Paul Feig Wrote “Freaks and Geeks ”About His Own High School Experience, but Didn't Expect 'Old Friend' Judd Apatow to Produce It
- - Paul Feig Wrote “Freaks and Geeks ”About His Own High School Experience, but Didn't Expect 'Old Friend' Judd Apatow to Produce It
Virginia ChamleeJanuary 12, 2026 at 12:00 AM
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Manoli Figetakis/WireImage; NBCU Photo Bank/Getty
Paul Feig, the 'Freaks and Geeks' cast -
Director Paul Feig says he didn't have high hopes for his script for Freaks and Geeks – until his "old friend" agreed to produce it
"I've always wanted to do something about my high school experience," Feig said during a recent podcast appearance
When he sent the script to his friend Judd Apatow, everything changed
Director Paul Feig is sharing how his own high school experience informed the making of Freaks and Geeks, a beloved coming-of-age teen dramedy that ran for only one season on NBC but developed a cult following.
Feig, the filmmaker behind Bridesmaids and Another Simple Favor, spoke about the show on an episode of the Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson podcast last month.
"I wrote it as a spec," Feig, 63, said, referencing a script written by someone who isn't paid upfront, and instead hopes to sell it to a studio or producer.
"I was out on the road trying to promote this low-budget independent film that I wrote, directed, and starred in that never got released, and was just out on this college tour with it and thought, 'Oh, I've gotta write something,'" he continued.
— sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories."I was always writing," Feig added. "I mean, I'm constantly writing scripts. And, yeah, I've always wanted to do something about my high school experience and wrote it as a spec, and sent it to Judd [Apatow], who's an old friend. And, yeah, he picked it up. So, I mean, it was crazy."
The show — set in a suburban Michigan high school between 1980 and 1981 — was ultimately executive produced by Apatow and premiered Sept. 25, 1999."So, I created this show thinking it was probably the one that wasn't gonna go. Like, all the other things I wrote, I was so into because they were all these movie scripts. And this was the first time I went, like, 'Maybe I'll write, like, an hour TV show," Feig recalled, noting that his friend Matt Reeves had recently co-created the hour-long show Felicity with JJ Abrams at the time.
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Paul Feig
"I go, 'The hour format. That's kinda like a movie, so I'll write it for that,'" Feig continued. "And then suddenly, I had a show on the air."
Feig added that he met Apatow when the producer was "16 or 17 years old," noting that they "were all stand-ups together."
Given their shared background, the Housemaid director said working with Apatow came easily.
"Well, comedic actors are great because they're team players, because you can't do it by yourself. It's not like, stand-up [comics] sometimes aren't great, you know, just because there's so much about being in control of themselves and getting the laugh," he said. "And there are ones that can be really good, but I find in general, it's more the people [who] come from the improv world tend to be the best — and the best actors, too."
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Although Freaks and Geeks was canceled after only 12 of its 18 episodes aired, the series jump-started the careers of many cast members who would go on to work with Apatow more frequently — such as Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Linda Cardellini, and more.
Following its short run, Freaks and Geeks was still nominated for three Emmy Awards, winning for outstanding casting for a comedy series in 2000.
In a 2015 interview with Esquire, Feig said he was dedicated to making the show a "super-accurate" depiction of high school life in that era.
Feig, who noted that he and his high school friends were "just the geekiest guys you ever wanted to meet," admitted that he brought all of his "old yearbooks in for the production designers and costumers" to ensure they were spot on.
NBCU Photo Bank via Getty (l-r) Martin Starr as Bill Haverchuck, John Francis Daley as Sam Weir, Samm Levine as Neal Schweiber in 'Freaks and Geeks'
"The show is very accurate to what my experience was growing up in the late '70s in Michigan," he said, noting that they even turned down the chance to work with Nike since the shoes didn't become popular in his hometown until the '80s.
"It was just that level of detail," he shared.
In fact, there was one episode in particular that Feig noted came straight from his own awkward high school experience.
"I mean, that whole disco Parisian nightsuit episode is based on when I was growing up. I was in a disco phase, and there was a disco store in the mall, which was exactly what we portrayed in the show," he recalled. "It actually looked exactly like that. It was called Silverman's."
"Wearing that sort of extreme style into the school was basically as it is in the show, where the minute I walked in, I realized, 'Oh my God, I made a huge mistake. I look so different than everybody else. This is just a major swing that should not have been taken.' And then I just had to try to get out of school."
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