From Variety WGA Awards special issue
The success of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" surely
has something to do with how well the concept clicks with each of its
writers. Carell, for instance, says he wasn't a teenage Casanova. "I
thought about how timid I was personally around the opposite sex," he
recalls, "and how I tried to appear as more knowledgeable than I
actually was."
Such memories are what prompted Carell, during his
Second City days, to improvise a scene in which guys at a poker table
trade sex stories, and Carell's character can't keep up. Many years
later, when Carell started stealing scenes in the Apatow-produced
"Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," he was invited to pitch ideas.
Carell brought up the poker scene, and it became the inciting incident
for "Virgin."
Having exec produced the TV show "Freaks and
Geeks," Apatow maintains an affinity for the latter breed. "They're not
the kids who are trying to lose their virginity," he says. "They're the
kids who are terrified of kissing a girl."
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