COBB: Well, I'll ask you the question I ask when I end any interview on any topic, which is: Is there anything we haven't talked about that you think is important for the audience to know?
APATOW: We love Roger Angell.
COBB: Everyone loves Roger Angell.
APATOW: I just want it to be said.
COBB: You know what's incredibly humiliating? When Roger was a hundred years old, I think it was back in the days COVID-19so they held a Zoom celebration in his honor. I did the math and realized that Roger Angell had been at the top of his game longer than I had been alive, and I was no longer a young man. People reach the top of their game and then fall. And Roger reached the top of his game and just stayed there. He was like [Shohei] Ohtani, a link he would appreciate.
But Marshall… I'm so sorry.
CURRY: Being a journalist today is really difficult. Being a fact-based journalist is really difficult these days. And this film is meant to be a celebration of that hard, underappreciated work. And I think some of our favorite responses after we screened the film (which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and we've had several screenings since) were young people. And I heard several young people say: “You know, I never thought about becoming a journalist before, but after watching the film, I realized that this is what I would like to do.” And for me this is a great review.
COBB: Did you tell them to come to Columbia Journalism School?
CURRY: [Laughs.]
COBB: I'll give you some cards.
CURRY: Another anecdote: when we were finishing the film, we needed a song for the final sequence. And we wanted something with a New York theme, but it had to have a dynamic range that could sit underneath both David Remnick talking about the importance of the magazine and underneath the party shots, and then have a little punch when you cut to the credits saying “New York.”
And we were trying all these different songs, and I wrote to Kelefa Sanna, the brilliant musical mind who is in the film, and said, “Do you have any ideas for a New York song that would fit?” And he said, “What if you hired someone like Matt Berninger from The National,” such a cool indie rock band, “to record Taylor Swift's 'Welcome to New York?'
And he didn't know, but Matt Berninger and I are very good friends, and Matt's wife was a fiction editor at New Yorker. And I was talking to Matt: “Can you think of any songs?” So I called him and said, “Hey, I just had an idea—would you like to do this?” And he said, “The problem is,” we talked on Saturday, “I'm going to California the day after tomorrow to rehearse for the tour. But tomorrow I could go into the studio and record a song.” But he said, “I don't know if Taylor Swift will let you use that song. She's Taylor Swift, you know.”
And so he said, “I will write it down; if you can get the rights then you can use it; if not, then whatever.” So he recorded the song, sent it to me the next day, we put it in the movie, it was perfect – it had such a fun dynamic range, it was cool, it was smart, it was pop.
I'm writing Taylor Swift an email; two days later she says, “Of course,” and, you know…
APATOV: Where did you get her email?!
COBB: It's like Taylor Swift never answers my emails. [Laughter.]
CURRY: So, this is the song at the end of the film. This is an unreleased version of Taylor Swift's “Welcome to New York.” I think someday it will come out.
COBB: Ladies and gentlemen, Marshall Curry, Judd Apatow, thank you for your work, thank you for the film. ♦
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Harold Ross's educational level.
