Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy

by Apatow, Judd

  Jeff, of course, would go on to be one of the minds behind Curb Your Enthusiasm and one of the stars of The Goldbergs, but to me he’ll always be this special individual who is somehow able to make something new happen every moment you’re with him.

  Judd Apatow: Is it important to you if your kids are smart?

  Jeff Garlin: No. I mean, yes, I hope they’re smart and self-reliant so they can enjoy life—but they’ll probably be more miserable if they’re smart. If they’re stupid, they’re going to have a great time. Because really, everything is created for stupid people. Books, movies, TV shows for the most part—they’re for stupid people. So, they would be much happier if they were stupid. But I think both my boys are going to be miserable just like their father.

  Judd: So they’ll be smart and miserable.

  Jeff: Well, they go hand in hand.

  Judd: Yeah.

  Jeff: Do you know any smart people who are just, like, chill? Really happy? No, seriously, do you know any smart people just, like, “Hey, weeeee!” You don’t, do you?

  Judd: I don’t. I mean, I don’t think I’m smart. But I think I’m beginning to think I’m smart based on how miserable I am.

  Jeff: That’s a good way to measure it, by the way.

  Judd: Yeah.

  Jeff: But I know you and I’m telling you: You’re smart. You’re really smart.

  Judd: They say certain people aren’t good soldiers because if they’re in a foxhole all night—you know, if you’re creative and smart, you’re thinking about all the different ways someone is going to blow your head off. But if you’re not that smart, you’re just like chilling out. And I feel like that in life. I’m just in the foxhole all fucking day thinking about everything that’s going to go wrong in every possible way.

  Jeff: And that’s why you’re prepared.

  Judd: The preparation is not helpful at all, really.

  Jeff: I’m equally miserable but—by the way, we’re having a conversation here. It’s kind of rude if you don’t look at me.

  Judd: I know, but why do you need to look at me?

  Jeff: Because I’m talking to you.

  Judd: You know, when I was first dating my wife, she said to me one day when we were talking, she said, “Dude, what are you looking at?” And I said, “I’m looking at your mouth.” And she’s like, “Why are you looking at my mouth?” “Because you’re talking, and I want to know what you’re saying.” And she said, “You know, when you talk to people, you’re supposed to look them in the eye.” No one had ever said that to me before. I was twenty-eight years old and I thought—

  Jeff: Did you really go through life up until twenty-eight—I mean, did your parents tell you when you were a kid that you were deaf?

  Judd: Like, I mean with—

  Jeff: Like, “Look at the lips, it’s very important.”

  Judd: Right now, I am having to make an extra effort to not look at your mouth.

  Jeff: That’s crazy.

  Judd: It is crazy and it makes me wonder how I was parented. Where was my mom looking? Was she looking at my mouth? It makes me realize what my damage is, and why it’s hard to connect with people: because I’m a mouth looker.

  Jeff: So you say mouth looker, and that makes sense, but I never heard of that before.

  Judd: Someone told me you exercise now.

  Jeff: I’ve been exercising for a while. I do Pilates, for Christ’s sake.

  Judd: Really? Like you slowly lift your legs with pulleys, every morning?

  Jeff: Not every morning, but often enough.

  Judd: With an instructor?

  Jeff: With an instructor. I do privates.

  Judd: You do privates?

  Jeff: That’s one of the luxuries I actually partake in. I have to have privates because the thought of me being in a Pilates class—that’s goofy.

  Judd: There’s nothing about Pilates that won’t make one of your balls fall out of your pants.

  Jeff: By the way, nothing. You have to prepare for that ahead of time. I’m a big boxer-brief guy. With boxer briefs, you get no ball fallout. And then, I try to avoid—

  Judd: You do Pilates in boxers?

  Jeff: Boxers?

  Judd: Didn’t you say boxers?

  Jeff: Yeah, but underneath my sweatpants. With sweatpants, my balls aren’t going to drop out.

  Judd: I don’t like that flexibility. I need it compact.

