The 40 Year-Old Virgin
Short description
Andy Stitzer is forty years old and content with a quiet routine: a job processing invoices at an electronics store, an apartment filled with action figures and comics, and a circle of friends. What sets him apart from his coworkers is that he has never had sex, a fact they treat as a problem to be solved. They set out to change his situation, with little success, until Andy meets Trish, a single mother who runs her own business. The two begin a relationship, but its terms soon complicate the plans his friends had in mind.
Judd Apatow directed the film and wrote the screenplay with Steve Carell, who plays Andy. It was Apatow's first feature as director, followed by Knocked Up, Funny People, This Is 40, Trainwreck, The King of Staten Island and The Bubble. Catherine Keener plays Trish, with Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks among the supporting cast. The production had a budget of 26 million dollars and took about 177 million dollars worldwide, a strong return that helped establish Apatow as a filmmaker and Carell as a leading comedy performer.
On IMDb the film holds 7.1 out of 10 from roughly 499,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.4 from over 7,400 votes. A critics' rating of 7.5 from 191 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores, though all three measures point to a broadly favorable reception. The film runs 116 minutes.
What's left behind the scenes
- Approximately 15 minutes of footage had to be removed from the final version of the film to avoid receiving an NC-17 rating (the most restrictive rating currently in use, which cinema administrations generally prefer to avoid).
- Steve Carell was so worried, fearing the studio would shut down the project, that he asked the screenwriters to prepare an alternate script without a single swear word.
- The lyrics to the "beautiful Guatemalan love song" that Javier sings to Paula translate as follows: "When I tidy up my room\I can't find anything\Where are you rushing to?\To football." According to Jane Lynch, who played Paula, this is a textbook dialogue from a middle school Spanish course that she remembered.
- To prepare for the role, Steve Carell lost 13 kilograms.
- Filming the scene where Andy's chest hair is removed required the presence of five cameras. Actor Steve Carell, after consulting with the director, decided to forgo special effects and other tricks, and actually remove the hair. "The scene needs to look real; the audience will sense a cheat if we try to cut corners, and won't laugh." Logically, the scene was filmed in one take.
- According to Judd Apatow, during the first preview screening of the film, he recorded the audience's laughter on a tape recorder; when it came time to edit the film for release, he synchronized the action on screen with the recorded laughter; scenes without audience laughter were either completely cut or re-edited.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
