The 40-Year-Old Virgin came out 20 years ago, but that doesn’t mean people have stopped talking about it. In fact, co-writer and director Judd Apatow is still talking about the 2005 comedy film.
In a recent conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, he pulled back the curtain on how much raunchier The 40-Year-Old Virgin could have been compared to what you saw in theaters two decades ago.
Speaking to THR, Apatow revealed that there are two versions of the movie. There’s the original theatrical cut we all know and love. Then there’s the longer director’s cut that includes 17 minutes of added material.
Among the scenes trimmed that you can now watch in said director’s cut? A fantasy sequence featuring adult film star Stephanie Gregory Clifford, 46, better known as Stormy Daniels.
“Within that, there was a whole sequence with Stormy Daniels [who appears in an adult film] talking to Steve in one of his fantasies,” Apatow explains. “That’s how we first met Stormy Daniels. And there was a moment where [Andy] was trying to watch pornography, but he kept fast forwarding to the talking parts.”
That gag absolutely underlines the fictional Andy’s inexperience while winking at the absurdity of the situation (the premise of the whole movie, TBH). Instead, Daniels only ever appears briefly in the adult video Andy watches in the film, the fantasy sequenced nixed per test audiences who Apatow assumes thought there was too much adult material.
“I’m sure that during the test, the audience let us know how much is too much porn to have on the screen,” the director noted.
We reached out to Daniels’ team for comment on thoughts about the deleted scene all these years later, but did not hear back by the time of publication.
Ultimately, leaving those scenes out allowed The 40-Year-Old Virgin to endure with the perfect mix of R-rated laughs and genuine heart.
How To Watch the Director’s Cut of ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’
If you want to check out the extended scenes Apatow talks about in his interview with THR, there are a few ways to stream the version with 17 minutes of added footage. Watch the director’s cut of The 40-Year-Old Virgin on Prime Video. You can also watch it on Google Play.