  Jeff: No, boxer briefs hold everything in. You know what boxer briefs are?

  Judd: No. I thought it was brief or boxers. I didn’t think it was the same.

  Jeff: Boxer briefs are like longer briefs—like, they come down to here. You never worn those?

  Judd: I have like tighty whities.

  Jeff: Is that what you wear?

  Judd: I don’t need the extra shorts aspect of it that you seem to like.

  Jeff: Do you really wear tighty whities?

  Judd: What does this do for you?

  Jeff: There’s a certain confidence—I would have to drop my pants right now to show you. But I would not look like an idiot, whereas you, my friend, you wear tighty whities and we would be laughing at you.

  Judd: The idea with that is that you have a bigger dick than me.

  Jeff: I would wager everything I own that our dicks are the same size.

  Judd: Really?

  Jeff: We got the classic, average Jew dick. I see my dick all the time; I know it’s not big. It’s very normal size. It’s not like a tiny festival. But I don’t wear the boxer briefs because I have an extraordinarily large dick or small. My penis has nothing to do with it. It’s just a nice—it’s a very comfortable loungewear.

  Judd: Okay. I was listening to an interview with you recently, and there’s a long section where you’re talking about what a good guy you are. Now, is that because you are a good guy, or like you’re such a murderer that you just say that?

  Jeff: One of my favorite comedians of all time is Jack Benny. But besides being my favorite comedian, he also had a reputation of being the biggest supporter of other comedians and the nicest amongst comedians, and I really want to be known as, if not the nicest, then one of the nicest comedians.

  Judd: Are you a people pleaser?

  Jeff: No, I could give a shit about that.

  Judd: There was a letter that someone showed me once—Jack Benny used to write letters to this television producer—but what made me laugh is that they were kind of dirty. And you don’t think of guys like Jack Benny as dirty.

  Jeff: Right.

  Judd: He was talking about how he loved a lot of the shows that year, but his favorite one was called “My Mother the Cunt.”

  Jeff: Jack Benny wrote that? Wow. Because he really was clean and adamant about being clean.

  Judd: So he likes that kind of joke but he thinks it’s wrong to do the “My Mother the Cunt” joke to America—like we can’t handle it?

  Jeff: They couldn’t have handled it back then.

  Judd: I just mean they all had a different sense of humor that they didn’t share with the public, like Milton Berle taking his dick out and putting it in a hot dog bun. But then when these young comedians like Robert Klein started showing up, they were all like, Oh, this is out of line!

  Jeff: Let me ask you a question. You’re busy. We don’t spend a lot of time together but I look at you as a friend. J. J. Abrams is the other person who you remind me of in this way. And that is, I call you, I email you, anything, and right away, you respond: “What’s going on? How are you doing?” It’s not like two weeks later. But I, even being one hundredth as successful as you, don’t get back to people ever. I just wonder how you pull off being a great dad, a great husband. You’re this successful producer. You make movies. You’re producing a TV show for HBO. I mean, how do you do that?

  Judd: Does this also relate to the fact that you have to keep saying you’re a good guy? When in fact you’re like the asshole who never returns emails?

  Jeff: By the way, isn’t it true that when y
ou don’t return someone’s email, they think there’s something wrong? Whenever I do write people back, their response is always: “Oh, I thought you were mad at me!” What? If I’m mad at someone, I tell them. But how do you pull this off? I don’t know.

  Judd: For a long time, people thought all my emails were angry. Because they would be very simple.

  Jeff: Informational.

  Judd: Yeah.

  Jeff: I’m totally good with that.

  Judd: But you know what helps? Exclamation marks. Now I’ve adopted an email personality that is not anything like me. I’m like a fourteen-year-old girl who puts exclamation marks after everything. Because people kept thinking I was mad at them. Well, I don’t think answering emails correlates to any positive qualities that I, or anyone, has.

  Jeff: No, what I want to know is—

  Judd: What’s probably happening is, like, one of my kids is choking on a bone and I’m not helping them because I’m so obsessed with answering your email. So maybe I’m a prick who cares more about your email than my children.

