If you’ve been keeping up with Season 2 of Euphoria (let’s be honest — who hasn’t?), you’ve probably heard some buzz about 24-year-old Maude Apatow, who plays Rue’s childhood friend Lexi on the show. Lexi didn’t get as much screen time as some of the others in the first season, but this time around she has more in store, including a possible unexpected romance with fan-favorite Fez. Playing Lexi isn’t the only thing keeping Maude in the public eye, however — in fact, before you knew her, you probably knew her parents, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann.
Growing up as the child of famous parents didn’t mean Maude was saved from the usual embarrassment all of our parents like to make us feel sometimes, however. Maude appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on January 18, and while she spoke about Euphoria, the first half of the interview focused on Maude’s experience interviewing One Direction as a child and seeing them in concert. Both of these moments caused Maude to start hysterically crying (Harry Styles fans can probably relate). That’s embarrassing enough, but her dad pushed it one step further by sending The Tonight Show his videos of 14-year-old Maude crying so the entire world could see.
While this moment was possibly humiliating for Maude, it also garnered quite a bit of curiosity about the Apatows, and Maude’s relationship with her parents. Curious to know more about this famous family? Here’s what you need to know.
Maude’s dad, Judd Apatow, probably made some of your favorite movies.
Most people have probably at least heard the name Judd Apatow before, considering his wide body work. Judd has his own production company, Apatow Productions, which you can thank for huge comedy films like Bridesmaids, Superbad, Funny People, Knocked Up, and This Is 40 (more on those last three later). He also developed and produced TV shows like Freaks and Geeks and HBO’s Girls. More recently, he was the brains behind The King of Staten Island, which starred Maude and Pete Davidson, and introduced Pauline Chalamet.
Throughout his career, Apatow has been nominated for a whopping 11 Emmy Awards, winning twice for The Ben Stiller Show and The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, along with a slew of other awards for his producing, directing, and writing work.
Maude’s mom, Leslie Mann, starred in some of them.
Mom’s no slouch, either — you most likely know Leslie Mann for her appearances in 17 Again, Blockers, and a bunch of other films. But in some of her biggest roles, Leslie was actually working with her husband: Funny People, Knocked Up, and This Is 40 are all Apatow Productions creations that both Judd and Leslie worked on. The two of them met in the mid-90s when Leslie auditioned for The Cable Guy, a film that Judd wrote, and got married in 1997, according to Us.
Leslie has also been nominated for her fair share of awards, including a Critics Choice Award in 2013 for This Is 40.
Yep, that’s Maude and Leslie Mann in the Jergens commercial — and that’s not the only time she’s shared the screen with her parents.
We’ve already hinted at this with The King of Staten Island, but Maude has been working with her parents for a long time. Her first-ever film credit was when she appeared as Leslie’s daughter in Knocked Up when she was only 10 years old, according to W Magazine. She also had roles in This Is 40 and Funny People, making all three films a family affair. Leslie and Maude even used to do Jergens commercials together, as reported by Allure.
In a 2020 interview with the Los Angeles Times to promote The King of Staten Island, Maude responded to a question about nepotism by acknowledging her privilege: “I definitely thought about that before doing this movie. Obviously, I’ve acted in so many of my parents’ movies, and people are going to say it’s nepotism,” she said. “I mean, it’s not even an insult — well, it is an insult, but it is what it is.” Maude pointed to Euphoria as an example of a project not associated with her father that she was using to show what she is capable of.
She later added, though, that she sees her dad as “a mentor figure,” and said, “I want to be a director someday, and getting to watch my dad do what he does is very important to me.”
Maude lived with her parents and sister Iris during quarantine.
According to The Things, Maude had been planning to move out of her parents’s Brentwood home in 2020, but ended up staying with them longer (and her younger sister, Iris) when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. She described the experience to The LA Times as having “ups and downs,” but also said it was fun. It’s unclear if she’s since moved out.
She likes to post throwback pics on Instagram.
Maude’s got a whopping 1.5 million followers on Instagram, and while a lot of her posts have more to do with her work as an actress than anything else, she also does like to post old photos for her family members’s birthdays, or holidays like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Check out baby Maude below!
Maude and Leslie share beauty advice with each other.
Maude and Leslie did a joint interview in May 2021 with Allure, where they discussed all things skin care and beauty. During the interview, Maude revealed that Leslie told both her and Iris not to get tattoos. Leslie elaborated, “I love tattoos, but the only reason I say that is because, as an actor, you have to wake up an hour earlier than you would normally have to to go sit in the makeup chair and have them covered up.” Smart advice, especially because Lexi probably isn’t the type to have a bunch of tattoos.
Leslie also spoke about her and her daughters’s changing relationship with makeup. She told Allure, “It used to be that Maude and Iris would always come in and steal all of my makeup, and now I go in and steal Maude and Iris’s makeup. They’ve taught me everything beauty routine-wise.” Maybe Maude can show Leslie how to do one of those Euphoria eye makeup looks.
Maude might follow in Judd’s footsteps as a writer.
She told W Magazine on January 23 that she has a friend from her time studying at Northwestern University who became her writing partner, and they’ve been working together on coming up with scripts. She said, “We’ll sit for days and weeks and just write all day … I think we have good energy together. Once we get going, we power through.” W also reported that Maude sold her first script in the summer of 2021, so we might get to see Maude start racking up writing credits like her father.
There’s one Judd Apatow movie Maude won’t ever watch.
To promote The King of Staten Island, Maude and Judd took a Father/Daughter test for BuzzFeed, where Judd revealed that Maude still hasn’t seen Funny People and will never watch it, despite having appeared in it herself. He claimed it was for “reasons that don’t make sense, other than that you know I find it annoying that you will never watch it. Why won’t you watch it?!”
A laughing Maude responded, “Because now it’s just become so much of a thing!”
That episode of The Tonight Show wasn’t the only time Maude’s parents embarrassed her on TV.
When Maude appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2019 to promote the first season of Euphoria, Colbert had spoken with Maude’s parents on the show enough times to put together an entire compilation of every time they’ve brought her up. Both parents told a number of anecdotes about her, including Leslie bringing up the fact that Maude dropped out of Northwestern University as a sophomore in 2018.
Maude admitted seeing this footage of her parents did embarrass her a little bit, since they “throw me under the bus! A lot!” Understandable — and that was before Colbert revealed that Judd had sent in a home video (that’s right, Fallon’s wasn’t even the first) of Maude singing “Memory” from Cats as a child. This was Maude’s first-ever late night show appearance, she revealed, which makes it all the more embarrassing. Maude joked that she wouldn’t retaliate by speaking about her parents, though, because she’s “not petty like that.”
So there you have it — everything you never knew about Maude Apatow’s relationship with her parents. Since The King of Staten Island, she hasn’t worked with either of them again yet, but who knows? Maybe we’ll see them all working together again in the future.