The 40-Year-Old Virgin
The 40-Year-Old Virgin is a 2005 American romantic comedy film directed by Judd Apatow, who produced the film with Clayton Townsend and Shauna Robertson. It features Steve Carell as the titular 40-year-old virgin Andy, an employee at an electronics store. Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, and Seth Rogen play co-workers who resolve to help him lose his virginity, and Catherine Keener stars as Andy's love interest, Trish.
Watching Carell's performance in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy inspired Apatow to cast him in the lead role for the film, and they wrote The 40-Year-Old Virgin together. It was based on a sketch Carell created with The Second City where a man aged 40 hides a secret. Filming took place in Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley, California, from January to April 2005.
The film was released theatrically in the United States on August 19, 2005, by Universal Pictures, and grossed over $177 million worldwide on a $26 million budget. Critical reviews were generally positive, with praise for Carell's performance and the film's well-meaning yet bawdy humor, which was a point of contention by some conservative commentators as well. He won accolades from the Golden Schmoes Awards and MTV Movie & TV Awards for his role while Keener received awards from the Boston Society of Film Critics and Los Angeles Film Critics Association. The 40-Year-Old Virgin was named by the American Film Institute one of 2005's Top 10 Films.
Plot
Andy Stitzer is a shy 40-year-old introvert who works as a stock supervisor at the electronics store Smart Tech. He gave up trying to have sex after various failed attempts and lives alone in an apartment with a collection of action figures and video games. When a conversation at a poker game with his co-workers David, Jay, and Cal turns to past sexual exploits, they figure out that he secretly is still a virgin.Andy is mortified upon discovering the next day that everyone else at work has learned about the secret, including their boss Paula, who is attracted to him and later privately offers to take his virginity. He almost quits work in humiliation before David consoles him and recommends trying again to have sex. David, Jay, and Cal become determined to help Andy achieve this. They all give differing advice on how to interact with women.
David invites him to join them for a speed dating event and unsuccessfully tries to reconnect with his ex-girlfriend Amy there. Jay drags Andy to various social events, books a painful chest waxing appointment, and sets him up with a prostitute, which all end with embarrassing results. Cal advises Andy to be confident and ask women questions instead of discussing himself. He practices this on a bookstore clerk named Beth, who quickly becomes intrigued by him. David gives Andy his pornography collection, encouraging him to masturbate.
Andy eventually gets a date with a customer named Trish Piedmont. At the end of their first date, they almost have sex but are interrupted by her teenage daughter, Marla. Trish suggests they postpone having sex, and Andy enthusiastically agrees; they decide to abstain until their 20th date. Their relationship flourishes over the following weeks. She encourages Andy's dream of starting a business and helps fund it by selling his collectibles. After Marla argues with Trish over wanting birth control, Andy takes her to a group information session at a sexual health clinic, where she is mocked for being a virgin. Andy admits his virginity to defend her, earning him Marla's respect.
Meanwhile, David suffers an emotional breakdown at work over his obsession with Amy, and takes a vow of celibacy. The breakdown prompts Paula to give his sales duties to Andy for the day and she later promotes him to floor manager due to his high sales quota. As Cal takes on Andy's previous role, he hires a woman named Bernadette to work at the store, hoping to match her with David so he can move on from Amy. After Jay's girlfriend, Jill, breaks up with him due to his infidelity, he concedes to Andy that sex can ruin a relationship. Following a reconciliation with Jill, Jay invites Andy and the others to a nightclub celebrating her pregnancy.
Trish tries to initiate sex with Andy on their 20th date and becomes upset when he resists. They argue, and Andy leaves to meet his friends at a nightclub. He gets drunk and leaves with Beth to have sex at her apartment. Cal gets David and Bernadette to hook up, while Marla convinces Trish to reconcile with Andy. At Beth's, Andy sobers up and decides to leave without having sex, just as his friends arrive and encourage him to go back to Trish.
Andy returns to his apartment to find Trish waiting for him. She has seen David's porn collection; he tries to explain, but she flees in alarm and disgust, fearing Andy may be a sexual deviant. While pursuing her on his bike, Andy collides with her car, flying through the side of a billboard truck. She rushes to his side, and Andy finally confesses that he is a virgin. Trish is relieved and accepting, and they profess their love for each other. They eventually marry in a lavish ceremony with everyone in attendance, having generated roughly $500,000 from the sales of his action figures to pay for it, before having sex for the first time. The film ends with a musical sequence where all the characters sing and dance to "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In".
