Why meeting Seth was so alarming
Jewish Telegraph, August 2007
DESPITE being one of Hollywood’s hottest talents, Seth Rogen comes across as so genuine and down-to-earth.
Not only did Seth’s first lead role Knocked Up top the US box office but Superbad, which he co-wrote, is currently sitting at number one in the American charts.
And from today, British audiences will see what all the fuss is about with the release of the best comedy of the year, Knocked Up.
Our interview at Manchester’s Lowry Hotel on Monday did not get off to the best start as the fire alarm sounded.
But the 25-year-old Canadian’s booming laugh almost drowned out the racket.
Seth’s showbiz career started at the age of 13 when he performed stand-up comedy around Vancouver.
“I talked about my barmitzvah and my grandparents and going to high school and trying to kiss girls,” he said.
“I always drew from my own life and experiences. I just tried to be honest, the real 13-year-old’s view on things.
“I played real clubs all over Vancouver and even came to Los Angeles. I was pretty good at it.”
His big break came when he was 16 and Judd Apatow cast him in cult television series Freaks and Geeks.
Two years later, Judd again cast him in a TV comedy, Undeclared — for which he was also a writer.
This show suffered the same fate as Freaks and Geeks despite critical acclaim.
Seth joined the writing team of Sacha Baron Cohen’s American show Da Ali G Show before Apatow once again came calling.
Seth was cast in a major supporting role, and credited as a co-producer, in Apatow’s smash-hit directorial debut The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
He has also appeared in Donnie Darko, You, Me, and Dupree, Fanboys and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
He will also appear in the Apatow written Pineapple Express.
And it’s not just in front of the camera that Seth is a hit. He also manages to strike gold as a writer. As well as Superbad, which he wrote with Evan Goldberg, he has also written Owen Wilson’s Drillbit Taylor which opens later in the year.
So does Seth feel that the fact that both he and Judd are Jewish helped them bond.
“Jews get each other,” he laughed. “It’s unavoidable. There’s a pain there, an awkwardness.”
Seth admitted it was a conscious decision to make his character, Ben Stone, Jewish.
He told me: “I knew we wanted every difference imaginable between the characters.
“I’m clearly Jewish. It would be crazy if we pretended I wasn’t. We always wanted a tall blonde girl to be the girl who I got pregnant. The juxtaposition of that we thought would be funny.
“All the guys (Ben’s friends) are Jewish. The less false walls you put up, the easier it is to naturally have the conversation.”
He added: “It would have been weird if all of a sudden Jonah Hill (who also stars in Superbad) improvised that he wasn’t Jewish.
“We’d be like, ‘what the **** are you talking about’. You have to expose yourself in these movies.
“You are asked to improvise so much that unless you have a totally limitless imagination, it will seep into the character.”
Early in the film, Ben and his friends talk about Steven Spielberg’s film Munich about Israel’s response to the murder of 11 athletes at the 1972 Olympics.
The friends praise the fact that for once it is Jews who are doing the killing and not being killed.
“The Munich scene came from Judd shouting ‘talk about Munich’.
Seth — who is currently adapting the 1960s TV show Green Hornet for the big screen — looks up to actors like Robert Downey Jr and Jeff Bridges.
“They can do any type of movie and it doesn’t seem weird,” he said.
“Knocked Up is a good way for me into that. Not that I have anything to prove by being taken seriously. I just don’t want to keep making the same movies over and over. There are dramatic parts in Knocked Up.
“I’ve not painted myself into a corner yet.”
Seth describes his relationship with Judd as “friends first and foremost”.
He said: “We work very well together. We have the same sensibilities.
“He taught me a lot of my sensibilities, comedically, especially story and structure wise and how movies should flow and make you feel.
“I was doing stand-up when I was spotted. I like to think I would have found some success at some point but Judd made it a lot easier.”
Seth finds it hard to see himself as the leading man. He told me: “I never thought I was carrying the movie. I always thought it was an ensemble and tried to approach it like that.
“I played scenes like I used to and avoided acting like I was the most important guy in the movie.”
He is also delighted that he doesn’t meet the Hollywood requisite for stars to have perfect toned bodies and expensive teeth.
He said: “Movies are interesting when I relate to the main characters and not one ounce of me relates to Brad Pitt.
“I’ve loved movies where the characters have to struggle and it’s a tumultuous road ahead of them and you don’t buy that Brad Pitt has one difficult second in his entire life. Things are easy for that guy.
“I’d give him free stuff; he’s just a beautiful person to look at.”
He added: “I’m glad I’m being lumped in with the type of comics I always liked for being normal looking every day guys who are hilarious.”
