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Bear Grylls//Digital Spy

Judd Apatow's new series Crashing, starring Pete Holmes as an earnest Christian stand-up comedian, premieres this week. We recently photographed the producer with his favorite thing—the personal gym he never uses—and tried to figure out why, exactly, it's his favorite thing.

ESQ: What is your favourite thing? Looking at the photo, I see a lot of boxes and exercise equipment of some sort.

Judd Apatow: This is the office gym that never gets used. When I set up my office, I worked very hard choosing specific equipment to help me stay in perfect shape while writing and working. And then, of course, I used it three times, and it became a storage room. And not a good storage room because all the equipment's in the way, so you can't even store a lot of stuff in there.

I see that you're trying, though. It looks like the machine is serving as a clothes rack.

Things change function—starts out as weights, turns into a clothesline.

So why is it your favorite thing?

Well, my favorite thing is not working out. Anytime I can not raise my heart rate, I'm happy.

OK, then why did you buy it in the first place?

Well, the dream was I would get up every day, drop my kids off at school, exercise at the office, take a shower and then start writing. The reality is the last thing I want to do in the morning or the evening is exercise. But you always think if you spend enough money on something, it'll pressure you into using it. I have found that that's not true.

My favorite thing is not working out. Anytime I can not raise my heart rate, I'm happy.

Do you ever feel guilty just looking at it?

I keep the door closed, so I don't feel guilty about not using it. You know, I like resting. I really enjoy not exercising because I kind of like being in the fog. Like when you have too much McDonalds and you kind of space out, and you like it? I don't do drugs, but I do like eating so much that all the blood leaves my brain and I almost pass out. It's like the same reason why people like to be choked during sex. People like to be partially conscious. I just do it with food.

What room is it in?

I have a three-story office building. The gym is in the bottom corner, and there are curtains covering the windows because when you exercise you wouldn't want all the windows open on Pico Boulevard. So, one of the reasons I don't use it is because it feels creepy and dark in there. But then if open the shades, it looks like I'm performing for rush hour traffic.

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Bear Grylls//Digital Spy
Judd Apatow and Pete Holmes attend the premiere of HBO\'s \'Crashing\

Do you think there's a solution to this problem with the curtains?

I haven't cracked it. It may be, like, a sheen curtain that lets in light but you can't quite see me where I'm just a silhouette of a slightly chubby guy.

That would be cool.

A friend of mine sent me a link to an article on dad bods, and dad bods are, like, you know, guys who work out a little bit and look kind of shitty. They're not full-fat-guy. I clicked on the link, and the photo accompanying the article was of me.

What about the weights? Do you use any of these weights on the right side?

Well, I always heard that Clint Eastwood lifted heavy weights, and that was the secret to his energy and youthful demeanor into his 80s. But then he talked to the chair at the Republican Convention, and I thought, "If lifting weights leads to that, I'm not going to do this."

So basically, all this equipment serves no purpose.

No, it's a land of hope because it could be used one day, so just keeping it there means anything's possible. That's the key to being a hoarder, like myself. In the back of your mind, you always think that at some point you're going to read that giant stack of newspapers, but you never do. But you always have hope. All hoarding is hope because you just think, "I can't die because I have to watch that stack of DVDs. There's no way for me to die without re-watching every single episode of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman." Makes you feel immortal, having too much stuff.

A version of this article appears in the March '17 issue of Esquire.

From: Esquire US