Judd Apatow Makes Me Want to Be a Mentor (And Also Have a Mentor)

Judd Apotow was on Fresh Air earlier this month and I just listened to it and had a THOUGHT. His approach to mentorship is really cool, especially this idea that by giving someone one opportunity you are changing their life trajectory, and therefore have some responsibility in their lives going forward: “When we did Freaks and Geeks and there were all these kids around, and I thought they all deserved to be the stars of movies and to write movies and to do everything. It felt natural to say, hey, can I give you some advice? … I wanted them to succeed, because I felt like we’d changed their life trajectories by putting them on this TV show.”

ALSO FUN TRIVIA, he explains the capacity in which he helped Lena Dunham get Girls made and: She already had a development deal at HBO when he first contacted her, he just sped up that process, which can take years: “I was very aggressive about I really want to make this pilot. I don’t want Lena to have a script in development for two-and-a-half years. Let’s make the pilot. We’ll make it good. And they were very supportive to making it something that was real, and not just — you know, a lot of stuff goes into development and disappears.”

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