Writer/director/producer Judd Apatow arrives with his family and cast members (L-R) Iris Apatow, Maude Apatow and Leslie Mann at the premiere of the movie "This is 40" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California December 12, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

Filmmaker Judd Apatow is one of Hollywood's top names in comedy, often drawing on his own experiences.

Related: 'It's a Wonderful Life' is top Christmas film with critics

On Friday, Apatow directs and produces "This is 40," a comedy he wrote centered around the family first seen in his 2007 hit "Knocked Up" - Debbie (played by Apatow's real-life wife Leslie Mann), her husband Pete (Paul Rudd) and their two children, played by Mann and Apatow's actual daughters, Iris and Maude.

Five years on from the raunchy pregnancy comedy, the new movie shows Pete and Debbie struggling through the ups and downs of marriage, parenting, work and finances now that they have entered their forties.

Apatow, 45, sat down with Reuters to talk about how his real-life family inspired a film he calls "a fabricated mutated version of our lives".

Q: Did you always know you would revisit these characters down the road?

A: "No, there was no part of me that considered it at all. I was pushing for the 'Superbad' sequel hard, but I couldn't get anybody to go for it. Then after I shot 'Funny People,' I started thinking about how many strange things were happening in my house. There were so many tensions, the girls were fighting, Maude started junior high school and there was so much happening emotionally.

"In the middle of the night it hit me: Pete and Debbie. And last we saw Maude, she was a little girl who didn't understand how babies were born and now she's a teenager."