When youre an actor, things can get hot and exciting for a second, and then it cools off. Maybe, something else happens down the line, and it gets a little crazy for a while, and it cools off again. And then you have a guy like Seth Rogen, who just seems to have sustained this heat for a long while. Its a never-ending hot thing with him Since Knocked Up, its just hasnt let up.
I met Seth on the set of You, Me and Dupree Id just been cast in SNL, and this was the first movie Id had a part in. I just started hanging out and bullshitting with him and Evan Goldberg, his best friend; we talked about movies and comic books, and we were just making each other laugh a lot. Like a lot of folks, I had been a fan of Freaks and Geeks, and I remember watching him on that show and thinking, This guy is not self-conscious at all. Seth is the kind of star where you watch him onscreen and think, Id actually like to hang out with that guy. And maybe smoke a lot of pot with him.
The thing is, I dont even smoke pot, and I still want to hang out with Seth. Im not sure I can give him a bigger compliment than that. When I have smoked pot with him, I feel weird and get tired really quick. He once told me, Smoking pot with you is like smoking pot with my dad. When I hosted Saturday Night Live recently, he came backstage to see me before the show, and there were a number of folks who were like, Oh man, Seth Rogen is hereIm going to go get high with him! I kept telling them, Guys, just leave him alone But thats how people think of him. Youre kind of awestruck yet you still want to burn a doob with him.
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I found out I got the part in Superbad when I met Judd Apatow for the first time; he said, Hey, so Seth and Evan wrote this movie, and youre going to play a cop in it. I figured it was going to be one scene where I play a cop in the background, or I show up and say two lines so someone gets from Point A to Point B. So I called Seth and he goes Congratulations, youre in! I said, Yeah, so I guess Im a cop. Cool. And he just said, No, you and I are cops, were in, like, most of the movie. That was when I realized, oh, its legitimate! And this all came from just hanging out with him on the You, Me and Dupree set. He just operates by instinct.
Which isnt to say hes just some guy who shows up, cracks a few jokes and then goes home. The guy works really fucking hard. A lot of people romanticize the process of making movies: Im going to wake up every morning and work on my script, Im going to carry my notebook around and I shall be inspired! Seth and Evan were the first people Id met who just took a real no-bullshit attitude about it. It was very Yeah, writingthis is work. You have to put the fucking hours in.
Youre kind of awestruck yet you still want to burn a doob with him.
The thing about comedy is, its all about trying to bottle the feeling you get when youre with your friends fucking around. Theres a lot if you structure comedy, youll kill it mindsets out there. Rogen is having none of that. He also has no interest in trying to outmaneuver people when it comes to making movies. Its simply: These are the types of movies I like. Heres what I want to do. This is my best friend, Evan; hell be writing with me. These are some more funny people I know. Were going to go make something now. The Venn Diagram between what he finds funny and what a lot of other people find funny just happens to be huge, so hes able to attract a large audience and make popular stuff.
I remember being in a comic book shop with him once, and I picked up some indie Daniel Clowes-like graphic novelit may have even been a Daniel Clowes book. I recommended it to him, and he just said, Dude, if it doesnt involve someone flying around with a cape and punching peopleIm just not interested. Thats Seth in a nutshell. He likes what he likes and he makes no bones about it.
I remember that when it came to filming our scenes together in Superbad, everything felt kind of loose. I mean, for someone who had co-written the script and lived with this story for a long time, he wasnt the least bit precious about it. If anything, he kept trying to encourage me to do more out-there shit. The whole thing I did where I was talking about meeting my wife in the bar, it was something I just improvisedI did it in one take and I thought, Oh, I dont think this is going to work. And Seth was like, Hey, great, you sounded like you were just having fun there. Lets go with that. Do that again. He didnt care that it was a little weird. He just wanted to make sure it wasnt going to contradict something later.
On the other hand, when something really wasnt working, he wasnt shy about speaking up. There was one point where some kid spits on me at a house party and I hit him with my baton. The other actors kept suggesting that I say some sort of line after he falls and one person pitched something that revolves around a certain derogatory term. It was right at the point where it was really not cool to use that word any moremaybe it was OK on the playground once upon a time, but certainly not any more. I certainly felt uncomfortable saying it. And though some of the other folks laughed, Seth just shut it down immediately: No, no, were not using that. Nope. Nuh-uh. Then he quickly suggested another joke right over that off the top of his head, and that one worked! He knew what to come up with. He also knew it wasnt cool and that the audience would not react well to it, so funny or not, the line wasnt going in. Period.
You tend to have two types of people who work in movie comedy. You have the comedians who always need to be the smartest person in the film, who has to be the alpha and have everything revolve around them. You wont get a good line, because it may make them seem less funny. And then you get the kind of person who wants everyone around them to be funnier and thats Seth. Watch This Is the End: Hes hilarious in it, but thats a movie where everybody shines. He subscribes to the idea that if youre good, itll make him seem better instead of worse. And its also the type of Hollywood movie where it could have been elitist and smug Hey, look at me and my famous friends and totally isnt. Its an inclusive movie; you kind of wish you were trapped in that house with them, even though those guys would be completely fucking useless during the apocalypse!
I just did a voice for this animated movie Sausage Party that Seth co-wrote, and the day I went in to do my recording session was the day he got the first weekends numbers back for Neighbors. Most people would have popped open a bottle of champagne and taken a victory lap. But when Seth got in, he just came up and said, Oh, hey Billso heres what worked in the last session and heres what didnt, but I kinda chalk that up to my writing, so, you know, arrgghh! Sorry about that. Ill try to come up with something better. You just had a $49 million opening weekend on a movie you starred in and youre apologizing for your writing?!? Thats Seth. No ego, all work.
The one beef I have with him is thatI have this appropriation thing where I just pick up traits and characteristics from people that Im around and make them my own. And I ended up picking up his laugh, which drives my family crazy. My wife is constantly telling me, You dont laugh like that. Thats Seths laugh! But I cant help it I mean, its so infectious! So, damn your infectious laugh, Seth Rogen! And thanks for being so cool and funny.
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