Judd Apatow, the director behind comedies “Knocked Up” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” admits his daughters don’t find him all that funny.
He revealed to Family Circle Magazine that his jokes usually bomb with his daughters Maude, 14, and Iris, 10.
“Everybody thinks their dad’s jokes are corny. I don’t get a free pass on that,” Apatow says in the interview. “In fact, Iris said to me once, ‘Most of your stuff isn’t funny at all. But I’m always surprised you make it work.’ I thought that was a pretty sophisticated way of attacking me.”
His daughters appear in his new flick “This Is 40” that also stars Apatow’s wife, Leslie Mann. He joked that when directing his kids, he spends half the day “begging them to eat fruit and not M&M’s.”
The actress is apparently the favorite parent in house, especially after she asked a certain teen heartthrob for a favor. “She starred in ‘17 Again’ with Zac Efron, so she had him call Maude at her birthday slumber party. All the girls went crazy. You can’t top that,” he says.
So does Apatow think he’ll ever be as cool to his kids as Leslie? “No. I get zero respect,” Apatow explains. “I always think at some point they’ll realize I worked on ‘Superbad.’ But that never happens. I’m just the goofy guy picking them up at volleyball.”