Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg Interview
Seth Rogen – 'Dale' in Pineapple Express
Getting back together with James [Franco] onscreen, what was that like?
Seth Rogen: "It was great. We've been friends a long time. And I've always loved working with him on Freaks and Geeks. We always got along well. And then he just did really, really well after that and I didn't for a while. I mean ultimately I started working. There was a long time when he was in Spider-Man and stuff and I wasn't doing anything. I'd hoped, you know, that we would be able to work together again but I thought we were just kind of going in different directions. But then things kind of worked out for this and it's great. I couldn't have been happier with it."
Why a stoner comedy?
Seth Rogen: "It's the kind of movie I would want to go see, yeah, so that's what we did."
And the improv, how easy is it to toss back and forth between you and James?
Seth Rogen: "It's great. He's great at it. We know each other well. And Danny [McBride] also is really great at it. We've known each other for a few years now so yeah, it was a lot of fun. It's free-flowing. It's easy with guys that are really funny like that."
Are you read for Green Hornet?
Seth Rogen: "I'm getting there. You know I've still got a while – at least seven months or something like that. I can have a baby before then."
But the script's ready?
Seth Rogen: "Yeah, we finished a few drafts of the script."
Director?
Seth Rogen: "Meeting with people. We've got no one nailed down yet though. "
Pineapple Express Writer Evan Goldberg
Tell me about working on this. You don't have to be a stoner to like it, right? You don't have to go high to the theater?
Evan Goldberg: "No. It probably helps, but you don't have to do that."
Where did it come from?
Evan Goldberg: "Judd Apatow was watching I think True Romance. Brad Pitt plays this like lazy stoner in it. He kind of had the idea, 'Well, what would have happened if that guy was the center of the story instead of the action star guy?' So, he told me and Seth and we thought it was the shittiest idea we ever heard. And then eventually we discussed it and realized if it was good, it would be great. And so we tried to do it, but we tried to write it so that you can remove the pot."
Like clean it up?
Evan Goldberg: "We wrote it so that if it had to just be an action movie, not a pot movie, it would still be a good movie. So we made it so the pot wasn't…nothing relied on it."
And yet the trailers really focus on it being a pot story.
Evan Goldberg: "That's because they smoke pot every 30 seconds."
On the set they let them just flow with it, they didn't have to go by the script. Do you mind when they change your words like that?
Evan Goldberg: "No. Firstly, I get more credit for the writing than them so that's cool. But I don't know, it's actually kind of weird with being like, 'He's a writer, producer, director...' In our world, we all like the director's the director but he does lots of the writing. And sometimes we'll help him out. It's a team effort."
What's happening with Green Hornet?
Evan Goldberg: "Everything."
Casting, director?
Evan Goldberg: "No, no, no. We sent it in yesterday. There was a final draft before we send it out to directors. We need a Kato. We need a director."
But there's rumors about Kato already, right? [Stephen Chow's name has been mentioned]
Evan Goldberg: "There's rumors but no solid…"
But is that who you want?
Evan Goldberg: "He's definitely like top choice. He's one of the top choices for sure. I mean, there's not a lot of people who can actually kick ass and be humorous all at once."
We talked about it last year and you said it was going more for action than for comedy. Is that still the tone?
Evan Goldberg: "I'm going to renege on that comment. It is still largely action, but it just turned out to be funnier than we thought. But there still is vastly more action than Pineapple Express. It is a full-blown action movie."
More on Pineapple Express:
