How Amy Schumer pranked Judd Apatow on the set of 'Trainwreck'

Trainwreck writer and star Amy Schumer and director Judd Apatow have a great friendship and working relationship — which certainly benefited the film with its whopping $30.2 million opening weekend. “When you are working with someone who is so smart and so funny, it’s a real gift,” says Apatow. “We had so much fun while she was writing it, it’s really why I wanted to direct it.”

But that doesn’t mean Schumer could resist teasing her director. “I f–ked with him,” she says with a laugh. “I couldn’t help it.”

It was early during Trainwreck‘s filming in New York City. It was a surreal time for Schumer — it was the first film she’d written, let alone her first starring role. “Everything felt so weird already,” she says. “The first day we were on set there were these director’s chairs and they said ‘Trainwreck‘ on the back and it was like: why is everyone f–king with me? Why are we pretending we’re shooting a movie?”

Then day two rolled around. The production stopped for a 30-minute lunch break. Schumer had pre-ordered food for expediency’s sake at a nearby restaurant and she, her sister Kim Caramele, and co-star Vanessa Bayer (whom Schumer called her real-life “love interest”) walked over to pick it up. Unbeknownst to them, Apatow and his producers were having a working lunch at the same restaurant.

“They don’t know that we pre-ordered our food and lunch is only for a half an hour,” she says. One of the producers came over to tell Schumer that Apatow — thinking they meant to sit down and eat — was nervous she wouldn’t be back on set in time for touch-ups. “Right away I didn’t think to comfort him and tell him we were just picking up food,” she says with a laugh. “Because I already was thinking: they’re really gambling on me — and you never really know what people really are going to be like to work with. So I decided to scare them.”

Schumer sat at a table and asked for a waiter. “I’m like, ‘Will you go get us a couple of bottles of wine and just pour it like we’re tasting it and deciding on a bottle?’ We filmed Judd’s table with our phones,” she says with a laugh. “You could see them mouthing to each other, ‘What the f–k is she doing?’ They were losing their minds.”

When she let everyone in on the joke, there was much relief. Schumer, who has a famously intense work ethic, laughs. “It is not like I’m going to be late to this set.”

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•‘Trainwreck‘: EW review