Seth Rogen Breaks Down His Most Iconic Movies | GQ

do I have a favorite Seth Rogen movie I mean I wrote a lot of the movies that I made so it's itself it's an egocentric or questions task I have to pick one that I didn't write or direct by it's just to make myself not look like an the 40 cows that my characters named cow C al cow I play a guy who's a novelist who works a struggling novelist who works in a like a Best Buy it's called smart tech in the movie yeah I covered myself in fake tattoos for that it's cuz I like went to a Best Buy I don't do a ton of research generally speaking but I went to a Best Buy to kind of see well me if there was anyone I could base my character on and a lot of guys there were like tatted the up and I was like oh that's a funny thing for like just in general like to be buying a like a stereo from a guy with like really scary tattoos all over him had a lot of good band shirts I don't I work a lot from the outside in as you can see tattoos t-shirts these are the things I base my characters but yeah we're just I had a liquid source t-shirt in that movie and I think I wear a Nirvana I think I nevermind t-shirt and maybe a Sonic Youth t-shirt as well there was a lot of good t-shirt work in that film so a my finest t-shirt work that was your first like major motion picture that you were in right it was I had a small partners really Donnie Darko but an anchorman was maybe before that but yeah that was my forgiver Jim was for sure my first role that was like that like you would go to the movie and like remember who the I was basically it was great work it was Steve Carell I really have the set like you got the sense he was uncomfortable with how dirty the movie was and it's funny because like if you look at his career beyond that film he never made another movie like that in any way shape or form like he really he changed direction like that movie is like kind of an anomaly sorry I'm late man oh no problem oh man I had a weekend yeah we went to Tijuana Mexico you know and we thought it'd be fun you know to go to the show everyone's you got to check out one of these shows and you know it's it's a woman a horse we get there and you know we think it's gonna be awesome and it is not as cool as it sounds like it would be man it is it's kind of gross yeah you think a woman a horse and you get there and it's a woman a horse yeah it was really giving it to her and you know what to be honest I felt bad for we all just felt bad for kind of feel bad for the horse wow that's something it was funny cuz like it kind of reflected the dynamic in the movie where like we were this like filthy force in the life of this guy who's a kind of pristine there's a scene where Steve Carell gets his chest waxed and and we waxed him for real hi are you this is your first time getting body walks yes yes it is take off your shirt okay we had to just stand there and watch it and it was pretty up and he started bleeding so ready yeah no no that's okay that's two another that one little patch looks sexy though okay yeah it looks really good I remember that was like a Misha I that was like I we get I was a co-producer on the movie so I would get writing assignments and I remember one of my assignment was to make things for him to scream as he was getting waxed so he didn't have to think of it I was supposed to be making like a dirty list and a clean list I remember I was the dirty list was easy and the clean list was hard and I remember I couldn't think of anything at American Idol was on and it was the year Kelly Clarkson was on and I wrote Kelly Clarkson Kelly Clarkson I wrote it as just fill the page the JED wouldn't yell at me but it turned into a lie that people still remember I remember there was a lot of discussion of like how do we show the joy he has after losing his virginity I remember Carell was like I should just sing Age of Aquarius and that's very funny [Music] there's a part where it's me and Jonah and Mindy Kaling actually like dancing together Jonah got heatstroke that day for real yeah it was up because he's wearing like a poncho and a hat like a winter hat and it was like a hundred and fifteen degrees and we were in like Temecula or some Superman he and Evan Goldberg my friend and partner to this day started riding super bad when we were in high school we were in eighth grade basically and it was incorporating a lot of our like real-life high school stories and originally I mean the characters names are Seth and Evan after me and Evan and originally I was gonna play Seth and we would hire another actor to play Evan who but it basically took us so long to get the movie made that I like aged out of the role essentially and like we were like 24 by the time we were making the movie and I could not play 18 year old convincingly anymore so I played this cop that was in the mood I was always in the script and III much more convincingly played like a guy in his late 20s who was a really irresponsible cop than a guy who was in his late teens it was about to enter college and so Jonah Hill played the role I was originally gonna play to much better effect than I ever could have played it and Michael Cera played Evan and it's funny because Michael Cera is really not like the actual evidence but he's much but he was perfect and I he was he's just a genius and he really in the script it was kind of like a straight man and a funny guy but he made the straight man just as funny as the funny guy which was like something that I've really grown to marvel at over the years we found joy because we he's actually originally a 40 year old virgin and that was a scene I had written give you some money shoes and you know I know it seems so strange yes I just rather buy them from you straight up yeah I know I wish it could be that easy but I wished you but you're making it extremely difficult for me I'm just trying to get these shoes back to my house I can wear them she works in this sell your stuff on eBay store which was a thing at the time which makes no sense and I remember I was like rewriting the scene with judge and I had this idea where this guy comes in and tries to buy these boots it just doesn't get it and then I was in a movie theater seeing the life aquatic and I felt a tap in my shoulder and it was Jonah and he was like you don't know me but I'm auditioning for this role in a movie that you're a producer on next week and I he explained the rules like oh that's so funny I wrote that role a few weeks ago that's great and he came in and he was like