The amount of influence that George Carlin has had on comedy and pop culture is, by no stretch of the imagination, incalculable. Through his venerable library of stand-up material to his unabashed deconstruction of a dysfunctional society that has stood the test of time and only become more relevant as the years go by, Carlin blazed trail after trail for artists and socially-minded thinkers around the world in a myriad of ways — but we’ve only come to know so much of the full story of his genius.
Now, as one of the disciples of the seven dirty words you can’t say on television, Judd Apatow has taken it upon himself to pull back the curtain fully in an attempt to really show what made Carlin tick – and why people loved him and his passionate approach to comedy so much.
At the forefront of George Carlin’s American Dream, which premieres on HBO tonight (May 20), Apatow presents the story of one the most celebrated and respected voices in all of pop culture, complete with tales of Carlin’s New York upbringing and his tenacious rise to icon status in comedy over the course of more than 50 years in the business, as well as the creative evolution and dark underbelly that came along with all of it. But at the very core of the two-part series is also Apatow’s genuine fandom of all things comedy and his never-ending admiration for Carlin, which only made it that much more important for Apatow to bring even the smallest details to the surface in an effort to represent the creative ingenuity that Carlin himself instilled in him.
We recently had the chance to catch up with Apatow to talk about the documentary and the pressure of telling a tale of this magnitude, as well as how Carlin’s impenetrable desire to grow as an artist has, in some ways, wore off on him in his own creative endeavors.
Check it out.
Jason Greenough: Thank you so much for connecting, Judd. I’m glad we could chat and hype your new documentary, George Carlin’s American Dream. I think the best, and most natural place to start is how you’re feeling about this project as it sets sail into the world.
Judd Apatow: I’m excited to get it out there. One of the reasons we made it was because George Carlin’s name always seems to trend whenever certain events are happening around the world because he had the best routines about these types of things. Just over the last few weeks, everybody has been talking about Roe vs. Wade, and he started trending again because he had some incredible bits about Roe vs. Wade, and he talked about how conservatives care about babies only until they’re born, and how they don’t care about pre-K or preschool, and how as soon as you’re born, you’re fucked. It’s strange that George Carlin becomes even more important now, fourteen years after he passed away. His work is so strong that it only applies more, and that was something I wanted to talk about in the documentary, because it’s so rare since most comedy ages really badly.
That’s a great bridge to my follow-up. Over the course of the last handful of decades, Carlin’s ever-evolving and ongoing influence on culture has continued, as you point out, so how did you navigate the telling of his story while, in some strange ways, his story and his influence is still unfolding through past works in a modern context, such as his take on Roe vs. Wade, even with him being gone fourteen years at this point?
He made a point about not speaking too specifically about current events. He did at times, but he liked to talk about the larger issues, like big pharma wanting you to take diet pills, or how alcohol companies want you to drink liquor, but for whatever reason, marijuana was illegal. He spoke about the big problems, the corporate control of our political system, and he has some amazing routines about how financial interests want people to be just smart enough to run the machines, but not smart enough to ask hard questions. And because of that, so much of what he talked about would work just as well if it came out today, and a lot of it would work even better because he was warning people about a lot of problems in the world, and now it’s fourteen years later, and we see just how things have gotten so much worse. So, what seemed to be an overreaction back then, now we can tell it wasn’t an overreaction, but rather an accurate prophecy.
You’ve made it known in the past just how much of an influence George has had on you. And while that may be at least part of the glowing reason and I may be answering my own question, what was the true initial spark that made you want to embark on this journey to tell his story?
I was asked by HBO if I was interested in doing it before the pandemic, and I’ve always been a giant fan. I listened to his records and watched him all the time when I was a kid, and his comedy taught me so much about how to break down ideas, and how to write and think, so I very excited to get the opportunity to tell his story, but I was scared because I thought about how I just didn’t want to do it wrong. Also, he never spoke very much about his family and his personal life, so it was challenging trying to dig up what that story was, and find an accurate way to portray all the hard times he had in his life with an abusive father, his struggles with addiction, and him trying to be a good parent during some crazy times. It was very important to me to show a side of him which was never really revealed to the public during his life and to show what he learned along the way.
Is that where [George’s daughter] Kelly comes into the picture for this project? Obviously being as close to him as she was, and being that beacon of being able to deliver his story from a closer source, was that part of the initial idea once you started in on it? How did that collaboration come together?
