers were interested in casting a stand-up comedian for the role and suggested that I tape myself doing a stand-up act. I did a small indie show in Queens-the first real stand-up show I’ve ever done-and a friend taped it and I put it on YouTube. I sent the link to casting; two days later, they called me and offered me the part.”
Plaza’s Parks and Recreation co-star Aziz Ansari was cast as Randy, a comic other performers love to hate. Ansari describes the hyperkinetic Randy as a “comedian that audiences love and the other comics hate. He just sinks to the lowest common denominator- dancing, catchphrases, really dumb sex jokes about receiving fellatio in an igloo, and sometimes he even has a deejay.”
Playing Ira’s deadpan friend at the deli, Chuck, is musician-actor RZA. Chuck is a reality check for Ira, but he allows Ira to try out his comedy routines on him. Discussing his nonplussed character, RZA says, “Chuck is one of those dudes who is glad to have his job. He’s an ex-convict who’s happy that somebody will hire him, and his buddy Ira wants to leave this job to become a star. Chuck is like, `Come on, that’s not reality. This is reality, what we are living every day: free dental.’”
The two youngest comediennes on set were other members of the Apatow family, Judd and Leslie’s daughters, Maude and Iris. About his girls’ participation, the filmmaker explains: “I’m fascinated by my wife and my children, and so I decided to have my kids play Leslie’s kids. In Knocked Up, they had small parts and were really memorable. In this film, it’s different. Maude’s character, Mable, is very important to the story. You can feel that she knows there are problems in Clarke and Laura’s marriage and it’s affecting how she feels.
In one sequence, Laura shows George a tape of Mable singing “Memory” from Cats. The sequence was made with an actual home video Judd shot of Maude’s theatrical performance of the musical. The director explains: “At the performance, people were moved…so I thought it would say a lot if George was not.”
To get his many players ready for the live stand-up they’d be performing as part of their time on screen, Apatow put his team through joke-writing drills and multiple tours that began several months before principal photography. He needed them to work on their acts at various clubs, because during the movie shoot, he would instruct the audiences to react naturally to their performances. As the cameras rolled, if a joke bombed, it bombed. So beforehand, the director wanted to toughen up his comics and give them a taste of what life on the open road was really like.
The culmination of the tour happened at the landmark Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. In addition to doubling as a Northern California theater for a pivotal scene in Funny People, the venue hosted a benefit for two charities close to Apatow. Proceeds raised at “A Night of Funny People” benefited the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and 826LA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students with their creative and expository writing skills. In addition to Sandler, Rogen, Hill and Ansari in character, the all-star line-up included such comics as David Spade, Sarah Silverman and Patton Oswald.
There have been two different approaches to the company’s joke-writing sessions, says Apatow. “George is a star, and whenever he’s on stage people are excited to see him; he knows what he’s doing and is really funny. On the opposite side of that, Ira is struggling to figure out who he is and how to be funny. Our approach was to let Seth write the best jokes he could, and then we deconstructed them and screwed them up. A great joke told without confidence will bomb, and a great joke told by someone you don’t know who screws up the set up will not get a reaction. Once we had all of Seth’s great jokes, we found ways for him to ruin them.”
Apatow walks us through the process for the writing sessions. “We wrote the jokes by getting a few really good comedy writers, like Brian Posehn and Patton Oswalt and Allen Covert, who writes with Adam a lot. Also, co-producers Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien had a ton of stuff they contributed to help Seth and Jonah out with their jokes. We had these bull sessions where we wrote jokes and gave them to the guys; sometimes Seth and Adam were there. At the end of the day, most of it was written by Seth and Adam. We came up with some great areas, but they still know what they do better than anybody.”
Rogen elaborates on the collaboration: “Jonah and I wrote jokes with each other, but ultimately people were in charge of their own sets. Judd actually gave us a lot of freedom. He would rarely say, `Here’s the joke; say this joke.’ It was more: `Here’s an area; write some jokes about it, and here are some people who are willing to help you.’”
Performing in Clubs
While shooting the scenes in which his actors performed stand-up, the director let their acts continue uninterrupted. Apatow explains his rationale: “When you see stand-up in movies, usually all of it’s good. Even if the jokes are bad, they are presented like they’re good; everything’s getting a big laugh, and it feels very cut down. They cut right to the heart of the joke, and you don’t get the awkward pauses before and after a joke. What I went for was to capture what a comedy club actually feels like.”