brilliant it was like one of these like moments or you're just like oh this guy's like leagues funnier than most people you encounter when we were making knocked up we literally were like Jonah like he's he's just brilliant and then he kept him trying to convince us to put him in Superbad and we were just like no like you're too old and we thought he was too old and then we I remember literally one day we like had him come to like into my trailer during knocked up and like filmed him on like a camcorder I could be allergic to poison juice I don't know I've never tried it and you haven't but the droughts over the flood gates are opening we need to build a dam to stop the juice from overflowing onto us right that's graphic and it was just so funny Marilla God we were wrong like he can totally do this very well and then and then we so I was in this movie called you me and Dupree which is like not a fantastic movie it was actually directed by the Russo brothers though who went on to direct all the Avengers films and become by far the most successful filmmakers of all time but my friend did the movie was Bill Hader who it was his first season on set live like he had been in a few episodes when we were filming it and he was so funny and I love remember meeting him and after her days being like we were already going to be making super bad and we were like you should be in the movie there's a scene where they're like the youngest guys like a party full of older guys who start doing coke who's that guy hi that happened to me and Evan I was I did stand-up comedy as a kid so I would hang out with the Stan of comics sometimes when I was like 16 and one time we went to a party at one of their houses and they all started doing coke and we wound up in a room with these guys who were very threatening towards us it was a lot like the scene in the movie brother came all the way from Scottsdale Arizona to be here tonight and you're not gonna sing for him think you're a singer you sing and you seem good sing it again like a bird no I know I just I want to you want to lie to cocaine no way man yeah the period blood also happened we were at a high school dance and we were in the locker room afterwards and it it essentially played out almost exactly like how it does in the movie dude is that blood are you bleeding cutter anything won't I be bleeding blood man you dancing with some chick in there yeah so yeah we were in the locker room when we saw this watching the guys mans me we're all kind of like trying to figure out what it was and we were you drinking wine like what like and then we noticed like another group of guys in the other corner of the walking locker room having the exact same conversation like looking at this watch on their pants mean like what is it like did a pan explode in my pocket like what happened and then because there was - we like peas - we saw each other from across the locker room but we were like oh oh like we caught a piece together what happened you can't think about it was my first role that was my first role that's like 10 Miller who was like a gearhead kind of guy who did a lot of drugs and was probably going to amount very little in his life and in Michigan it was the first time I really ever like spoke on camera or acted or anything like that I remember I'm very awkward you can chart like my acting progression as the show goes on for sure and I like get much better as as it goes on and it culminates in a pretty like strange but great episode where I were with a girl I'm dating tells me she was born a hermaphrodite and it's dealt with like very kind of touchingly and sincerely which especially at the time was pretty progressive I guess I mean it was yeah or at least original I mean I was born with both its most male and female parts uh-huh my parents made a decision with the doctors that I should be a girl I mean thank God because that's who I am but it's still a really big part of my life and I thought you should know no this is good that yeah you told me this I I had a great time doing that Joan I still work with a lot of those same people today I just saw Martin Starr literally at my house two days ago and so yeah we lived together after that show so I was the age of the geeks even though I was a freak so I hung out with the geeks with Jason Segel on also I became friends with Franco nine years later actually hanging on the show no we didn't hang out during the show he I I wasn't sure about him and he I yeah it wasn't it wasn't until honestly like seven or eight years later that we kind of became friends again yeah what was working with Judd Apatow like then back then it was interesting I mean he was young and he worked really hard and he was very passionate about it he was not always the most sensitive with the actors I remember and undeclared he would boo us Oscar off camera huh if you didn't like what we were doing he was here from the other room boo and we're thinking like that's baby dot the best way to be approaching actors and direction but you know what I was 18 so I just took it [Music] me and Evan Goldberg my writing partner had a lot of like very strange ideas that kind of went on to become movies like this is the end it sausage party you'd bite Apple Express but at the time judge was like we just need to do something simple like something that is just like relatable and just like you get instantly and I almost think like conversationally one day he was like we should make a movie about you like getting a girl pregnant and that was kind of it and I was a little nervous about being a leading man I was pretty cocky when I was younger though so no III look back and marvel at how little self-doubt I had in comparison to now which I'm just I'm just and I we incorporated a lot from my real life into that like well first of all all my actual friends played my actual friends and roommates and I had lived with I think half the people who played my roommates in the movie at one point or another was Jonah Hill and Jason Segel and Martin Starr and Jay Baruchel and then the way we lived the furniture a lot of that literally the couch was Evan Goldberg couch the coffee table was his coffee table in my apartment in the movies they were my paintings that I literally painted the judge took and put on the walls of my apartment in the movie she really didn't seem to like me like she wasn't laughing at my jokes I'm like a funny guy [Music] nothing it was a lot from our real life there's a story there's a joke where Martin is having