From the writer and director of Knocked Up and the
producer of Freaks and Geeks comes a collection of
intimate, hilarious conversations with the biggest names in
comedy from the past thirty years—including Mel Brooks,
Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Roseanne Barr, Harold Ramis,
Louis C.K., Chris Rock, and Lena Dunham.
Before becoming one of the most successful filmmakers in
Hollywood, Judd Apatow was the original comedy nerd. At
fifteen, he took a job washing dishes in a local comedy
club—just so he could watch endless stand-up for free. At
sixteen, he was hosting a show for his local high school
radio station in Syosset, Long Island—a show that consisted
of Q&As with his comedy heroes, from Garry Shandling to
Jerry Seinfeld. They talked about their careers, the science
of a good joke, and their dreams of future glory (turns out,
Shandling was interested in having his own TV show one day
and Steve Allen had already invented
everything).
Thirty years later, Apatow is still that
same comedy nerd—and he’s still interviewing funny people
about why they do what they do. Sick in the
Head gathers Apatow’s most memorable and revealing
conversations into one hilarious, wide-ranging, and
incredibly candid collection that spans not only his career
but his entire adult life. Here are the comedy legends who
inspired and shaped him, from Mel Brooks to Steve Martin.
Here are the contemporaries he grew up with in Hollywood,
from Spike Jonze to Sarah Silverman. And here, finally, are
the brightest stars in comedy today, many of whom Apatow has
been fortunate to work with, from Seth Rogen to Amy Schumer.
And along the way, something kind of magical happens: What
started as a lifetime’s worth of conversations about comedy
becomes something else entirely. It becomes an exploration
of creativity, ambition, neediness, generosity,
spirituality, and the joy that comes from making people
laugh.
Loaded with the kind of back-of-the-club
stories that comics tell one another when no one else is
watching, this fascinating, personal (and
borderline-obsessive) book is Judd Apatow’s gift to comedy
nerds everywhere.
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