The only way he could do that was to bring in a crowd and have his performers do 25-minute sets. The director continues: “There are sections of the movie in which you see Ira get better; he’s more personal and he’s evolving. Those jokes needed to be different than earlier ones in the movie. It was the same for Adam during his big concert [at the Orpheum] where he’s trying to show Laura he is more mature; the jokes have to reflect he is able to have a serious relationship. I also shot their acts in four or five different comedy clubs. They gave 20 to 30 minutes of material from which we needed two or three minutes.”
Apatow admits what’s tricky about stand-up is that the jokes have to be both funny and revealing of the characters’ inner lives. He explains: “George takes the difficult parts of his life and turns them into silly jokes. You hear him talk about a dark aspect of his childhood, and then later you see him do a joke that’s clearly inspired by it, but he’s not telling you the truth. He’s made it into something goofier than that.”
The director feels like the relationship between Ira and George is a bit like the one he had with Sandler when they were young comics. He was the young guy who wasn’t very good at stand-up, while Sandler was already quite confident in his skills. For his part, Sandler admits: “I used to do standup and, whoever was in the crowd, I could adapt a little bit. I had to be a little gross at all times, but I would phrase it a little more gently if there was an older woman in the audience. I was filthy back then.”
For Rogen, who began doing stand-up at 13, this style of comedy was territory he hadn’t visited in a while. “I last did stand-up around eight years ago,” the actor says. “I did it once I moved to L.A., but I was already on a TV show. The only places I could get time were the Laugh Factory and the Comedy Store. I stopped because I started writing screenplays.”
When he signed on for the film, Apatow told Hill that he had to be ready for a stand-up show in three weeks. The performer had never before done stand-up in front of a live audience. Hill’s reaction: “I had two or three weeks to write an act. It was at the UCB [Upright Citizens Brigade], and Judd opened for me and I came out. It’s the best one I’ll ever do in my life. Then I did the next one, and I tanked so hard. I bailed on jokes but then talked about why I didn’t want to do them. That got laughs. I had a crash course in five months on how to pass as a comedian.”
Before shooting, Aziz Ansari had been performing as his character, Randy, at the UCB. The actor recalls, “What I had in mind for Randy’s standup was much different than my own stand-up. So I decided to do some shows in character as Randy. I George, Clarke and Ira watch Aussie rules football. would tell really terrible sex jokes, dance around, have a deejay to hype me up, etc. It all went over way too well. Unfortunately, I think Randy may be more likeable than Aziz.”
During the shoot, the owner of L.A.’s Improv Comedy Club, Budd Friedman, allowed the production use of his facilities for filming. It was a welcome reunion for one of the owner’s former employees. Apatow, who worked as both an emcee and comic at the club when he was 17, was able to get his old boss to help him stage one of the most poignant scenes in the production.
It was like coming home as Apatow and Sandler reunited with talent they’d admired for decades. At the Improv, Apatow shot a scene in which George-when he believes he is dying-has lunch with a group of famous comedians. The comics included legends from MONTY HOFFMAN, PAUL REISER and MARK SCHIFF to GEORGE WALLACE and CAROL LEIFER.
About the scene, Apatow offers: “We wanted to make it feel like the real comedy world, and we thought `Who would be George’s peers?’ So we tried to put many of the great comics that we look up to in Funny People to make it feel like the right level of reality. It was also because we look up to these guys; it’s an homage to have them in the movie.”
Sandler, who did many stand-up routines at the Improv back in the day, explains what made that scene so meaningful: “Carol Leifer was one of the first comedians I saw. I visited my sister on Long Island, and she took me to East Side Comedy Club, where Judd worked as a dishwasher. I saw Carol destroy for an hour, and that’s when I’d only been on stage two or three times. I remember thinking `I’m not going to be able to come up with that shit…’”
Many other comics agreed to cameo in the film for key scenes. RAY ROMANO, Sarah Silverman, NORM MACDONALD, DAVE ATTELL and CHARLES FLEISHER are just a few of the additional comics who have guest appearances when George Simmons makes his rounds to stay goodbye to old friends. Notably, a big Apatow fan agreed to appear in his first film role since Universal’s 8 Mile. Eminem guest stars as himself…and he is ready for a knock down throw down with unwanted paparazzo Ray Romano.