a competition to see how long you go without shaving but all right listen you don't shave your beard or cut your hair for one year and if you can do that I will pay your rent but if you shave then you have to pay all five of our rents thanks for the free money that was the thing that we would do with our friends that movie I mean a lot of our movies are inspired by our real lives with that one took a lot from what we were going through like at that moment and put it right into the movie me and katherine heigl got along really well while we were making the movie well I thought she was hilarious and and we seemed a good dynamic you should just support me you know you should just support everything I say because this juncture in my life I'm allowed to be wrong so if you're wrong I have to support it I can tell you that you're like a lunatic oh no oh that's helpful you have to do nothing my job my body my youth my vagina really life a lot of the movie is us fighting and yelling at each other and she really was a good a good fighter and it made for pineapple express [Music] originally again when we wrote Pineapple Express I was supposed to place in our heads I was gonna place all the drug dealer and we would get like a more conventional leading man to play daya like Franco and then we started to think like maybe that's like a little expected and then our mara we met with Franco about it for the first time and he was like I kind of want to play the other guy we were like you know what like that is probably more interesting it gives me a chance to have a bigger role which is fantastic and it gave him a chance to do something like totally unexpected hands-down dopest dope I've ever smoked is not better than the blue öyster really can't be I don't handle this is like if that blue öyster met that Afghan Kush I had and they had a baby and then meanwhile that crazy Northern Lights stuff I had and the super red a special snowflake met and had a baby and by some miracle those two babies met and thought this would be this the big birds people thought we were really crazy for making that movie at the time I remember tell our friends what we were working on we're like we're gonna like a weed action comedy and at the time that sounded just stupid like well I remember people just be like that sounds stupid we were like yeah we're trying to make like we're not stupid person we're looking our heads just us I think I think it could work and yeah this idea of kind of combining I mean we were huge like pulp fiction fans so like we really liked the idea of combining kind of like violence and life-and-death stakes it's very violent yeah which at the time in a comedy also was like not cool and like not something that a lot of people were like expecting to work and and and it was not like on the best received movie when it came out like it did well like people liked it and it's still the movie of this day that if like people by far come up to me the most and tell them that that's my favorite that's their favorite movie of mine at the time like yeah it was you know it did well but it was not viewed as like a great step to do in a bold new direction for us I think but I viewed it as that I'm very proud of that movie I think that movies it's just crazy David Gordon Green directed that which was a surprising choice at the time another thing is at the time there was not a lot of like comedies that we were fans of like it was a time when comedies were like super silly and broad and kind of just we weren't that psyched about what was going on out there and so we were like we should look in new directions for directors like and instead of hiring the people who do these like big like wedding crashers let's hire someone who does like independent movies with like emotional stories that we really like because we really knew that was like the most important thing was like the emotional stories and and that the movies be like a little deeper and a little more resonant than you expect them to be that was kind of always like the face we had up our sleeves we thought we're it's like yeah it's cool if it's a weed action movie but if you actually find yourself like caring about the characters characters and what's happening to them and their relationship with each other than like that would be something that no one would expect to happen you know and and David Gordon Green I remember our friends I remember he we heat like all the real girls and George Washington were just movies also like if you were in film school you were like obsessed with and he went to film school with Jody Hill and Danny Danny McBride in those guys and and they had made the foot fist way which was a movie we were huge fans of and we were just like oh these guys and we watched some of David's early short films which are batshit crazy but very funny and when you meet David he's very funny and so we met him and we were like yeah I look back and think how like quickly we made that decision at how little like scrutiny we put it through and it shocks me to this day like I watched George Washington and all the real girls I met him once for 45 minutes and we were like cool let's do it it's an awkward time in comedy we were like younger than a lot of the guys were acting it was the time when like Vince Vaughn Owen Wilson been storing those guys really famous so like like when it came to looking for guys in their 20s to star in comedies yeah like what you had to fight you really had to look for new and new directions and we thought Franco was funny but he'd been doing these really serious movies and we were like oh like he's funny like I knew he would commit so hard which he did and like what I was surprised by was how like funny we were together which was nice like I wasn't a hundred percent sure of that no no a woman policewoman every guy another guy shot another guy an Asian guy in the window Ted's house I don't know he's a big gray-haired man in Euro but he shot him in brain we very quickly fell into like a rhythm where I think we could both feel it was like a good dynamic the foot suck in the windshield joke is still one of like of all the jokes we've come up with is one of my favorite jokes we've come up with we like it when especially like action plays off of your expectation and there's nothing more fun than when an audience thinks they know what's gonna happen and then they couldn't be more sure and then something different happens and with that joke I mean it just and it also like informs character like clearly