Seth Rogen started off his career in the entertainment business in a really unusual way. His first real gig was performing stand-up at the age of 13 in a lesbian bar. Things took off from there when Rogen was cast by Judd Apatow in the short-lived TV series, Freaks and Geeks.
Rogen moved to LA at 16 to work on that show and stayed in the States, continuing to work with Apatow even after Freaks and Geeks was cancelled. And although Rogen's played supporting roles in numerous feature films (including Anchorman and The 40 Year Old Virgin), writer/director Apatow's Knocked Up marks Rogen's first lead role in a major feature film. Rogen stars as a slacker whose drunken one night stand with a pretty entertainment reporter (played by Katherine Heigl) leads to an unexpected pregnancy.
It’s Never Too Late to Grow Up: Rogen believes almost any guy is redeemable. “Yeah - if you haven’t done anything truly terrible. More than anything, I think, our movies have a very simple message and that is try to be a good guy or girl, do the right thing, as Spike Lee said,” explained Rogen. “That’s kind of all you need, I think. You can kind of have all the people say all the filthy, despicable things you want and have them do stupid things, but as long as you get that character’s trying to be a good person through it all, that’s kind of all I need to latch onto. It’s simple but I think, emotionally speaking, it’s true to my experience with people. If you meet someone, everyone has their shortcomings, but as long as you see they’re trying to do well by others, then they’re very redeemable I find.”
Wearing Multiple Hats on Knocked Up: Rogen not only starred in the movie but also executive produced the film. “My duties were being near Judd at all times,” said Rogen, explaining what his job as an executive producer entailed. "I told him, ‘I’m just going to give you my opinion until you tell me to shut up. And take what you have and take what you will and don’t take what you won’t.’ Basically, I’m there throughout all the casting and all the meetings with the studio about the script. I helped as much as I could with the writing process and the re-writing process. There weren’t many on this movie, but on days I wasn’t acting, I’d come to set and think of some jokes for some of the other scenes in the movie and the other characters. And in editing, I’m involved giving notes and going to the preview screenings and doing what I can. Keeping off the couch.”
Rogen says he’s also keeping busy writing. “Pretty much when I’m not acting, which is often, I guess - or doing press. Yeah, as soon as I finish doing the Knocked Up promotion, I will start writing again. And between movies, that’s kind of my default mood is sitting in my underwear writing. That’s where I want to be, if no one else expects me to be anywhere else.”
Asked which creative hat he enjoys wearing the most, Rogen replied, “I’ve got to say with movies like Knocked Up, where I have significant amount of input and Superbad, which we just did, I really love doing them both. It’s hard to pick one. Ideally, I’d just keep doing this and be able to wear both hats at once. I view them [as] they’re kind of the same thing to me; they’re both kind of making movies. It’s not really compartmentalized in two separate halves of my brain, really. It’s all part of the same goal and yeah, I like to be as involved as I can.”
Deviating from the Script: Writer/director Judd Apatow always allows his actors a lot of freedom when it comes to adding their own lines. “There was tons of improv in all the scenes, especially the ones with me and my friends,” said Rogen. “We hired my actual friends because we always hope for those dynamics to kind of show on film. Our hope was to be able to tell we were all friends and we actually all know each other really well, and the best way to get that stuff out is just through improv’ing and letting loose the actual dynamics play out of it.
It’s funny that Martin [Starr’s] the one with the beard because he’s the one who always gets s**t from all of us and it really suits him so well to be this one guy who’s constantly getting it from all of us. It’s those little things that really amuse me, especially watching it. It’s really weird his name is Martin in the movie. It’s very confusing in a way. But yeah, we improvise heavily. Generally, we shoot the script once or twice and then we just kind of go off. Harold Ramis put it well. He was talking about it and he said when he did Ghostbusters and stuff, he would always say, ‘The script is the worst case scenario. The script is what we have if we can’t think of anything better.’ That’s pretty much what we do – and it was a pretty good script to begin with - so it was a pretty good worse case scenario we all thought.”
On Working with Judd Apatow: “What’s amazing about Judd is about how open the set feels. You can do no wrong, which is nice. He’ll never tell you not to say something. He may tell you not to say it again, but he won’t tell you not to say it in the first place. You know you can do whatever you want; he gives you the time, the film, and the focus to really get the best out of people. People who have one line in Knocked Up would say it was the best acting experience they’ve ever had because they would have gotten a whole roll of film to get the funniest version of that line. Everyone kind of gets their moment in the sun and the opportunity to do whatever they think is funny. It’s just amazing. It feels very communal. You know you have the time and the film, and you really feel like you can mine humor out of whatever you are doing.”
Page 2: Seth Rogen on Katherine Heigl, Pineapple Express, and Freaks and Geeks