Cast
Other cast members include Kat Dennings as Marla Piedmont, Mindy Kaling as Amy, Gerry Bednob as Mooj, Marika Domińczyk as Bernadette, Shelley Malil as Haziz, Mo Collins as Gina, Kimberly Page, Gillian Vigman, and Siena Goines as women attending the speed dating event, Nancy Walls as the health clinic counselor, Cedric Yarbrough, David Koechner, and Jeff Kahn as fathers attending the health clinic, Loren Berman, Nick Lashaway, and Julian Foster as boys attending the health clinic, Chelsea Smith as Julia, Erica Vittina Phillips as Jill, Jonah Hill as a customer at Trish's store, Jordan Masterson as Mark, Jazzmun as a prostitute, Miki Mia as the waxing lady, Denise Meyerson as Robin, Michael Bierman as a 16-year-old version of Andy, Lee Weaver as Joe, Kevin Hart, Wayne Federman, Ron Marasco, and Joseph T. Mastrolia as Smart Tech customers, Kate Luyben as a woman who purchases videotapes, Stormy Daniels as a porn star, Shannon Bradley, Brianna Brown, Elizabeth Carey, Elizabeth DeCicco, Hilary Shepard, and Barret Swatek as bar girls, Carla Gallo as a girl who sucks on toes, Laura Bottrell as a college girl, Joe Nunez as a man who buffs floors, Charlie Hartsock as the speed dating MC, Gloria Helena Jones as Sara, Marisa Guterman as a girl wearing braces, Matthew McKane as a motorist, Miyoko Shimosawa as a waitress, Rose Abdoo, Steve Bannos, and Brooke Hamlin as restaurant customers, Marilyn Dodds Frank as a woman who buys a television, and Loudon Wainwright III as a priest.Production
The 40-Year-Old Virgin was Judd Apatow's directorial debut. While serving as a producer for the 2004 film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, he got the idea to have a film with Steve Carell in the lead role after watching his performance in that, thinking "It would be great to see a Steve Carell movie". Apatow later asked him whether he had any movie ideas, and both men wrote The 40-Year-Old Virgin together after the latter expressed desires to make something about a virgin who was aged 40, basing it off a sketch Carell created while performing with the improv comedy troupe The Second City. Carell did many versions of the sketch, trying out different scenarios where the 40-year-old man is hiding a "big secret". They began writing the movie in 2004. Apatow had difficulty coming up with the ending for the film. Garry Shandling suggested it was important to show that Andy was having better sex because he was in love, and instead of directly showing the sex they decided to have Andy sing and have a musical number.Apatow started casting the film early in the development process and tailored its script to the strengths of the actors. He also produced it for Apatow Productions and Universal Pictures along with Clayton Townsend and Shauna Robertson. Catherine Keener was the first choice for the female lead. Apatow specifically cast Stormy Daniels because he wanted "someone who's really, really comfortable" doing nude scenes that were required for the film's plot. A large portion of the dialogue in The 40-Year-Old Virgin was improvised. Keener stated in 2010 that Apatow "never really would even say cut" and instead would say "reload" when burning through film due to the improvisation, calling the experience "hysterically funny". She also mentioned "you had to kind of lose sense of being self-conscious on that movie because it was sort of an all-in in terms of throwing a joke out or even the writer would sit behind the monitors behind the curtain". Jane Lynch's character Paula was originally planned to be male before her audition. Nancy Walls recommended Lynch for the role after asking Apatow "You've got all these guys in your film. Why don't you read Jane for store manager?" He reworked the script for Lynch after her first audition. The production used over a million feet of film, a milestone reached on the last day of filming and celebrated with free champagne from Technicolor SA.
Filming began on January 17, 2005, and wrapped on April 1, 2005. The movie was shot in parts of California, including Studio City, Los Angeles, and San Fernando Valley's Ventura Boulevard. Lyle Workman composed the film's score while Jack N. Green and Brent White respectively served as its cinematographer and editor. Production was halted by Universal Pictures after the first week, due to concerns that the physical appearance of Carell's character resembled that of a serial killer, and that the early footage was not funny. Paul Rudd was criticized for being overweight and the studio was unhappy with how Apatow treated the project like an independent film. Apatow initially had a supporting role in mind for Jason Segel that Universal refused to allow. Because of the accidental deaths of fish used in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the American Humane Association withheld its "no animals were harmed..." disclaimer.
Seven test screenings were held for the film prior to entering theaters, with each costing approximately $10,000. It was initially considered "uncomfortably dirty, and not all that funny" before Apatow reduced the amount of pornography shown. Malco once pleaded for him to cut his scenes, fearing what would happen following its release and insisting: "My mom is an ordained minister, bro, cut me out of the movie, please. I'm serious." This request was declined because Apatow found Malco funny. He was surprised to find out his mother ended up taking "all of her church friends to see it, multiple times", and stated The 40-Year-Old Virgin "changed my career" by leading to more subsequent job offers without prior auditions. Jay was initially conceived as "a preppy, fraternity boy" before Malco's audition prompted him to be reworked into a "streetwise, trash-talking womanizer". He liked how the character "actually learns his own life lessons along with Andy" and called him the main character's "sexual antithesis". Kevin Hart had previously auditioned for the role, which Apatow did not feel suited him, thinking they "needed someone who was more of a lothario" and was not convinced he "looked like someone who would get more women than Romany Malco". This led to Hart being cast as a customer instead.
Carell's chest was genuinely waxed for the film, with five cameras set up to capture the scene, which was done in one take. He insisted on having an actual wax, telling Apatow: "It won't be as funny if it's mocked up or if it's special effect. You have to see that this is really happening." Malco began to feel sick while watching the waxing and ran away from the set. According to Miki Mia, it took three or four hours to shoot the scene, and she requested that some of the chest hair be trimmed in advance to reduce Carell's pain. Mia noted that only "a tiny bit" was removed "so that it'll look great on camera". His chest was never fully waxed during the filming, and he shaved off all the hair after three weeks. After Carell blurted out Kelly Clarkson's name during the wax, Clarkson told Rogen in 2021 that it would be "literally the one thing people know me from" regardless of anything else she did. Rogen explained he came up with this idea while seeing her on television as he was compiling a list of "clean jokes" and "dirty jokes" to use in the scene.