like these guys watch a lot of movies in a movie of your windshield shattered what do you do they always kick it out and the audience knows that as well they watch a lot of movies so they couldn't be more sure what's going to happen cuz only one thing has ever happened in that scenario and I remember we thought oh man what would probably happen is your foot would just go right through the window and then you're stuck driving with your foot through a window and yeah and it was I think honestly to this day it is probably in a movie theater the biggest laugh in any of our movies like I remember seeing like I go to all the screenings and we see the movies when they're in the theaters and like I think that moment like nothing compares to that moment there's lines and pineapple express about how he wants weed to be legalized in the next five years or he's lost all faith in humanity that was in 2008 I guess so 2013 was maybe five years after that so a little late yeah Canada has federally legalized cannabis which is fantastic and I think a real step in a very progressive direction and I am one of the owners and founders of a cannabis company called house plant which is currently only available in Canada and one of the reasons for that is because America it although certain states have legal weed it's still federally illegal which causes huge problems for tons of people and and I think although America's like inching in the right direction until they federally legalize it and give amnesty to the people who have been you know charged with you know reasonable nonviolent crimes during the prohibition of cannabis and like that's what we need to reach towards I think this is the end you know why it was weird it was weird playing Seth Rogen kind of but it was very freeing in some ways what was nice is like again like playing off of audience expectation is something we talk a lot about as we write our movies and like what was so nice was making a movie where you kind of knew what everyone was expecting of every character going into it and we don't have to like there was a version actually cuz the studio hated the idea of us playing ourselves and we just straight-up lied to them and they were like you have to film a version of the movie where you could maybe cut around the fact that they play themselves and we were like sure no problem and then we just I remember showing up the senator just said Seth Rogen painted a huge like the painting on the wall and it was just like well this is gonna be harder than I thought and then we actually started writing a version of the script where we don't play ourselves and it instantly was just like what the are we then like it took so much out of the fun of the movie and so we just left it and lied to the studio and thank god it worked but yeah it was fun because yeah like I think people have this expectation of all of us and of media being was kind of like nice shrubby guy who's trying to make everyone happy and be liked you know and and that was became the basis for the entire character and the other thing is like it really played into a lot of very real dynamics like me and Jay like we're very close and we kind of grew apart once I you know as the years went on and he did move back to Canada and I stay in LA and he did start coming here and not telling me and I would find out about it through our other mutual friends and and at the same time it was things like him and like in the movie heaven Jonah like he is mad at Jonah even though Jonah's trying to be nice to him all the time which is like kind of a thing that would happen [Music] Pete is tight weed is tight that's awesome it's like the golfing sequence of Navy SEALs reference though oh thanks but if your references are out of control everyone knows that hey thanks ramp it was pretty like it was probably more as informed by real life than even people think it is for a movie where we all play ourselves like a cop I remembered we sent Jay the first draft did he called this back it was like whoa like you guys really went there I were like yeah we we went all the way there did you drop that yeah me and Evan drove was that your first the foamy direct yeah it was the first movie what was that experience like it was uh it was fun honestly like it's a technically very complicated movie there's a lot of visual effects and big like set pieces I hate it in there I just want to drink some pop that element of it was was complicated but ultimately you fulfilling honestly the reason we directed it is because we were like no none of these people will do this if if we're not directing it like we couldn't hire someone else to do it we thought there was no one they were trust enough to kind of hand themselves over in this way and because I was participating it as in it as well like it broke down a lot of those barriers too I think with the actors because they were like well he's doing it so I should at least try and if it doesn't work well I'll tell him to take it out um but yeah that was really why we directed it as we were like we have to they just won't do this for anybody else Mindy Kaling's in the movie I think she falls in the hole and Rihanna's in the movie and she falls in a hole Paul Rudd's in the movie he crushes the lady's head and then runs away holding a big bottle of champagne which is one of my favorite jokes in the movie Jason Siegel's in the movie he falls in the hole Kevin Hart Michael Cera dies very early on pretty in a pretty grim way becomes a king and has a sexual I call him Channing Tatum for a half throughout almost the entire filming the movie we were like we'll never get a famous person to do this so we shouldn't even ask someone and then one day Jonah was like I thought Channing Tatum would do it and I emailed him saying like I'm not gonna sugarcoat this it is not a forgiving role you will have to be on your heads at these for two days straight basically um and you will play Danny McBride like sexual jimp plaything and within 30 seconds I got an email back that was just like yes I'm in wait tell me where and where I'll do it and God bless him he did the interview yeah every interview came from I mean I feel like it's almost like this idea that's out there in the ether is like these famous journalists kind of have access to like at times some of the most dangerous people in the world in a way that no military or government could have access interview this guy he's the most reclusive leader on the planet it's not gonna happen he lives in North Korea we can't