I had met Kelly a bunch of times through Garry Shandling, and we knew each other a little bit. I had spoken to her on the phone before we started working on this, and she encouraged me to be bold and inventive with the movie because her dad wouldn’t want something that was just generic. We looked around for people who were very close to George, but he was a bit of a solitary person, and there weren’t a lot of friends floating around out there. I think he did his work, he went home to his family, and there weren’t twenty buddies sitting around with tons of great stories, so it was up to his brother Patrick, who sadly just passed away, and Kelly to illuminate what he was like and how his journey was. We also spoke to his second wife, Sally Wade, and she let us know what he was like in the final years of his life.
You mention how you were scared about screwing it up. Once things started rolling, was there ever a point in putting this documentary together that you second-guessed yourself on delivering George’s story? Obviously, people on the outside would think it makes perfect sense for someone of your caliber to do this, but you’re also always your own worst critic.
There was one moment that we thought we wouldn’t be able to do him justice, because we couldn’t find enough people who were there during certain moments in his life. But then, we discover that when he was working on his autobiography, he had recorded twenty-three hours worth of interviews about his life with his co-writer, Tony Hendra. We were able to get those tapes, and they were very illuminating. They were done in a very casual, honest manner, where it was just George telling Tony about his life, and how he felt about the stuff that had happened to him.
Once we knew about those, we knew we would essentially have George be his own narrator, and that’s when I realized that we could tell this story correctly.
And helping you tell this story is Michael Bonfiglio. You’ve worked with Michael before on Gary Gulman’s The Great Depresh, as well as The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, which are both outstanding pieces of work, I might add. You’ve created some outstanding art together over the years, but if you had to dig into it, what does his collaboration bring to the table for a project like this? What do you feel makes you guys such an effective dual force?
I think we’re both interested in the emotional. We haven’t tried to just tell the story of creative projects and moments. We’re attempting to reveal who these people are, and how that led to their artistic life. In showing both their personal struggles and artistic struggles, and how they fed into each, in an attempt to get to a deeper truth that becomes more universal for people.
I met Michael when he was directing an episode of Iconoclasts about me and Lena Dunham. He did such an incredible job on it, and as we were shooting it, I could tell he was a really special documentarian and person. I got asked to direct a 30 for 30 for ESPN [Doc & Darryl], but I truly didn’t know how to do it, so I asked Michael t do it with me, and he’s just a very compassionate, brilliant, intuitive filmmaker, and I really got lucky that I stumbled into him, because we’re both very in sync with the types of documentaries we like to make.
Having covered Garry Shandling, and now Carlin, it makes me curious. Is there some sort of master list tucked away somewhere where you’re checking off these icons you want to take a deep dive into?
I can’t say I have a list, but we’ve always wanted to do Harold Ramis, and I love a lot of comedians, but it’s really about finding people who have a story and it needs to be a situation where the family or he person is willing to let you tell it honestly, because so much of what is important is to show the mistakes people have made. A lot of what families might want to cut out are the things we would want to explore because it is what made the person. How did the evolve? What bumps did they hit along the way?
Absolutely. In that regard, with a presentation of this magnitude pointing a magnifying glass over such an interesting and heavily layered character like Carlin, what are some things you hope viewers take away from it?
I think what is impressive about him is that he didn’t rest on his laurels multiple times during his life. He made adjustments in his creative approach and improved his skills as a thinker and a comedian. When most people would be running out of gas, he put his pedal to the metal. When Sam Kinision hit, he said he didn’t want to be stuck eating his dust, so he wanted to become a better writer, and then did some of the best work of his career later in his career.
The story also covers what his wife Brenda went through as a young woman who was working at a club when she met Geroge, and fell in love, but later in life, she realized that he was out of town a lot and she was very lonely, and she didn’t really feel like she had a path to pursue her dreams, which led to alcoholism and a lot of struggles that she ultimately worked through, and was able to work in production with George and HBO. She was able to accomplish an enormous amount, but it definitely was about a time when it was much more difficult for women to pursue their careers and accomplish their goals while parenting. They had a very tumultuous relationship because he was addicted to cocaine for awhile, and she was an alcoholic for a period, and it was very difficult on Kelly, but they ultimately worked through it, and unlike a lot of couples, they survived it and had a lot of happy times later in their relationship. So, that’s a very human and beautiful story.