Designing The Comedy
Across all departments, there was a mandate to ensure that the story of Funny People was told with as much honesty as possible. Producer Townsend explains: “We’ve tried really hard in the production design, costumes, lighting and camera work to create realism. That’s always been Judd’s thing: to make sure you don’t take the audience out of something by using a cheesy-looking set. We’ve gone to great lengths to match sets on stage with exteriors, as well as shooting sets on location to heighten the realism.”
To lead a key department of the production, the filmmakers hired two-time Academy Award®- winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, known for his stunning work on such epochal films as Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. Producer Mendel, who worked with Kaminski on Munich, believes: “In terms of photography, this movie asked for something more ambitious than Judd’s previous films. Janusz’s work helps you make a pronounced, yet seamless, transition to the next kind of movie that Judd is making.”
Kaminski looked forward to participating in the project. He shares: “Judd expressed certain desires about what this movie should look like. He assured me he was ready to be a bit more sophisticated with the visual storytelling. He told me the story, and I was enticed by the idea of making a comedy that’s got a bit of drama interwoven.”
To design the picture, Apatow brought on production designer Jefferson Sage, who has worked with the director since the series Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. About designing the film, Sage explains: “From the beginning of our relationship, we’ve been very interested in spaces that are utterly real, familiar and convincing. The comedy Judd’s interested in emerges from the conflicts real people have. All those issues and people are very familiar, and the spaces they inhabit needed to be the same.”
The filmmakers created different comedy clubs for the film. Sage shares, “The idea was to show how comedians go around town. They try their act one night at this club and at another club another night. It was important that the stages feel different…as if they’re covering the town. One key location was the Improv Comedy Club on Melrose. Judd was insistent we film there. The other ones were exclusively built on stages.”
Details used to make the comedy club sets authentic include torn drapes, half-empty beer bottles and water stains on the tabletops. Sage’s team scuffed and spotted the floors so audiences can see where countless comedians and patrons have dropped their drinks and stained the floors.
Other key locations in Funny People include George’s mansion, Laura’s ranch house and the apartment where Ira and his friends lived. George’s home was found in Malibu. “It looked old, but it’s only six to eight years old,” comments Sage. “It felt removed and lonely, as we wanted a house that George had bought lock, stock and barrel from a previous owner. He hadn’t gotten around to decorating or changing anything yet. There are a lot of character things that are out of place for him.”
Laura’s cozy house was one of family and comfort, a counterpoint to George’s. Sage adds, “Laura’s house is a gentler, more contemporary style of architecture. The locale is supposed to be Northern California, but we were lucky enough to find it a mile or two from the other house. This was after a long search through the outer reaches of Los Angeles and nearby horse country.
“Ira’s apartment is the third point of the triangle,” Sage concludes. “The apartment needed to be many things that the other spaces were not. These are young guys; they’re ambitious, getting into their careers and successful on different levels. The choice of a modern loft space with high ceilings and walls with pictures of famous comedians created a nice contrast to the other spaces; it speaks to their youth and point of view.”
Music of the Film
For The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Apatow used an eclectic mix of ’80s songs, as well as music from James Brown and Ashford & Simpson to Missy Elliott and Chaka Khan. For Knocked Up, he enlisted singer/poet Loudon Wainwright III to create the poetic soundtrack. In Funny People, the director goes in a different direction. Artist Michael Andrews has been composing for Apatow since their days together on Freaks and Geeks, and actor Jason Schwartzman got his first shot at composing for a film. The collaboration turned out better than anyone could have hoped.
Longtime Apatow collaborator, music supervisor Jonathan Karp, believes the music in Funny People gives the actors a chance to address their characters and situations nonverbally. He says, “There’s a moment when Ira and George drive home from San Francisco, after things go wrong for George, where they’re sitting in silence in the car…and then we see them in their homes going to bed. You see their faces and they’re clearly unhappy, and the music conveys all the emotion of that. You don’t need words. The music also helps illustrate a lot of what George went through with his illness.”
Multihyphenate JON BRION, who scored Sandler’s Punch-Drunk Love, was brought on to the production to produce George’s music. At one point in the film, George hires the musician to play at his home when he thinks he’s dying. Fortunately for all, Sandler is a bit of an accomplished musician himself. Apatow states: “The idea was that this very rich person pays Jon Brion to jam. It’s a great moment where you see an emotional montage, and the music is really beautiful and warm. We shot a lot of songs with just Adam and Jon Brion, and then with Adam, Jon and a band.”
