This is Judd Apatow

The following is a script from "Judd Apatow" which aired on Dec. 30, 2012. Anderson Cooper is the correspondent. Tom Anderson, producer.

Judd Apatow has become one of the most successful names in film comedy today. As writer, producer, and director, he's created a new form of comedy that's so popular many of Hollywood's top comedic actors want to work with him. We caught up with Apatow in Los Angeles as he was putting the finishing touches on his latest film called "This Is 40." Like many of his movies, it's about what he knows -- his family, his relationships, and the daily disappointments and dilemmas we all experience, but usually try to hide. Judd Apatow finds humor in all of it.

Anderson Cooper: There are comedians who tell jokes.

Judd Apatow: Yeah.

Anderson Cooper: But you don't tell jokes.

Judd Apatow: I literally cannot remember one joke.

There are not a lot of jokes in Judd Apatow's films. "This Is 40" centers on a man and his wife dealing with career failure and strains in their relationship.

["This Is 40" clip: "Have you ever thought about killing me?" "Oh, yeah?" "Really?" "Sure." "How would you do it?" "Wood chipper." "Wow." "I know."]

Anderson Cooper: What is your comedy? How do you describe it?

Judd Apatow: Just trying to tell the truth about, you know, the struggle of-- being alive is funny, it's just inherently tragic and also hilarious--in a fun way and in a sad way. That seems to connect with people.

The struggle to connect with people is a common theme with Apatow. His brand of comedy revels in awkward or painful situations he mines for revealing, humorous moments.

["This Is 40" clip: "So next time you think about writing something nasty on my daughter's Facebook page, I will come down here and I will..."]

Anderson Cooper: It's funny, but it-- it's also kind of startling.

Judd Apatow: It is, it is. But we all want to scream at that little boy. In life, most of us don't scream at that boy most of the time. I have said to the boy, "Watch it. Watch it. Be nice to my daughter." But I never got into the full scream, like in the movie.

Judd Apatow doesn't just make movies based on his own family, he actually uses his family in his films. That's Apatow's wife, Leslie Mann... and those are his real children Maude and Iris.

["This Is 40" clip: "You can't do this, you can't take away the wifi." "You need to get outside more, do some playing outside. You could build a fort outside." "What?" "Play kick the can. Get a tire and then just take a stick and run down a street with it." "Nobody does that crap it's 2012." "You don't need technology. No technology!"

Maude Apatow: In the movie, they take away--

Anderson Cooper: Right.

Maude Apatow: --the wifi out of the house. And they actually did take the wifi out of our house.

Visiting Apatow's home feels like stepping into an Apatow movie.

Anderson Cooper: Why did you take the wifi out of the house?

Judd Apatow: We think there's electronic waves which do bad things to your brain.

Anderson Cooper: Oh, okay.

Judd Apatow: We don't have any proof, but...

Anderson Cooper: Do you like having your whole family in your movies?

Judd Apatow: Yeah, no, I really like it. It's kind of like this. Like this is what the day is like. They are weirdly comfortable together and funny and it's nice to, you know, see them every day.

Anderson Cooper: How did it start? How did you--

Judd Apatow: I just thought it would be interesting to see a real family in a movie because it's always frustrating that you can tell the kids aren't the kids of those actors.

Anderson Cooper: Do you ever find it too personal? Like discussions you've had end up in a movie?

Leslie Mann: I like that. I'm-- that's-- you know-- my favorite thing is-- like, the more uncomfortable, the better.

Anderson Cooper: Has there been a moment or-- in any film where your wife has said, "Do not put this in a movie"?

Judd Apatow: No. She says something very different, which is, "Oh yeah? You wanna put that in the movie? Why don't we show you doing this?" You know? "Let's do the scene where you're weird about having sex during pregnancy." And so she evens it out, she doesn't, say, lose anything.

The scene he's talking about wound up in his hit film "Knocked Up," which is about two mismatched singles who have a one night stand that results in a pregnancy. Like his new film, "This Is 40," it reflects Apatow's own insecurities. While it's hard to find a comedian who is not a bit insecure, Apatow takes it to an extreme. He was even agitated about sitting down to talk with us.

Judd Apatow: I had to think about which shirt would look good. I worried if the hair was going to come out from outside my shirt. I wonder if you could see that I have a gray nostril hair. I've been watching this show my entire life, so this is like important to me. I hope I don't screw it up.

Anderson Cooper: You've given more thought to this than I have, I have to admit.

Judd Apatow: I know. 'Cause I-- then I think, he doesn't even care, he doesn't even care about me.

It sounds like he's kidding, but he's not and Apatow writes that fear and anxiety into his characters.

["The 40-Year-Old Virgin" clip: "I respect women, I love women, I respect them so much I stay completely away from them."]

The first hit movie he wrote, produced, and directed, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," stars Steve Carell as a socially immature adult unable to relate to women, never mind date them.

Anderson Cooper: You have made a career out of your lack of comfort.

Judd Apatow: Yes. Writing is about trying to figure something out about yourself and about life.

Anderson Cooper: It sounds a lot like therapy.

Judd Apatow: It is. It is a kind of therapy. It's almost like a letter to yourself. You're trying to frame your life and understand how you got here, and what you should do now.

Apatow has wanted to be a comedian since he was a teenager growing up in Syosset, N.Y. He worked at his high school radio station, and sought out stand up comedians like Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld to interview.

Anderson Cooper: What was it about these guys that you wanted to be like?

Judd Apatow: I just liked funny people who said that life wasn't fair, systems weren't fair. I felt like a nerd, I was, like, the goofy kid getting picked last in gym class.

