Tanya Mosley

What are you looking for when you're working with someone who's – like you're just meeting them and you're trying to understand the thing?

Gary Shandling was like a father to you.

One of the things that, well, the Larry Sanders show was so brilliant.

And one of the things about it is that it satirized, you know, Hollywood and stardom and this need for that type of, like, attention.

And did you guys ever talk about that need?

Like, because there's, like, that need for attention that can never quite be satiated.

Let's take a short break.

If you're just joining us, my guest is filmmaker Judd Apatow.

We're talking about his new visual memoir, Comedy Nerd, a lifelong obsession in stories and pictures.

We'll continue our conversation after a short break.

This is Fresh Air.

Documentary filmmaking, the last few years, you have really been on a roll going back and revisiting all these folks that you really admire.

What was the turning point for you to say, I want to document these things?

What do you think you're searching for when you excavate so deep?

Because, I mean, this is work you've been doing since you were 10.

You've just been digging and digging and digging.

I want to ask you about something I know that you had to have thought about because of your Carlin documentary, because of your own politics.

There's this tension now between comedy as a business and comedy as truth-telling.

And we saw that with this Saudi Arabia festival where a bunch of comics went.

And they got a lot of money for it.