Maude Apatow’s Dad Made A Movie Raunchier Than Euphoria
Freaks and Geeks mature at approximately 40 years old
Who the **** is Judd Apatow?
The Daily Beast dubbed him simply “Maude Apatow’s dad.”
Fans of Euphoria wondered if he was an indie director.
Me? I prefer to think of Judd Apatow as the father who cut his own child out of her first movie.
The Mirror: Leslie Mann reveals she and husband Judd Apatow CUT their daughter out of The-40-Year-Old Virgin
It’s a far fall for a man who was once legendary for directing one genre-defying comedy after the next.
Even though it was canceled before it finished its first season, Judd Apatow became a cult favorite with a TV show called Freaks and Geeks. You might think of it as Euphoria rated PG-13.
But it’s his first movie — the one that he cut Maude out of — that may as well be Euphoria for adults.
You know, if the story focused on one of the straight edge nerds in the background who didn’t get laid until he was forty.
The Forty-Year-Old Euphoria Virgin
That straight-edge nerd is half the reason for the movie’s success.
In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) is the friendliest straight-edge nerd you’ve ever met. He’s also the loneliest.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin, with its hard-R rating, 132-minute running time, and fairly realistic look at dudes who talk a hilarious game but don’t know what to do with themselves, made Apatow — maker of strangely long gross-out comedies with a sensitive streak — into a household name.- The 40-Year-Old Virgin Is 15, So We Went Long on Secrets About Judd Apatow’s Directorial Debut
This was before Steve Carell was famous for his run in The Office — another long bet we’re still celebrating in weird ways.
Trans freaks and queer geeks
Euphoria and Freaks and Geeks declare that none of us are damaged or weird. We’ve just missed out on an opportunity or two.
But it’s the characters in Euphoria who miss out on those opportunities because they’re drowning in excess. From Rue unable to escape drugs to Lexi unable to escape her unrequited love for Rue, love without limits ruins each of them.
If only they knew how to say no.
On the other hand, if you never stop saying no…
Isn’t the pain of excess just the other end of limitless restraint?
WTF is dark about a middle-aged virgin?
It’s not dark for a man to be a virgin at forty years old.
What’s dark is that Andy needs that kind of intimacy. Needs it…and yet is starving for it.
Men, after all, do all sorts of things to pursue gender-affirming therapy. Some of them take hormones. Some of them take dating lessons from respected peers.
The most ambitious of them ask for more wax.
Steve Carell famously submitted to having his chest waxed in a single live take
Quoting from “The 40-Year-Old Virgin Is 15, So We Went Long on Secrets About Judd Apatow’s Directorial Debut”:
The women on set advised the lead actor Steve Carell to trim the hair first or take Advil (a pro waxing tip, for the record), but he decided to tough it out.
“About five seconds before they started to rip,” he recalled, “I thought, This is the worst idea I ever had in my life.” Five cameras were set up to capture the agony from all angles, “and you can see in the clip that everyone on the set is laughing. The three guys behind me, the woman who’s doing it, are in hysterics because I’m in excruciating pain.”
Maude Apatow came up with one of the best scenes
Imagine a character like Andy trying to date adult versions of your favorite characters from Euphoria.
How many drinks do you think it would take before you left together?
That’s Maude Apatow’s mom in the driver’s seat. At the time, she was barely older than Maude is now. The scene shows her passing out while driving home drunk, then waking up to vomit her shrimp cocktail into Andy’s mouth.
“‘All these years, I thought I was being so cute and it’s not cute at all,’” Leslie said.
Meanwhile, it was then-7-year-old daughter Maude who came up with the idea that Nicky should fall asleep behind the wheel. Which, in hindsight, does seem like something an innocent kid would conclude happens to a drunk driver.
Humor helps us through harm
With a grace as fluid as a Judd Apatow movie (but thankfully half the length), Euphoria flips from dark despair to dark humor. Or maybe it’s just the kind of dark despair you can only get through with dark humor.
As catalogued by Pop Sugar, the first season included darkly hilarious moments like Rue explaining sexting standards between “terrifying,” “horrifying,” and “acceptable” penis pictures (S1E3), as well as Rue and Jules getting a portmanteau of their names a la “Rules” (S1E5).
One of the funniest moments came when Rue called on every true fan of The Wire to stand with her:
Can enough jokes turn Euphoria into a comedy?
Time will tell whether Euphoria is a comedy or a tragedy.
As for The Forty-Year-Old Virgin?
Despite cutting its best actress from the movie, the ultimately happy ending (sung no less by the cast to “The Age of Aquarius”) proved that movie to be a delightful comedy. Watching it again has helped me look a little more kindly on Judd Apatow.
And if that wasn’t enough…
Maude loves her dad like Jonah Hill loves these goldfish shoes
In an article from The Daily Beast, Maude spoke about her dad with a love that makes it a little easier for me to forgive him for cutting her from the movie all those years ago.
“My dad is my mentor and gives me a lot of advice about everything that I do, with acting, writing, and directing. We have always had that relationship. But it’s hard to take advice from your parents without automatically wanting to stand up to them or be rebellious.”
Okay, Judd. I forgive you.
I’m even hoping you get to direct an episode of Euphoria. Just make sure not to cut Maude this time, okay?
BONUS: Kevin Hart before he was big
The Forty-Year-Old Virgin also features a very young Kevin Hart before he hit his growth spurt.
“First of all, you throwin’ too many big words at me, and because I don’t understand them, I’m gonna take ’em as disrespect.”
See Also: That Time Seth Rogen And Judd Apatow Taught Tom Cruise About Internet Porn
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