When comedian Amy Schumer opened up about some family and personal issues during an interview with Howard Stern a few years ago, she had no idea that filmmaker Judd Apatow was listening in.
“I was just trying to promote some road dates,” Schumer said during the recent South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, “so this worked out way better.”
Apatow and Schumer didn’t know one another, but the director was impressed with the way Schumer mixed humor and poignancy in her storytelling. He wanted to hear more.
So Apatow (Knocked Up) encouraged Schumer to try her hand at screenwriting, and the result is Trainwreck, an autobiographical raunchy romantic comedy with more serious undertones that the comedian’s fans might not recognize.
“If you look at people that are huge stars now, [Apatow] put them in movies before you knew who they were,” Schumer said. “He has a good sense. He saw me as somebody who could make that transition. He wants people to let themselves be vulnerable and tell a story. The confidence to write the script probably would have never come to me without him encouraging me the whole time.”
In the film, she plays Amy, a journalist for a trashy Manhattan men’s magazine whose latest assignment from her heartless editor (Tilda Swinton) is a profile of Aaron (Bill Hader), a surgeon specializing in sports medicine, and whose protective best friend happens to be basketball superstar LeBron James.
Meanwhile, Amy’s personal life is a mess of empty promiscuity and uncomfortable visits with her younger sister (Brie Larson) and her dying father (Colin Quinn), whose bigotry and stubbornness has driven away those around him, including his ex-wife. He’s responsible for instilling in Amy at a young age the mantra that “monogamy isn’t realistic.”
Still, Amy finds herself drawn to Aaron despite their lack of common interests, and their relationship develops, Amy begins to realize that her callous attitude toward romance has prevented her from meeting quality men.
“I was falling in love when I wrote Trainwreck, and I was scared out of my mind. I wasn’t even enjoying it. It was making me laugh, but I was feeling sick all the time. It’s like being on drugs,” Schumer said. “I didn’t really know what was up with me. I hadn’t really taken a look at myself and my behavior until [Apatow] encouraged me to do that. It was really hard, but it was good. It was overwhelming.”
Schumer said the tendency to blend comedy and drama comes naturally for her, even if she has a romantic outlook that’s a little offbeat.
“I’m very hopeful and I was raised on all the fairy tales that everyone else was,” Schumer said. “But I just noted that everyone’s mom was dead and real princesses get beheaded, so I just have a more realistic take on it. So does Judd. We both have experienced a lot of pain, and try to do our best to cope with it by making ourselves and people laugh.”
In recent years, Schumer admits she’s incorporated more real-life material into her stand-up routines, but perhaps less so on “Inside Amy Schumer,” her sketch-comedy television show that’s now in its third season. So she’s not really the drunken floozy that she plays on TV, or at least not entirely.
“People know that it’s a major exaggeration. Or if they meet me, they’ll realize that really quick,” Schumer said. “I’ve accumulated these stories over a lifetime, but when you hear them all together, it sounds like I must live with my legs over my shoulders. I completely love sex and don’t feel shy about feeling entitled to an orgasm if I’m having sex with somebody, but I don’t really have that much of it. I don’t think I’m promiscuous.”
Schumer, 34, is comfortable in the knowledge that she might not fit the physical mold of contemporary Hollywood leading ladies, but she views that as a benefit, especially for a self-deprecating comic.
“People make fun of my teeth,” she said. “I have these little rabbit teeth. And I love them. I think they’re really cute. But everyone will put a picture of me next to a chipmunk and things like that. But I don’t want to look like everyone else. I want to be myself and embrace that.”
