BUDDY COMEDY

From his early stand-up days to his work on such instant classics as Freaks and Geeks and Girls, JUDD APATOW has spent a lifetime capturing high hilarity—and hoarding the accompanying snapshots and ephemera. In this exclusive excerpt from his visual memoir, Comedy Nerd, where he shares his trove for the first time, LENA DUNHAM describes the generous guy behind the slapstick

LENA DUNHAM

EFORE I EVER met Judd Apatow, I was a fan—not a casual fan, the kind who checks out his films when they come out on demand (well, it was DVD back then). I was the kind of fan who went to the first

midnight showing of Funny People on a Thursday, then went back the next night so I could really hear all the jokes. The kind of fan who bought box sets of Undeclared and Freaks and Geeks in order to study his structure and tone. I was the kind of fan who listened to podcasts and interviews to understand his trajectory, knew the names of his scene-stealing daughters like they were famous football players, and imagined living in a family like the one he and Leslie had created, where they made art together like a modern von Trapp clan.

And while I did blame him for the fact all the hairy chubby nerds I knew now thought they'd end up with a Katherine Heigl look-alike (I often joked about pulling a "reverse Apatow" and bagging a box office hunk, a fantasy he'd late r allow me to play out to my heart's content onscreen), I felt a kinship with him that was about more than the fact that we both came from Long Island Jewish families or could quote our favorite comedians and writers on command—it was about the way his work displayed his vulnerabilities, his fears, his rage, and yet somehow, always, had a happy ending. I could feel he wrote from a place of love. I wanted to do that too.

So when he reached out to me after seeing my independent film, I felt like a child switched at birth who had finally been found by their real parent. I felt like my real life was just beginning.

I often joke that I don't know how to write TV—I know how to write Judd Apatow TV. He taught me about format, structure, what works and what doesn't— but he has created his own set of rules in which anything goes as long as it's funny, wise, and true. I wanted to write an episode all set in one room? Great, as long as it made him feel something. I wanted to do a lengthy flashback in a show that had none ? That was cool too. No idea was too strange, no instinct too unorthodox. As long as it was honest, it was kosher. Of course he gave notes—I do remember one script I rewrote 17 times—but not just for the sake of being heard, like so many producers. He just refuses to rest until the show or film is the best version of the thing it's meant to be.

I was always interested in comedy. I once wrote a 30-page research report about the Marx Brothers in sixth grade and it wasn't even assigned in class.

I would get notes from the network and refuse to take them because my friend Eric Gold told me, 'If you fail, they will never say it was because of their bad notes."

Leslie Mann came in for a role inThe Cable Guyand afterwards I said to Ben Stiller, "I can't believe the future Mrs. Apatow just walked in the room."

The first time he ever read a script of mine, he emailed, "There's work to do but you're really, really funny." I wept with joy and took a picture of my own wet face so I could remember it forever.

My favorite memories are when Judd and I would write episodes together— we'd usually work late at night, after his kids were in bed, on the phone—it was like the best game of make believe with your best friend in your room in fourth grade, just imagining situations and trying to make each other giggle. To this day, there's no better feeling to me than getting Judd to really cackle. (He has a fake laugh he does when he's trying to be nice. He may think it's convincing but it's not.)

We used to joke that Judd wanted every episode to have either a fistfight or a hand job. And while that's not expressly true, what he wanted—and pushed for—were moments of messy honesty, moments we hadn't seenonscreenbefore.Butthe thing he taught me that I have carried more than anything is to let my characters connect, feel pleasure and love. I was cynical about those things in my youth and held some absurd idea that drama was more respectable than comedy, pain more respectable than joy. He once told me "If being funny was easy, then everybody would do it" and he's right—comedy is the highest writerly mountain to scale. Anyone can tell you a tragic story—but to make you laugh in the process? That's art.

From Comedy Nerd: A Lifelong Obsession in Stories and Pictures, by Judd Apatow with an introduction by Lena Dunham, to be published October 28 by Random House, a division of Penguin Random House. Copyright © 2025 by Judd Apatow and Lena Dunham.