Karp adds, “The jam session became a bigger thing while making the movie. We ended up doing 8 or 10 different songs that we recorded to see which ones were going to work out the best. In the jam session scenes, Adam plays with Jon, and JAMES GADSON plays the drums. He is an amazing drummer most famous for the years spent with Bill Withers; and SEBASTIAN STEINBERG plays bass in those sessions.”
When choosing the right music for Sandler and Brion to collaborate on to help tell the story, Karp admits: “We ended up in Beatlesesque territory. The songs we performed were `Real Love’ by John Lennon, and there’s the Beatles version, of course. We’ve got a version of `Photograph’ by Ringo Starr. Some others were `Heart Needs a Home’ by Richard Thompson and `I Saw the Light’ by Todd Rundgren. We found songs that showed a vulnerable aspect of Adam’s character when he’s performing alone. Ultimately, we used `Real Love.’ Many of the extra songs we recorded will be on our soundtrack and DVD.”
One of the other big musical days shot for Funny People was when JAMES TAYLOR and his band played at a MySpace convention where George and Ira perform. Says Apatow: “James Taylor is super funny. You think about James Taylor like he’s been around since we were born. There’s no part of our consciousness where we didn’t hear those songs with our families.”
Rogen believes that his director engineered some scenes simply so he could have fun. He says, “James Taylor was a funny joke in the movie, but he didn’t need to play for four and a half hours. That was so Judd could watch James Taylor.”
Actual Footage and Fake Calls
When Judd Apatow was 17, he moved to California to attend USC. Soon after, he met Sandler. Of their introduction, he explains, “I quickly ran out of money, and I was doing stand-up at the Improv. I met Adam on the first night he came to L.A. to move here. We became friends and got an apartment together. He was one of those people that made you think, `This guy’s a superstar; there’s no stopping this.’ You felt the charisma, and he was hilarious. It was undeniable that this guy was going to be a major force. He made us laugh all the time; this was somebody who was just spewing funny all day long.”
The budding director put his skills to use by filming his friends. “I have all of these videotapes of Adam doing phony phone calls,” says Apatow. “I used to videotape him because I knew these things he did as a goof were as funny as anything I’d ever seen; there was value in it, and I didn’t want it to disappear into the ether. I use them in the movie to show his arc from a young, carefree person who wants to be in the business.”
Apatow works this material-as well as actual footage of Sandler doing stand-up-to show the change that’s come over George. “When all your dreams come true and you’re famous and rich, but you’re alone and unmarried and not happy with your personal situation, that light comes out of your eyes,” he reflects. “Even though you’re still on the treadmill, the work becomes a drag and you’re not sure what it’s all adding up to. You’re making these movies, but you know in your core you’re not feeling satisfied and you’re not evolving as a person.”
As he reminisces, George also watches reels of footage of a beautiful young woman in a Coke commercial from a dozen years earlier, as well as images of her on various television dramas such as Birdland, from Scott Frank and Walter Parkes. It’s the love of his life, Laura, and you can see he still loves her and pines for her. For this part of the scene, Apatow used footage of Leslie Mann from her earlier movies and commercials. Of the footage, Mann laughs, “I haven’t watched any of those in years. It was really fun to see. Back when I was 19 or 20, I was always hard on myself and thought I wasn’t doing enough. But seeing all these commercials again, I thought, `I should be proud of myself. I worked hard.’”
Funny People (2009)
Directed by: Judd Apatow
Starring: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Eric Bana, Andy Dick, Maude Apatow, Iris Apatow, Aziz Ansari, Torsten Voges, Allan Wasserman, Wayne Federman
Screenplay by: Judd Apatow
Production Design by: Jefferson Sage
Cinematography by: Janusz Kaminski
Film Editing by: Craig Alpert, Brent White
Costume Design by: Betsy Heimann, Nancy Steiner
Set Decoration by: Leslie A. Pope
Art Direction by: James F. Truesdale
Music by: Michael Andrews, Jason Schwartzman
MPAA Rating: R for language and crude sexual humor throughout, and some sexuality.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: July 31, 2009
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