  Jeff: I really want you to answer this.

  Judd: I’m being honest.

  Jeff: Really?

  Judd: I’m saying, why the fuck am I answering your email? Honestly, I have a lot to do.

  Jeff: That’s my point.

  Judd: I’m busy. I have children. They need help with their homework and why am I checking the fucking email?

  Jeff: Oh, stop it. I’m saying as a person here. The point is, you’re thoughtful. You always take time to be present. I don’t know how you do that.

  Judd: I know, but you’re wrong. It’s an addiction. It’s a modern addiction. The email and the Twitter. It’s distraction. There’s better things I should be doing with my time and I’m not present at all. I’m staring at your mouth.

  Jeff: You don’t want to take credit.

  Judd: I think I’m a nice enough person. But unlike you, I don’t brag about it.

  Jeff: I was a virgin until I was twenty.

  Judd: You were? How did that work out?

  Jeff: I actually lost my virginity to a heckler.

  Judd: You did?

  Jeff: I swear to God. I did. It was on the beach, South Beach. There was a comedy club. I was hosting a show. This woman heckled me unmercifully and later on that night some guy goes, “My friend wants to buy you a drink.” We were on the beach, you know, at this place called the Carlyle. And she called me outside. She said come outside, and then she kissed me. I didn’t stop her. I was twenty. She was thirty and a lawyer, and she ran on the beach ripping off her clothes yelling, “Follow me!” So I did. And then, in a lifeguard stand, she was naked and as soon as my penis went in it could have ended because I was like, I’m not a virgin! I didn’t enjoy. It was like, I wasn’t even thinking about it at all. It was like in, done. And then my clothes had fallen from the lifeguard stand into the sand and there was a bum walking up the beach to take my clothes, and so I jumped up naked with a boner, and ran down and fought off the bum for my clothes and then I went up and she was, like, angry at me. I was like, I’m not going to lose my wallet to a homeless man. And we continued. She was really nice. It didn’t last long.

  Judd: The first time I had sex, it was a ski trip senior year.

  Jeff: High school? See, you’re way more advanced than me.

  Judd: Yeah. It was, you know, brief. And then afterwards, as a joke, I said, “Was it good for you, too?” And she said, “Well, I guess it’ll get better.”

  Jeff: She was a girl you were dating.

  Judd: Yes.

  Jeff: Did she hang around to see if it got better or was that it?

  Judd: She found out that it was not going to get better for about six months or so. She tested it out.

  Jeff: I loved the way you said six months or so. You were a slow learner.

  Judd: Well, because that’s, like, a first love, someone you’ve done everything for the first time with. The two of you had this experience that this is what sex is, the way we do it, and then I think she just went off to college and went, Oh, we’ve done it all wrong the whole time.

  Jeff: My high school years were filled with unrequited love. One after the other. I was the guy the girls talked to about the guy that they’re fucking who is an asshole. I was the guy they talked to about that.

  Judd: I mainly had that, too. Most of the time that was the situation. I don’t have many road sex stories, either, because I was very uncomfortable with that. But I remember being out on the road—my first road sex story—in San Luis Obispo at some comedy club opening up for Rick Wright.

  Jeff: I remember him.

  Judd: And this nurse hit on me.

  Jeff: Was she wearing her nurse outfit?

  Judd: No, but she was very nursy.

  Jeff: She showed nursing qualities?

  Judd: Yeah, and I’m at the club in the hotel. It’s like the perfect setup. And I thought, Well, I should do this. So we went back to my room.

  Jeff: What were you? Like, nineteen? Twenty?

  Judd: I was twenty years old, and I’ll tell you how long the sex was. Okay, ready, and…we’re done. And I think, Well, I’m young. We’ll just have sex again and the second time will be better. And…we’re done. And I remember the look in her eyes, the shame. Like, Why am I fucking this boy? Who can’t even fuck me correctly? I’m very embarrassed and I remember sitting in bed and watching, on television, while I was praying for a third shot—Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling was on cable with Richard Pryor. And it was terrible.

