Strange Bedfellows: Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann on 'This Is 40' LOS ANGELES -- Some couples throw themselves into their work so they can spend more time apart from each other, and then there are collaborators like Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann. This husband-and-wife team has become increasingly intertwined over the course of films like "Knocked Up" and "Funny People," which Mr. Apatow wrote and directed and in which Ms. Mann played supporting characters. That partnership reaches a culmination of sorts in Mr. Apatow's new movie, "This Is 40," in which Ms. Mann and Paul Rudd reprise their "Knocked Up" roles as a married couple -- not unlike Ms. Mann and Mr. Apatow -- beset by problems at their workplaces and in their family. The film, which Universal will release on Dec. 21, also features Mr. Apatow and Ms. Mann's daughters, Maude and Iris Apatow, who once again play the children of Ms. Mann and Mr. Rudd's characters. All of which must make things interesting when the Apatow family goes home at the end of the day. Mr. Apatow says "This Is 40" is a movie he would not have attempted without the input of Ms. Mann -- even if the film is not precisely a representation of their private lives. The couple spoke together recently for an Arts & Leisure article about the making of "This Is 40"; in these edited excerpts from that conversation, they discuss their working process, the risks of involving their children and deciding just how much of their real lives to leave out. How does a process that leads to a film like "This Is 40" first begin? Leslie Mann It's a constant conversation. Sometimes it's observing him doing something that bothers me and it's easier for me to talk about it like the two characters and how they would handle that situation. Like his playing online Scrabble in the bathroom, for example? Mann Usually I check Twitter and he's on Twitter. Judd Apatow But then we think of the worst interaction we can have about that issue, to make it funny. Did you work together similarly on "Knocked Up"? Apatow It happened slowly during "Knocked Up," as the script was forming. Leslie would say, "Why are you having them do that? That's not what would happen. And then she would pitch another scene to counter that scene. Mann In support of the female characters. When things are lopsided, I fight for them to be a little more even. One of the scenes was the scene where they try to have sex while she's pregnant. That was a "countering the likability of Ben" pitch. [laughs] To show that he wasn't handling things well, and what a pain it would be to be with him. Were there conversations about things you didn't want brought into the new movie? Mann We had some concerns about parent stuff. I have vague memories of not wanting to talk about certain things, like your things. Apatow Well, don't talk about them here! [laughs] There's a lot of real personal problems not in the movie. There's eight more movies of material. But not everything in "This Is 40" is directly correlated to something that really happened to you. Apatow A lot of it is fabricated to get across certain points. Things at their worst, or the way we wish things were, or things that we've seen happen to other people. We're always debating, do we need more fake stuff to throw people off the trail? Can we blame this on Paul [Rudd]? We're always saying anything weird in the movie is Paul. Your daughters, Maude and Iris, have more substantial roles in "This Is 40" than they did in "Knocked Up." Did you have to think about the consequences of giving them that much responsibility? Mann I think it's really important that they are kids and get to experience a normal kid life, and go through school. But now Maude's fighting to do other things, be a little more involved. And she's very persuasive. At the same time she seems to have her head on straight and can handle certain things. We're just letting her do a little bit - like letting her do her Twitter thing and finding her voice. It seems to be a positive thing so far. And then Iris is just a kid, so she doesn't care at all. They don't get to watch the movies, their friends don't watch the movies, so they don't even care. Did they get to watch "Knocked Up"? Mann No. Apatow Iris hasn't seen anything, and shows an incredible lack of interest in ever seeing anything. [laughs] There are no mermaids in the movies, so she doesn't care. And when we finally told Maude that she could watch all of our movies, she watched like half of one and lost interest. I did show her this movie. Mann Did she like it? Apatow She seemed to like it. It didn't blow her mind too much. And it doesn't seem to have done any lasting psychological damage, from watching it. I think that comes from being bored of being around all this, in a strangely healthy way. It's all demystified. Was it hard to shoot the scene where Maude gets so angry that she blows up and curses at Leslie? Mann Where she has the breakdown? Oh my gosh. She was so good. That was the moment where I think she put it all together and realized how it all works. Apatow She was deeply upset, because she was nervous about doing it. And then used it in the scene. She's crying because she didn't think she could do it, and then she used her cry about feeling insecure in the scene and then just screamed at Leslie. Do you feel that working with your children like this strengthens the family bond? Apatow I think it does. I've tried to explain to them why we do it. This is what creative people do. They share their lives, they let other people that they feel the same things as them, that we're all in this together. It's a positive to talk about how you're experiencing this life. It's O.K. for her to be the screaming, emotional kid because there's millions of other kids who feel that way, and when they watch that, they'll laugh, and they'll feel better about themselves, that they're not alone in that. Leslie, are you ever criticized for making movies with your husband? Mann Yeah. I hear it when I'm stupidly on the Internet reading what those - Apatow 11-year-old boys. Mann - 11-year-old boys are writing. Apatow You give your self-esteem away so quickly to an 11-year-old boy. [laughs] Mann [Those comments] hurt my feelings. But I know that there's so much more. I'm not just the girl who's in Judd's movie. I'm giving much more. It's such a collaboration. If I wasn't here, it wouldn't exist in the way it does. Does it all ever feel like a big social experiment, to see what happens over these movies as the four of you work increasingly closely together? Apatow For me, because it all started with watching Garry Shandling do it [on "The Larry Sanders Show," where Mr. Apatow was a writer and producer], it felt natural to do personal work. And I'm not an actor. So the closest way to get at it is to involve the people in my life, to collaborate that way. And then suddenly, it felt like it would be a thousand times better if it was Leslie. And even better than that, if it was Leslie and our children - you would get something that you don't normally see on screen, which is a truth that doesn't really exist in most movies. But we didn't think about the ramifications of it. We just thought, Oh, it'll be better. We can tell more and we do have things that we all want to say. We didn't think, Has anyone ever done this before? Mann I don't think we'll do it again, though. Apatow No, we're gonna. This is like "7 Up." It's interesting to see Maude and Iris at that age [in "Knocked Up"], and then suddenly Maude's 13, 14. And she's a real teenager. That leap for the audience would have real impact, and to see Pete and Debbie six years later. "How are they doing?" seemed worthy of exploration. [lower tone] And it will always seem worthy of exploration. [laughs] Every seven years for the rest of your life.