Another big part of this project are the people who spoke about George’s influence on him. You’ve Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Patton Oswalt, and so many others who revere George. You’ve worked alongside these comedians for years, but when you sat down with them, what was it like to be able to wax on about such a huge influence you all share?
When we would interview the comedians, they were all really passionate because he was such an inspiration to everybody. He’s on all of our Mt. Rushmore of comedy, and he’s the reason why so many of us got into comedy in the first place. What’s funny is that everyone has this encyclopedic knowledge about his work and career, so it was a lot of fun to kick it around with other comedians and to get their perspective about how he changed comedy, and how he affected their approach to comedy. I don’t think there’s almost anybody who wouldn’t have been appropriate to speak in the documentary, though, because he meant so much to so many of us.
Switching gears a bit, you’ve also had a few other projects already make their way into the world this year with your book, Sicker In The Head, and your Netflix movie, The Bubble. With those in mind, in addition to George Carlin’s American Dream, how does it feel having all of this creative fruition coming out not so much all at once, but so close together?
Well, I sometimes try to have everything come out at once because it’s easier for me to work really hard, take a few months, talk about the projects, and then go back to work. I thought I hadn’t worked all that hard during the pandemic, but then once the pandemic was slowing down, I realized that I had made The Bubble for Netflix, and I worked on the book, and also the Carlin documentary. So, now I look at it and think that I must’ve been out of my mind. [laughs] There was something wrong with me, because I didn’t really think I was in workoholism mode, and i must’ve been just frenzied and manic to have so many projects going at the same time.
But that’s where I go for safety. I turn to comedy. My passion for these projects must’ve been my safe space.
At the end of it, do you feel like that made you a stronger writer or comedian, after putting yourself into it 150% from all these different angles?
I always hope that I learn something from anything I do. The reason why I did a book like Sicker In The Head where I get to interview people like Samantha Bee, Ramy Youssef, and Sacha Baron Cohen is because I want to get better. I want to figure out what I don’t know. I always come at it like a fan or an amateur, and that is definitely the best approach for me, because I never want to feel cocky or like there’s nothing to learn. It’s always better for me to feel like I’ve only learned eight percent of what I’m supposed to know. Then I can explore what’s possible.
I feel the same way. It’s always good to try and get better and try to see things from different angles. And personally, it means a lot to me, as someone who has grown up as such a fan of your work to hear your perspective on your approach, and this book has helped me see the art of interviewing in a different light, as well. So, thank you for that.
Well, I hope the book helps people with their creative ambitions. When I was young, there were no books of interviews with comedians, or podcasts, or the internet, so if I wanted to know something, I had to hunt Jay Leno or Harold Ramis down and ask them questions, which is what I did for my high school radio station. Sicker In The Head is the book I wish I had when I was growing up.
What I like about it is how people explain how they do what they do, but they’re also talking about how they stay sane, how we figure out our work-life balance, how we work to stay creative after working for a long time. They’re really just deep conversations about how everyone is doing, where everyone is sharing not only what has been difficult, but what has been fun about this comedy journey.
With all of this going on, and everything coming out fairly close to each other, what has been the most rewarding aspect, or rather the biggest takeaway for you in regards to these projects? And does it translate to excitement for what’s next?
You never really know what you took away from the last project and bring into the next. I made a movie with Pete Davidson that was very heartfelt and grounded [The King of Staten Island], and then the next movie I made was The Bubble which is really silly and bonkers, so the road is bumpy and all over the place, but the most important thing is to just continue doing things that I’m passionate about. I never want to work just to work. I want to work because I want to explore something and try to learn something, or express something I haven’t expressed yet. I try not to think about it too much because I always wind up doing something differently than I thought I was going to do, and hopefully someone somewhere is getting something out of it.
You make these things and they’re like messages in a bottle, where you don’t know how people reacted to it, whether they loved it or hated it. The best you can do is just send it out and hope it does some good.
The first part of ‘George Carlin’s American Dream’ premieres on HBO on Friday, May 20 at 8 p.m. EDT, with the second part airing on Saturday, May 21 at the same time. Both episodes will be available to stream on HBO Max starting on May 20.