Judd Apatow’s new movie, The Bubble, is a pandemic masterpiece. Shot during the COVID-19 pandemic and coming to Netflix on April 1, The Bubble follows a troupe of actors as they “bubble” together on production of their new most recent blockbuster, Cliff Beasts 6. As you can probably imagine, things get a little crazy for the actors as production problems cause the shoot schedule to double, the actors are going nuts being kept in lockdown, and the studio takes its role in keeping the crew safe to an insane level.
The cast includes Karen Gillan, Fred Arminsen, Pedro Pascal, Leslie Mann, Iris Apatow, Keegan-Michael Key, Kate McKinnon, and David Duchovny. Duchovny plays Dustin, who is currently divorced from his co-star, Lauren (Mann), but in the bubble, that divorce doesn’t last long. Along the way, he tries desperately to rewrite the script, alienates his recently-adopted teenage son, and snorts cocaine off his co-star's bald head.
We spoke to Duchovny about working with Judd Apatow, bubbling for real, TikTok dancing, and touring during the pandemic. You can read a transcript below, but I recommend you watch the video. You don’t want to miss David making “sweet eyes!”
Collider: So tell me a little bit about how you got the role in The Bubble.
DAVID DUCHOVNY: Well, I've known Judd forever. I mean, when I did Larry Sanders, when I met Garry Shandling, Judd was 23 years old, I think. His first job was writing on Sanders, and met him then. And I can't remember the year I did it, but I did a movie with Jake Kasdan called The TV Set. And in that, I basically played Judd, because it was loosely based on Judd's and Jake's experience doing Freaks and Geeks. In fact, the day we did the table read before shooting that movie, was the night of the premiere of The 40-Year-Old Virgin. And so, it was very weird, because, in the morning, Judd was at the table as one of the producers, and I was just playing this guy named Judd Apatow that nobody knew.
And then I went to The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and it was like a revolution. It was like, ‘Oh my god, this is comedy now.’ It was the first hard R, raunchy comedy. And I was like, ‘Oh, Judd is at the forefront of something.’ And then he became a name, an adjective, a godfather of comedy. And I'm glad I played him before anybody really cared what he sounded or looked like. And so we've been kind of intersecting just throughout the years, and he called and said he wanted me to do this.
There was an ensemble of like, six leads, and I'd be playing an actor. And it's never my dream to play an actor, because I think we all do that a number of times. But I really dug the idea, and to be able to do it during the pandemic, kind of about what it's like to work during the pandemic. I just always wanted to get into Judd's comedic world, in that way. So I was happy, happy to finally, after all these years, make an entrance.
What was it like to work with him, especially after playing, essentially, him?
DUCHOVNY: Well, it's interesting, because I had never worked quite this way. It's very improvisational. I mean, I've improv’d, but I haven't improv’d on a movie set quite like that. And a lot of it is, Judd's on a microphone behind the monitor, and he's pitching, he's throwing out lines, he's throwing out stories. I mean, you'll hear something, camera's rolling. You're on set, I'm looking across at Leslie Mann, and we're doing a scene, and Judd will yell something that I've never heard before about my character, or anything. Like, ‘Oh, I didn't know I did that, but now I'm going to say it.’ When we were saying ... I said, ‘I'm sorry I fucked your agent. And your manager. And your lawyer. Oh, your divorce lawyer. And your divorce lawyer.’
So it's interesting because I think, now when I look at some of Judd's work, you can see the kind of self-surprise that people have in his movies. And now I get it now, because sometimes they're saying things that they didn't know about their character, and there's a kind of energy about that that's cool and funny. It's trite, but writers always say, ‘if you surprise yourself, you'll surprise the audience.’ And in some ways, Judd's kind of getting at that sometimes, where he's surprising the actor, who then surprises him or herself in the moment. And that can create a kind of interesting energy.
It did seem to create that energy on set, at least. I mean, you guys had such a great chemistry as a cast. Was that due to a lot of the improv’ing, or did you guys get a chance to kind of bond beforehand?
DUCHOVNY: Well, we had ... I forget how long we quarantined, but maybe two weeks alone, but that was kind of Zooming with the other cast members. And then, after we started shooting, we were pretty much the only company that we had, because we would continue to quarantine as best we could. And we were most of us were staying at the same complex in London, so we did spend a lot of time together. I didn't know anybody before that. And I became really, really friendly with some of the cast, and like, Pedro Pascal is a good friend. I loved Fred and Keegan, and Leslie I knew, but Leslie was kind off with Judd in their world.
So it was a part of, I think, the reality of quarantining. Also, we had all these dance rehearsals, which was weird, because it's like ... and we had a lot of dance rehearsals, because none of us are dancers. Maybe Iris was ... she's really good, maybe she danced a little. I want to say she danced a little, because she was so much better than me. But it was nerve-wracking, because Judd was like, ‘Yeah, it's not the kind of funny where you're bad at it, it's the kind of funny that you're good at it.’ And I'm way better at the kind of funny where I'm bad at something.
