Apatow reunited with Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler in comedy that looks at what to do with a second chance at life

By Nina Riley and Robin Rowe

Adam Sandler in Funny People

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 7/31/2009 – “I last did stand-up around eight years ago,” says Funny People star Seth Rogen. “I did it once I moved to L.A., but I was already on a TV show. The only places I could get time were the Laugh Factory and the Comedy Store. I stopped because I started writing screenplays.” Rogen got his start in stand-up at age 13 in Vancouver.

“I used to do standup,” says Funny People star Adam Sandler. “Whoever was in the crowd, I could adapt a little bit. I had to be a little gross at all times, but I would phrase it a little more gently if there was an older woman in the audience. I was filthy back then.”

Funny People is the story of a famous comedian who gets a second chance after he has a near-death experience. Funny People writer-director Judd Apatow addresses the question: If you had the chance to start all over again, would you be the same jerk you always were?

“As a person working in comedy I often think, ‘Why do I do this? What’s wrong with me? What led me here?’,” says Apatow. As he began to write Funny People, he drew inspiration from a freak, life-changing occurrence that happened at his Southern California home in 1994. “When the Northridge earthquake hit, my chimney fell through the roof of my bedroom. The only reason I wasn’t there was because I was painting the house. For about three days, I really appreciated life…but just for three days. The movie is based on that idea: If you survive, do you learn anything from it that you keep using in your life?”

Judd Apatow’s lifelong fascination with stand-up and the people who make it began with his mother, Tami Shad, who worked in a comedy club in Southampton on Long Island. In high school, Apatow created a radio talk show and interviewed comic performers he admired, including Howard Stern, Steve Allen,Paul Reiser and John Candy. Apatow began performing stand-up by the end of his senior year. After dropping out of USC School of Cinema, Apatow worked took a full-time gig at the Improv Comedy Club in Los Angeles. Success came to Apatow not as a performer, but as a writer for his longtime roommate Adam Sandler.

Funny People is director Judd Apatow’s third film, after The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. The question is, can Funny People be funny for two hours and twenty minutes?

Funny People
Running Time: 2 hr. 20 min.
Release Date: July 31st, 2009 (USA)
MPAA Rating: R for language and crude sexual humor throughout, and some sexuality
Distributor: Universal Pictures