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Apatow can make a movie this personal and specific--Pete's big drive in This Is 40 is to revive Graham Parker's career--because he's made so much money for Universal on movies with relatively small budgets. His first feature, The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), grossed $109 million in the U.S., and Knocked Up (2007) brought in $149 million. He also produced last year's hit Bridesmaids ($169 million). (The last film he directed before This Is 40, 2009's more serious-minded Funny People, brought in only $52 million.) You'll rarely spot a studio executive on Apatow's sets, because his contract stipulates that he doesn't have to take studio notes.
Which is good, since he's so busy giving himself notes. His notes are usually some version of This is funny, but it's never going to work in the movie; it's going to wind up on the DVD extras. Because his films constantly evolve as he shoots them, he gives himself as many options as possible for where and how a scene can fit into the theatrical cut. He reshoots scenes in different locations, with different outfits--preferably bathrobes. "If they're in a bathrobe, I can use it anywhere. It could be anytime," he says. Uniforms mesh well with the Apatow method. "I have to do an army movie," he says.
The more options he creates, the later he can push the decision about what to include. His moviemaking technique is the exact opposite of the Coen brothers', who stick to the script and meticulously draw each camera shot on storyboards, like a graphic novel. "They're nervous about the chaos. I don't trust myself," Apatow says. "It's two sides of a neurotic Jewish coin."
A Family or a Cult
As it gets closer to midnight and Graham Parker prepares to play at the Cabana Club, Apatow won't even commit to a joke. As soon as the actors deliver the lines in the script, he yells ideas, motivations, new lines, gestures and reactions. He often ends a hilarious scene and tells everyone to play it again for drama. He seems less like a director and more like some guy from a rival studio who walked in to purposely mess things up. Paula Pell, a Saturday Night Live writer who worked with Apatow on Bridesmaids, sits next to him in a director's chair, handing him yellow Post-it note after Post-it note with joke suggestions. As her wrap gift at the end of shooting, she's planning on giving him a photo of herself in a dress made of yellow Post-it notes.
Most directors let actors keep improvising long after it stops being funny in order to shield the actors' egos, but Apatow cuts them off. "He does it in a more direct way than most directors," says Chris O'Dowd, who worked with him on Bridesmaids before This Is 40. "He's the most direct director I've ever worked with."