The Real “This Is 40″ and “Knocked Up” House in Brentwood

Almost the minute the movie This Is 40, a “sort-of sequel to Knocked Up,” hit theaters, the emails started pouring in from readers wanting to know more about the house in it. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann’s Pete and Debbie live in the same great house in Brentwood, California, that they did in the first movie. Take a look!

This Is 40 focuses on Pete and Debbie, Katherine Heigl’s sister and brother-in-law in Knocked Up. I re-watched Knocked Up again yesterday to get some screenshots of the house and then went to see This Is 40 today as further “research” for this post. (Oh, the things I do for you!)

My readers aren’t the only ones who thought the house was one of the best things about these movies. Oscar-nominated set decorator Leslie Pope told The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s gotten quite a response.”

According to the mag, “Director Judd Apatow shot a good portion of the movie in a Brentwood house owned by producer Bryan Zuriff and his wife Monica. Apatow lives just up the street (‘Our kids are friends,’ says Zuriff), and the director had used their pad as the home of Rudd and Mann’s characters in 2007’s Knocked Up.”

Zuriff explains how they found his house in the first place: “My sister-in-law is Giuliana Rancic, and in Knocked Up, Katherine Heigl played a character like her, and they went to E! to scout. The producers couldn’t find a house, and Giuliana was like, ‘You should call my brother-in-law.’”

(BTW, Did you see Giuliana’s charming 1940s rental on their reality show?)

They took over the house for 6 weeks to film the movie: “Pope and production designer Jefferson Sage redecorated to suit the fictional family, which has two daughters. They decided on a palette of greens, corals and melons. ‘You want it to be fun and vibrant,’ says Pope. ‘That’s shorthand that this is a family with a lot of life.’”

Grabbed this screenshot of the kitchen from the trailer for the new movie:

A reader named Kelly just gave me a heads-up that designer James Radin worked on this house and has photos of it in his portfolio. It’s a lot better than any I was able to get from the movie:

Visit Radin’s website and check his portfolio under “Brentwood” to see more. He worked on some of my favorite “house movies,” like Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday, and It’s Complicated.

Here’s how that wall with the fireplace and built-in bookshelves looks in This Is 40:

The Hollywood Reporter article features this photo of how the kitchen and family room look in real life, with the actual homeowners’ belongings in it:

And here’s how the family room looks on designer James Radin’s website (love the blue and white):

They ditched the drab window treatments in the kitchen and family room that were there in the first movie. All of the decorating was punched up a bit between the first and second and just looked fresher and more current.

The living room in Knocked Up, for instance, looked like this:

The living room in This Is 40 looked more like a young family lives in it:

We get a glimpse of the upstairs hallway and landing in Knocked Up:

Here’s how it looks in This Is 40:

Pete and Debbie’s bedroom in the first film was kind of muted and blah:

In the sequel, they have orange window treatments that brighten things up:

The Master Bath in Knocked Up:

The Playroom:

Debbie’s Home Office:

We see her home office again in This Is 40, but it’s a little more “decorated:”

Another set photo featured in THR shows the sitting room off Pete and Debbie’s master bedroom. They weren’t allowed to film upstairs in the house, so the bedrooms and baths were re-created on the Sony lot:

The house has 6 bedrooms and 6,500 square feet. Houses on the street sell for between $8 and $20 million. Check out The Hollywood Reporter article to see more photos of the house and sets. It’s a good one.

John Lithgow and Albert Brooks play Debbie and Pete’s dads.

Oddly enough, in the new movie there was no sign of Katherine Heigl, who played Debbie’s sister and best friend in the first one. In Knocked Up she lived in their backyard pool house:

I was hoping we’d get some clue about how Alison and Ben were doing all these years later. We see a photo of Alison hanging in the upstairs hallway in one scene, and Pete mentions that he got a “pot cookie” from Ben in another, but that’s about it. Seemed odd that they never explained their absence.

No sign of the pool house in the sequel, either. Would have been nice to see how they’re using it now!

Anyone else see This Is 40? It had its funny moments, but it went on way too long for me. And I got really tired of watching Pete and Debbie fight. It was kind of fun to see how the house had changed from the first movie to the second, though.

I get a lot of questions from readers asking whether I’ve featured certain movie houses. If you want to search for your favorites, check out my Houses Onscreen page where they’re listed in alphabetical order. You can also see the current Top 10 Movie Houses.

P.S. This house reminds me of the one in The Change-Up, which also starred Leslie Mann:

Tagged as: Brentwood, Bryan Zuriff, comedies, James Radin, Jefferson Sage, Judd Apatow, Katherine Heigl, Knocked Up movie, Leslie Mann, Leslie Pope, million-dollar houses, movie houses, movie sequels, movie sets, Paul Rudd, production design, set design, Seth Rogen, The Hollywood Reporter, This Is 40 movie