Filmmaker Judd Apatow has been one of the more vocal supporters of the #MeToo movement over the last year. He’s never been shy to make his feelings known about his support of people coming forward with abuse stories, as well as condemning those who perpetrate the misconduct. So, when Slash Film got an opportunity to sit with Apatow, they wanted to get his thoughts on the recent stories plaguing Hollywood, and specifically about a couple creators he might be familiar with.
“I think that it’s certainly a messy time and there are aspects of this that everyone is trying to navigate. Much of it hasn’t been worked out yet. How do we get to the truth? How are people judged? What should happen to people who commit crimes vs. what happens to people who have made mistakes both small and awful?” said Apatow. “For me, what’s most important is that women speak up and that we have these conversations and that we realize that there are large changes that need to be made and we do have to deal with everything that’s happened.”
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However, there has been a recent backlash against Apatow, about a perceived double-standard with the words he says about various other accused celebrities and his actions with someone like James Franco, who is a creative partner and friend. As has been previously reported, James Franco was accused by women in his acting class of inappropriate behavior. These accusations are compounded by an older news story where the actor had sexually suggestive conversations with an underage girl over social media.
Apatow has been quiet, for the most part, about the Franco accusations. And in the interview, he continues that trend, “Well, I’m not going to go into all my conversations with everybody. Oddly enough, I know an enormous amount of accusers and people who are being accused. I feel like in brief articles you can’t really get into the depth that you need to in order to be thoughtful and honest about it. Everybody wants that because it’s all click bait, but these situations are very complicated and they raise an enormous amount of questions. That doesn’t mean I let anybody off the hook for anything, but they’re not simple. We have a long way to go to figure out how we want to handle all of it.”
However, one filmmaker that Apatow is ready to talk about is none other than Terry Gilliam. As we reported recently, Gilliam came under fire for some comments he made about Harvey Weinstein and his accusers. Apatow said, “What is troubling about that is that [Gilliam] is basically saying that people were getting things out of their interactions with Harvey Weinstein, like it was some financial transaction for some of these people. When in fact, he doesn’t know anything about any of these situations. It’s a big leap to ‘this is how the business works and sometimes people get hurt but sometimes it works out for them.’ That’s a bunch of nonsense.”
Judd Apatow’s documentary, “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling,” premieres March 26 on HBO.