go there Dave Skylark gets in anywhere do you remember that Club three-month waiting list hmm first night I don't think it's quite the same thing well there were a lot of Asian girls there and I think a lot of people make the joke of like oh why don't they kill that person and at the same time you know we were super fascinated by North Korea and we started to think this idea of like you know Kim jong-un like inviting kind of like a dumb egocentric American to North Korea and kind of painting this picture of how wonderful it is and and tricking him into kind of expounding the glories of North Korea onto the world was a funny idea and then it happened in real life with the President of the United States so fuckin'-a was improvised probably what is there to be jealous of his heinous cuz they anus they hate us cuz we anus the doesn't eNOS have to do hate us because they ain't us that's not what it is yes it is no it's not they hate us cuz we is us and what we is doing is terrible they hate us because they love saying that [Music] stop it don't say it again seems like something me and Franco would have just started screaming at each other but yeah that that of all the things in that movie that line is really hung on can you tell me about shoving the missile up your butt yeah there's a scene where I shove a missile up my butt and that was actually because there's like a tracking device in it I know I'm gonna find it and then there are people there they are closing in on you they have guns you need to secure the payload and you need to secure it in your ass to the soothing tones of my voice just breathe the tip is it's the worst part trust me on this then there's a part where they take me and they strip-searched me and they have dogs like trying to sniff it out and arguably the worst thing I've done but I was the director at the movie also so I had no one to blame or yell at but myself we needed the dog to kind of stick to sniff my ass basically and it wouldn't so I essentially had to shove like turkey jerky up my ass to get the dog to like snake the stick its nose in my ass and I remember there was a guy from like like but you main society there cuz when you're were edibles on set like they're there and I remember turning to him being like is this okay he was like the dog doesn't mind I'm amazed you're subjecting yourself to this but the dog doesn't care like this is not abusive to the dog but you should really second-guess every choice you've made that's led you to this moment in that scene you open up and you shake your I shake my private parts around ya how did you Foley that sound effect it's so realistic it's a dog wagging its head and its tongue flopping around it's all yours stay in the room American catch up I remember we actually asked the Foley people what they still Foley movies which is insane like it's the 1913 and they yes that sound is a dog like wagging its face throughout that it's like tongue and lips slapping against its own head it's funny that I know the answer to that question observe and report I play a guy named Ronnie Barnhardt who is like bipolar guy he who kind of views himself he kind of has like he's like ego he's kind of very egocentric and a narcissist but also very deeply depressed I'm here with Ronnie Barnhardt one of the security guards here at the mall you up ma'am I'm the head of mall security used to do that again and say it right well officer Barnhardt right is there any information you can shed on this situation he's gonna keep going and he up my title he's a mall security guard and he makes it his mission to catch a flasher he does catch that man and he shoots him the whole end of the movie is me like chasing a naked man through a mall in slow motion and it's like pretty remarkable [Music] I remember as we were filming it on my I was like crazy [Music] and the movie paul blart mall cop came out like a few ones before and kind of us we heard rumblings about paul Blart and then we like yeah and then years later I heard that they actually like got the script and ripped us off even though they're very different movies paul blart made I think six times the amount of money of observer report though one way or another I'm not thrilled with paul blart mall cop in relation to how observer report was received Steve Jobs was we're playing a real person and it was even weirder that that person was Steve Wozniak I don't think there's a man who's done more to advance the democratization that comes with personal computing that I have but you've never had any respect for me now why is that I've at least consider the possibility that's because you've never had any for me I luckily got to spend a lot of time with him we became pretty close I still email him every now and then yeah I went out to dinner with him a few times and spent a lot of time with him and he's a pretty like eccentric dude who has a lot of very specific manner in there we're talking to Danny Boy a lot about that I was like how much of this stuff do you want me to do and he was like some of it the one of the best things I was I went to the Magic Castle which with Steve Wozniak and his wife and my wife which was a crazy experience cuz magicians aren't nerds and if you're also if you're a nerd there are a few people cooler than Steve Wozniak and like it was like walking in with like you know David Copperfield or something like that and the funniest part is at the end of the night he he had a segue that him and his wife came to the Magic Castle on segways which they had parked in the parking lot just leaned against a wall and I was like these must be I was like I think you got on the Segway bandwagon pretty early he's like these are the first two segways like they're serial numbers one and two and he's like but the funny thing about that is they don't have headlights but it was at night so he reached through a bag and pulled out two flashlights and gave one to him and what him to his wife and I literally just saw him Segway away down Hollywood Boulevard like holding flashlights in one hand and sig Willian with the other and I was like that guy invented personal computers long shot long shot I play a journalist named Fred filarsky who was very opinionated and idealistic to his own fault and he's very politically minded or so he thinks and he was babysat by a woman who's become the secretary of state and who's running for president and she hires him as a speechwriter and he very quickly learns a lot about himself and reconnects with who he used to be [Music]

