Leslie Mann stars as Debbie in Knocked Up.
Actress Leslie Mann and her husband Judd Apatow, the writer, director and co-producer of Knocked Up, will be celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary shortly after the film opens on June 1st (they were married June 9th, 1997). She first met him on the set of The Cable Guy, which Apatow produced, and eventually went on to appear in Apatow’s TV series Freaks and Geeks TV series and his wildly successful 2005 feature directorial debut The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
But it is as Knocked Up’s Debbie, the complex sister of Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl), that Mann can lay claim to her most impressive and multi-layered film performance yet. Fandango recently sat down with Mann for a one-on-one interview at the Casa Del Mar Hotel in Santa Monica, to discuss what it’s like to work with the man you love (with a few comments from her director too).
Fandango: You did a nice job of keeping the balance between a stressed out wife and mom, and a sympathetic character. Were you concerned about that your character would be too unlikable?
Mann: Frankly I don’t like watching couples in movies, where the man is caressing the woman’s hair while they’re lying on the couch. That’s a fake version of [marriage]. So it was fun to do a playful and more truthful portrayal with heightened conflict. That’s what interested me about this role.
I wanted to be honest, but also to torque it a little bit, make Debbie an extreme person for the sake of comedy. It’s always kind of shocking and funny when you see people who are really honest about things that you don’t talk about in polite society. Talking about how they don’t want to have sex because she’s constipated… I mean that’s all stuff that me and my friends talk about, but you don’t see it on screen so much.
Fandango: What was it like directing your wife in this role? Were you worried the character might be too shrewish?
Apatow: I was nervous about it, because in some ways this material is a presentation of our lives through a funhouse mirror. The relationship [between Mann and Rudd] is based on things we deal with. And I didn't know if it would get difficult or touchy, or if Leslie would say, 'I don't want to say that!' In fact, it was the exact opposite. It was so easy and hilarious and smooth. Every second working with her was just a joy.
I don't know of anybody who is as strong an actress, who is willing to leave her guts on the floor, and also riotously funny. It's a rare combination, and I'm just so happy that she did so well. Because I've always believed that she could do something like this, so it's fun to finally see it happen.
Fandango: Judd told us that he felt much more relaxed on the Knocked Up set because he had the experience of directing The 40-Year-Old Virgin under his belt. From your end, did you notice a change?
Mann: Yeah, he seemed much more relaxed the second time around. I think he trusted himself and his instincts more. He creates such a safe working environment for an actor. You feel like everything you do is OK and good, and so you’re more willing to try new things and explore. You never feel judged by him, or that you’re doing something wrong and stupid. That’s how I think he gets these great performances out of people.
Fandango: As you and Judd got home each night from the Knocked Up set, would you be talking about the movie and issues surrounding the day’s production?
Mann: It is really fun for us to talk about the scenes and how they went. I’m an insecure actress sometimes, so he sets me at ease. So it’s a good thing to be married to the director, because I can query him all night long, ‘How was I? Was it OK? ’
Fandango: Tell us about the experience of making The Cable Guy, and meeting your future husband Judd through the movie?
Mann: I was so excited to get that part [Matthew Broderick’s girlfriend]. We went out together a couple of months into the shoot. Judd kind of tricked me into going off on dates with him. We went to a Lakers game for our first date.
Fandango: Is it hard for you, when playing opposite comedians like Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler (Big Daddy), Steve Carell and Paul Rudd to refrain from cracking up during a scene?
Mann: I try to play it real, so if Paul Rudd says something funny while he’s in character, it just irritates me - because I’m wanting to connect with him as part of a married couple and he’s trying to escape it by saying something funny! So no, it doesn’t crack me up, it just irritates me, which I guess works for the role. And with Jim Carrey, if you pay attention to how he’s behaving [in The Cable Guy], he’s so creepy that it’s not funny if it was a real situation. It’s fun in between takes and all that, but during scenes, I really generally don’t have to fight the urge to laugh.
Fandango: You have great chemistry in the film with Katherine Heigl, who plays your sister. Did that just come naturally?
Mann: I think casting Katherine was my idea, but others might disagree. But I did suggest to Judd “The Girl from Grey’s Anatomy.” And then she came in and she was just so much better than everybody else. She just had this great raw quality. She was awesome.
We hung out a lot during shooting. We were always in each other’s trailers and we just got along so well. I love her. I don’t have many actor friends, not that I look down on the profession! It’s just that I’m friends with all my friends from high school.
Fandango: Did you have any trepidation about putting your young kids in an R-rated movie?
Mann: Actually I did worry about casting our daughters, Maude and Iris [Apatow], as my own daughters in the movie, but Judd thought it was a good idea. I was saying, ‘No, no, no.’ Then time passed by and he worked on me and I said, ‘Maybe.’ And then it was a week before production, and Judd was saying that I had to tell him the final decision. He would ask me if it was OK when I was really busy, so I couldn’t really focus on it. And then it just ended up happening!
But it’s OK. We just kind of told [our daughter] Maude that she would need to talk about how babies are born, and she improvised that. That was all her. Maude is very comfortable improvising. We had three cameras on her and all those people standing all around her, and she was just really confident and it worked out really well.
Fandango: Do you think in a sense that Knocked Up is a chick flick in disguise, or a guy’s movie that approaches some classic elements of that genre?
Mann: I do think it is a chick flick, and I think guys are going to go bananas for it also. They’ll love it. I think it’s also fun for women to get an insight into the world of what guys talk about when they’re together, as you’ll see in the scenes of Seth and his housemates.
During the waiting room scene, I was stuck with all the boys on set for the shooting of that. And I was so disgusted by all the talk about porn sites…. But I had to sit there all day on the set and listen to them talk about the dirty, dirty stuff. There was one website in particular that I remember being really shocked by... sorry, but I can’t repeat the name for the Fandango readers. But Judd tapped into something that’s real, the way the young guys talk in the movie. And in some ways, it’s fun to see things that you’re not privy to, to see what 25-year-old guys act like.
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