Seth Rogen on going from onscreen slacker to studio boss: ‘People really do scream at each other in Hollywood’
He might be known for his stoner vibe and roles in comedies such as Superbad and Knocked Up, but behind the scenes the actor, writer, weed-lover and pottery fan has also become a producing power player. Has it changed him?
Seth Rogen is itemising all the ways in which, when he’s producing a film or TV show, he’s inclined to agonise about his contribution. “Are my notes helping?” he says. “Am I making things worse? Am I actually inspiring the writers to create better things? Or am I imposing my outdated vision? Will they think spending time with me is a worthy use of their time?” And the big one – the one that, when he’s working with his heroes, as he did recently on The Studio, a new TV comedy Rogen has produced, directed, co-written and starred in, and which features cameos by, among others, Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese – really keeps him awake at night: “Do they like me?”
It is a very Rogenish thought spiral: neurotic, self-deprecating, delivered with the tremulous comic undertone that characterises most of his speech. Since the devastating fires in LA in January, it is also the kind of moan, Rogen says, that has to be prefaced in Hollywood by an awkward new protocol. “Whenever you talk to anyone, the first thing you do is check, like, before we get too far into trivial subjects, did you recently lose all your worldly belongings? Before I whine to you for 20 minutes, it’d be good to know.”
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