Channel: GQ

Views: 8,701,173

Rating: 4.8984365 out of 5

Keywords: iconic, iconic characters, seth rogen, seth rogen 2019, seth rogen 40 year old virgin, seth rogen superbad, seth rogen characters, seth rogen funny, seth rogen iconic characters, seth rogen gq, seth rogen interview, seth rogen iconic, seth rogen iconic roles, seth rogen roles, seth rogen movie, seth rogen movies, seth rogen pineapple express, seth rogen freaks and geeks, seth rogen observe and report, rogen, seth, seth rogen laugh, seth rogen comedy, gq, gq magazine

Id: 6Db_8Oyy09w

Length: 39min 32sec (2372 seconds)

Published: Tue May 21 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/lord_james]

I was really hoping they'd go further into Micheal Cera in This Is The End. That was one of the funniest characters in the movie.

[u/Funmachine]

Skips right past Donnie Darko

[u/The_Phreak]

Need more Seth Rogen and Franco together

[u/SnakeSquad]

Seth and his buddies basically became Sandler and his buddies except much more consistent and funny, must be really cool to be able to make these movies with your friends especially if it's stuff you guys find funny .

[u/PreGay]

I'm not a huge fan of Seth's work, but he is very chill and is somewhat thoughtful about his past work.

I think he's a better actor/writer now.