We had a lot of dance rehearsals, and we'd hang out. I mean, and that was for the entire cast, like ten people, and these people like Vir [Das] and Samson [Kayo], that are just so talented, and Maria [Bakalova]... I never would've spent that kind of time with them off of set. I just wouldn't have, and it was kind of cool to be able to do that.
Now that you've done some of this TikTok dancing, any chance you want to start a TikTok of your own?
DUCHOVNY: No. And I don't think there's any demand for that, either. I kind of thought I was a good dancer until I had to dance. It was one of my last remaining delusions as a human being: ‘Yeah, I could have been a dancer if only I had been trained.’ I was like, nope, not true, not true.
How did the movie compare with your real pandemic working experience? Like were you were doing cocaine off of Keegan's head, for real?
DUCHOVNY: Yeah, I mean, the idea of snorting coke off of Keegan's head is... it's probably frowned upon by the CDC. I would imagine that that kind of behavior during a pandemic is frowned upon. But when we're in the bubble, we're all trusting that we're COVID-free at that particular moment, right? So aside from the crazy shenanigans we get up to, the actual nuts and bolts of showing up in a mask, getting your makeup done by people in masks, going to set, having certain designated areas where you can be, and where nobody else can be. That's all Netflix protocol, and probably general protocol, at this point. And it's amazing how normalized it becomes. At first, you think, oh god, no way, I can't work like this. You can't feel free, can't feel loose. Well, you do, you just do.
So let's see your sweet eyes.
DUCHOVNY: [makes flirty eyes.] Is that what Harry [Trevaldwyn] does? That kid is so funny. Yeah. All of them, I mean, Judd is such a nurturer and identifier of talent, and he's so enthusiastic about young talent. And I'm just very impressed by his generosity and his interest in all that. And so many of those, the British actors, even the guys that were playing the mo-cap dinosaurs, the kind of Greek chorus of dinosaurs. Those guys, super talented, everybody that Judd would have there that I might not know, I would always go, wow, that kid, or even the woman that came to play the script supervisor, and again, I don't know her name, but she had one or two lines, which was great.
So switching gears a little bit, you just released your newest album, Gestureland, a few months ago. Any plans on touring in support of that?
DUCHOVNY: Yeah, I'd like to. We're just kind of waiting to see what is doable. I played a festival in Tampa last weekend, so that was the first time played in front of an audience since back then, since two and a half years, and-
Since the before times.
DUCHOVNY: Yeah, the before times. That was an outdoor audience, and I feel as safe as we can be now. I think everything is constantly changing. Obviously, numbers are going up, but the virus, this particular iteration of the virus seems to be way less lethal, even way less of a disturbance in your life. More like a cold. The kind of lies that people told in the beginning in order to stay open, now seems to be true. That could morph at any time, who knows? But I tend to play... I don't play like, open air, 60,000 seat theaters, not because I don't want to, but I can't. So I play 2000, 3000 rooms, enclosed, that you would say, ‘man, that's a super spreader.’
So we don't know. I mean, I sing a John Legend song in this movie, You People, that I just did with Kenya Barris, who directed, and that was also Netflix. And in order to do that ... and this was only last December, right? It's not that long ago. I had to get to set early, test twice, two hours apart. And then, when I sang, the room had to be empty. It was like, they pressed the camera, and they'd run away. And I did it a few times, just all by myself, with no other actors there. And then they had to wipe everything down, and then we come in, and then when the actors are there, I could only mouth it. I couldn't expel aerosol. So even just a few months ago, that's how you sing in a movie. I was like, ‘this sucks.’ It would've been funny if I had their real reactions while I was singing, but no, I couldn't actually sing in front of people and adhere to the protocols of movie making right now.
Any updates on the Truly Like Lightning show for Showtime, based on your novel?:
DUCHOVNY: No. No, I mean, we're kind of in a holding pattern there. It's still my main ambition and goal is to bring that to a screen. It's tough one, though. It's a heavy story, but I think it's really entertaining, too, ultimately. But when you outline the bare bones of it, it's like, oh, that's super heavy. I don't know if I want to see that. People have theories about the kind of entertainment that people want to see during a pandemic. But I never think that people change, I think people like what they like, regardless of whether it's a pandemic. And I think people like to say, ‘Oh, all I want to see is this, because I don't want to deal with reality,’ but until something really good comes along….
Is there anything else that you're working on right now, that you can talk about?
DUCHOVNY: I just finished a movie called The Estate, with Toni Collette, Anna Faris, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Ron Livingston. I think it's really funny. And Keyla Monterroso, who was in Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's just terrific. Pet Sematary, I did that, it's like the prequel to all the Pet Sematary movies, and written and directed by a really talented young woman named Lindsey Beer, who I think is going to be a force to be reckoned with. So I think that's going to turn out really well.
Can I ask who you played in that, in Pet Sematary?
DUCHOVNY: I play Bill Baterman, the father of a young man that... I'm like the instigator of the whole damn thing. But at the heart of that story, for whatever iterations it's gone through, and for whatever horror Stephen King does, really, it's a story about parental love and mourning. And I can really relate to the themes underneath it, so I was happy to play that.
The Bubble streams on Netflix beginning April 1.