  Jeff: You didn’t like it?

  Judd: It was terrible. It’s the kind of thing that puts you on your heels.

  Jeff: You didn’t like the movie, you mean?

  Judd: No, the sex.

  Jeff: Oh, okay, because I got the indication that you didn’t like Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling.

  Judd: Well, there is—

  Jeff: It’s not great. But there’s good stuff in it. And it’s Pryor playing himself, which is awesome.

  Judd: I need to watch it again. But did you ever become the guy trying to get laid after the show?

  Jeff: You know the answer to this one. We were on the road together a lot as young comics. No fucking way did that ever happen to me.

  Judd: How many times did you get laid on the road?

  Jeff: I have someone who keeps track of that for me. Unfortunately they’re not here tonight. Otherwise I could—I’m guessing, I mean, I can think of two. In twenty-nine years.

  Judd: It takes a lot to be a road comic and not get laid.

  Jeff: Yeah, it does. Because you’re surrounded by it. You’re surrounded by girls who would fuck you under normal—if you knew what you were doing. Anyway. You have two children, and you don’t want another kid, do you? I’m too tired.

  Judd: I have two girls and I think it feels like the right amount with the potential of a very dangerous foster child in my future.

  Jeff: Your daughters, by the way, are so adorable, and talented. When you sit down to write a movie, are you thinking, I’ve got to have them in it, or do you start writing and they pop up?

  Judd: I just don’t like other people’s kids and I don’t want to be around other people’s kids.

  Jeff: Let’s take a step back for a second.

  Judd: Yeah.

  Jeff: Okay. Young actors—kid actors—are, for the most part, so frightening. A couple things happen: Number one, the parents come with them. And they’re always scary. It’s all about them, really. It’s like parents of Little League kids—you know how they overcompensate and all that. That’s how it is with stage moms. I’ve had times when a seven-year-old goes, “Oh, I saw your show last night.” “Curb Your Enthusiasm?” “Yeah.” And then the mother goes, “He loves it.” Wow. My younger one is eleven and still has never seen it. He won’t see it for a while, either.

  Judd: Why?

  Jeff: Because it’s inappropriate.

  Judd: Eleven? There is literally zero chance that your son is not
spending at least one or two percent of his time watching blowjobs on the Internet. It’s impossible. There’s no scenario—

  Jeff: One time my wife and I found—this was like maybe a year ago. He was ten. He had googled “big bosom.” It turned out that his friend told him to.

  Judd: And you think it ended there?

  Jeff: I do.

  Judd: The other day, my daughter said that in the second or third grade, she was so into American Girl dolls that she decided that she wanted to see what an American Boy doll looked like. And googled “American Boy doll.” And saw—

  Jeff: A penis?

  Judd: Graphic sex.

  Jeff: Graphic sex under “American Boy doll”? I’m just trying to think how that goes together. By the way, you can google the word candle and the first thing that pops is—

  Judd: A candle in someone’s ass, yeah.

  Jeff: So I’m thinking, American Boy doll…I guess there’s a boy, he’s a doll?

  Judd: You think your eleven-year-old can’t handle Susie Essman cursing?

  Jeff: I don’t know if it’s Susie Essman’s cursing as much as “I’m going to fuck the Jew out of you, Larry.”

  Judd: Why is that hurtful?

  Jeff: When did hurtful pop up? Did I say I want my children to avoid all hurtful things? No. It’s inappropriate because he’s not quite going to get “I’m going to fuck the Jew out of you.” There’s certain—

  Judd: Why are you underestimating him?

  Jeff: I don’t know. I just, I just tend to—

  Judd: Does he beg you to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm? Does he say, “Can I please watch it, Dad?”

  Jeff: The truth is, he doesn’t even want to watch it.

  Judd: Yeah, or he’s seen every episode at his friend’s house. My kids would be like, “No, I don’t want to see 40-Year-Old Virgin. I don’t want to see Knocked Up.” And then it just, like, hit me: Oh, they’ve already seen it.