Anderson Cooper: Literally, You'd get picked last?

Judd Apatow:

I mean, literally, like, after all the girls and people with disabilities, you know. And it's a rough thing to go through every day for 10 years.

Apatow moved to Los Angeles and tried turning those painful high school experiences into stand-up routines. His roommate, Adam Sandler, was making it big in stand-up. But Apatow's act wasn't working.

Judd Apatow: So the night would be, like, Sandler and Paul Reiser and then Robin Williams would pop in and Ellen DeGeneres was there. And by the end of the night I would just feel like, "I'm not as good as any of these people--and I just don't see it happening."

What did begin to happen says Adam Sandler, is that Apatow began to make a name for himself as a writer of comedy for other people.

Adam Sandler: But then this guy started constantly writing and then he'd get paid so he was the first guy I saw just write. None of us were doing that yet.

Judd Apatow: I realized that-- you know, how I feel about life works better in writing scenes and showing the different point of views that people have with each other. It just worked better than me, you know, giving a speech.

Judd Apatow executive produced a show called "Freaks and Geeks." In it he wrote about his experiences as a lonely child of divorce, back in Syosset, when every day after school he studied comedians on TV talk shows.

Judd Apatow: There's a moment where Bill Haverchuck comes home from school and he lives alone with his mom. I lived alone with my dad when I was a kid. And he makes grilled cheese sandwich, cuts a big piece of chocolate Entenmann's cake, he puts on "The Dinah Shore Show" and Garry Shandling comes on. And he goes from being miserable to just laughing and having the best time ever alone in his room. And that was, you know, a large amount of my afternoons when I was a kid.

"Freaks and Geeks" was canceled after just one season, but it gave Apatow an early vision for what he wanted his work to be, a model he has stuck with to this day. Seth Rogen and Jason Segel, who were unknown teenagers when Apatow cast them in "Freaks and Geeks," continue to appear in many of his movies and Apatow helps produce theirs.

Anderson Cooper: When Judd started working with you, do you know what he said about you?

Seth Rogen: No.

Anderson Cooper: He was quoted as saying, "This is the weirdest, oddest person I've ever seen."

Seth Rogen: I can see that. I was a weird kid.

Apatow has helped turn Seth Rogen and Jason Segel into comedic stars.

Jason Segel: I could be wrong but I always felt like there was some element of like a Monte Christo style revenge on your part like, "Oh really? I'm going to make these guys so famous like now what..."

Anderson Cooper: What do you think of his comedy? What do you think sets it apart?

Seth Rogen: I think a lot of the thing that's great about it is it's really funny. It makes people laugh really hard. I think a lot of comedies just don't have is movies with very good, emotional stories, you know?

Anderson Cooper: There's a humanity to it?

Seth Rogen: Yeah. And just emotional stories that make sense.

Jason Segel: Cause you get tired of, like-- a movie that's all about jokes after about 30 minutes. That's why a sitcom--

Seth Rogen: For sure.

Jason Segel: -- is that length.

Seth Rogen: Yeah.

Judd Apatow's films are certainly not for everyone. His critics say they are too long and the humor often too juvenile.

Anderson Cooper: There is a lot of bathroom humor in a lot of your films.

Judd Apatow: Yeah.

Anderson Cooper: Do you ever feel like it's too much? Or that it's immature?

Judd Apatow: I just find immaturity is funny. I think we all start out pretty immature, and then we have to have this moment where we decide like, "I'm not going to behave like that anymore." And I don't even know if that's a good thing.

Anderson Cooper: You haven't reached that stage yet?

Judd Apatow: Not really.

Apatow is also highly sought after as a producer on other people's movies, like "Bridesmaids," which grossed nearly $300 million.

["Anchorman" clip: "I am Ron Burgundy. You stay classy San Diego."]

And he worked on "Anchorman" written by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. They agreed to talk about how Apatow works, but first they had to get some jokes out of their system while getting made up.

Adam McKay: "Has Judd Apatow hurt people? Oh sure. You're damn right he has."

Will Ferrell: "He has made a lot of money dealing arms?" "You betcha. He's one of the best."

Adam McKay: "Judd Apatow is a monster." Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

As a producer, Apatow encouraged Ferrell and McKay to push the comedy to ridiculous extremes. Particularly in a scene in which two stations' news teams face off in a fight.

Adam McKay: All Judd did as a producer would say was, "There's more here." Ferrell and I sat down, we're like, "All right what happens if another news team shows up, what happens if another...?" And then we wrote the whole gang fight.

Will Ferrell: "What happens if there's a guy on fire and someone on horseback? What would happen?"

What happened is that Anchorman took in more than $90 million. Now they're all working together on a sequel.

Anderson Cooper: Is his sense of humor different than yours?

Will Ferrell: Judd, probably, is a little more story driven than we are.

Anderson Cooper: He wants there to be a through line or--

Will Ferrell: But-- exactly. Yea.

Anderson Cooper: -- or sort of emotional story?

Adam McKay: He's got that crazy idea that there has to be a through line.

Apatow's crazy ideas are more in demand than ever. He's one of the executive producers on the critically acclaimed HBO series "Girls," and just guest edited a comedy issue of "Vanity Fair" magazine.

Anderson Cooper: You once said that when someone is laughing at something you've written, you know he doesn't dislike you.

Judd Apatow: Yes, it's-- I--

Anderson Cooper: What do you mean by that?

Judd Apatow: Well, I-- if you can make somebody laugh, you may not know they like you, but you know they don't hate you.

Anderson Cooper: And that matters to you?

Judd Apatow: It shouldn't, but it does.