By Christina Radish
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Seth Rogen at the premiere of "Knocked Up" held at the Mann Village in Westwood, Calif. on May 21, 2007. |
In Knocked Up, the latest comedy from writer/director Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin), Katherine Heigl (Grey’s Anatomy) plays Alison Scott, an ambitious and beautiful young woman on the verge of becoming an on-air reporter for a major entertainment news network. Ben Stone (Seth Rogen), however, lives with four friends (Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Jason Segal and Martin Starr) in a dilapidated house, sharing their ambition to create a semi-pornographic celebrity website that could make them wealthy, if they ever manage to launch it. These two polar opposites meet in a bar, drunkenly hook up and then go their separate ways, in what is seemingly the end of their story. That is, until several weeks later, when Ben unexpectedly hears from Alison. But, he quickly finds that the phone call is not a request for a second date, and is instead a declaration that she’s going to have his baby. Now, these two virtual strangers must decide if they can love each other enough to start a family.
Seth Rogen, the 25-year-old executive producer and star of Knocked Up, who first met Apatow when he was cast on the critically acclaimed, yet short-lived television series Freaks and Geeks in 1999, tells MediaBlvd Magazine about working with the former comedian-turned-filmmaker, and what it’s like to film sex scenes with someone as attractive as Katherine Heigl.
MediaBlvd Magazine> Is the general idea of this movie that any guy is redeemable?
Seth Rogen> I think almost any guy is redeemable, if he hasn’t done anything truly terrible. More than anything, our movies have a very simple message, and that is try to be a good guy or girl and do the right thing. That’s all you need. You can have people say all the filthy, despicable things you want, and have them do stupid things, as long as that character is trying to be a good person, through it all. Emotionally speaking, that’s true to my experience with people. Everyone has their short comings, but as long as you see they’re trying to do well by others, then they’re very redeemable.
MediaBlvd> How much improv was there on this film?
Seth> There was tons of improv in all the scenes, especially the ones with me and my friends. We hired my actual friends because we always hope those dynamics show on film. Our hope was for audiences to be able to tell that we were all friends and we actually all know each other really well. The best way to get that stuff out is just through improvising and letting the actual dynamics loose. It’s the little things that really amuse me. We improvise heavily, generally. We shoot the script once or twice, and then, we just go off. The script is the worst case scenario. The script is what we have, if we can’t think of anything better. And, it was a pretty good script, to begin with, so it was a pretty good worse case scenario.
MediaBlvd> What’s it like to still be working with your Freaks and Geeks co-stars?
Seth> It’s amazing. I look back to Freaks and Geeks and I’m terrified how little thought I put into it. I think I was just young and inexperienced, and it never really dawned on me that it was a really great show we were doing with amazing actors. Looking back, it was a great show with some really talented people involved, and we all got along really well. I think that’s why we all want to keep working together. I just finished a movie with James Franco, and it was amazing to be able to work together again. We kept looking at each other saying, “If you told us 8 years ago that someone would allow us to be in a movie that we’re the stars of, I would have never believed it.” It’s amazing to us.
MediaBlvd> What stands out most about working with Judd Apatow?
Seth> What’s amazing about Judd is 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 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 said it was the best acting experience they’ve ever had because they had the chance to get the funniest version of that line on film. Everyone 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.
MediaBlvd> What was it like to shoot the sex scenes with Katherine Heigl?
Seth> It’s really nerve wracking. If I was 18 years old, it literally would have been as far as I’d ever been with a girl. You’re essentially dry humping a girl who you don’t know very well. And, I was just afraid I was going to sweat on her. My major concern was that I was going to drip a big gob of sweat on her head. But, luckily they were comedic sex scenes, so that helps. It’s not like I had to be acting sexy, so that alleviates some of the pressure that would be put on me to look attractive and sexy, which is nice.
MediaBlvd> How was it to film the birth scene?Seth> I was always a big proponent of showing the whole megillah, as they say. I thought it’d be funny and shocking, and it reminded me a little of There’s Something About Mary, when you see Ben Stiller’s zipper and crotch. Things like that are always implied in movies, but not really 100 feet tall, so I just knew that that reaction would be fun from the audience. It was stressful to shoot that scene. Katie actually pulled her back out, pushing and screaming so much. I just had to stand there and hold her hand, and I felt a lot like I imagine a real husband feels during birth. It was her show, and I just stayed out of the way and try not to ruin anything. It was weird to film.
MediaBlvd> What were your duties as executive producer on this film?
Seth> My duties were being near Judd, at all times. I told him, “I’m just going to give you my opinion until you tell me to shut up.” 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 of them 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 with giving notes and going to the preview screenings and doing what I can.
MediaBlvd> Are you ready to be the lead in another romantic comedy?
Seth> We’ll see. I don’t know. It’s a strange concept, that romance is what people want to see me do. But, I had fun, and I’d keep doing it, sure.
MediaBlvd> How often are you writing?
Seth> Pretty much whenever I’m not acting, which is often. Between movies, I’m sitting in my underwear, writing. That’s where I want to be, if no one expects me to be anywhere else.
MediaBlvd> Which creative hat do you enjoy the most?
Seth> With movies, like Knocked Up or Superbad, where I have a significant amount of input, I really love acting. Ideally, I’d just continue to wear both hats at once. They’re kind of the same thing to me. It’s not really compartmentalized, in two separate halves of my brain. It’s all part of the same goal. I like to be as involved as I can.
MediaBlvd> How outrageous and R-rated were you at age 13, when you were doing stand-up in Vancouver?
Seth> I was not. I was clean back then, mostly because my mother came to a lot of my shows and I just would have been too embarrassed. My life wasn’t that R-rated back then. I tried to be truthful to what was going on with my life, my friends and my experiences. Then, it was more about my grandparents, playing video games, my Bar Mitzvah and stuff like that. I hadn’t delved into the filthy world I now occupy.
MediaBlvd> Where did you first do your stand-up?
Seth> At a lesbian bar in Vancouver, called The Lotus. I thought it was “Ladies Night.” I didn’t really get what was happening.
MediaBlvd> How did a 13-year-old end up doing stand-up in a lesbian bar?
Seth> You sign up. There was actually a workshop that was being held at the bar, where they tell you the loose format for writing a stand-up joke. And then, at the end, you go and perform it for everyone. From there, someone would say, “I know this other guy who runs this other comedy room. Why don’t you come and do 5 minutes?” After that, you would get invited to do 10 minutes, and then you’d be making 50 bucks a week and you didn’t need to work at McDonald’s.
MediaBlvd> Was Porky’s, or any other sex comedy, an influence on you, when you were a kid?
Seth> Porky’s is the highest grossing Canadian film of all time. When they would play it in Canada, I would tape bits of it, like the nude scenes, and compile them. I’ve seen the nine minutes of Porky’s, where people are naked, 1,000 times over. Porky’s introduced me to adulthood. Also, Bachelor Party was a movie I always liked. It’s pretty dirty for a Tom Hanks movie. There’s some bestiality jokes in there, and stuff like that, that would always shock me. I would say that Kevin Smith was an inspiration, language wise. His movies were the first that I saw where people were cursing up a storm, and that was very amusing to me.
MediaBlvd> How raunchy is Superbad?
Seth> Movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High had a really relatable feel to them, and the language felt true to life. We hadn’t really seen that, when we started writing Superbad at the age of 14. It was born out of a very pure desire to see kids acting how we acted, and speaking how we spoke. It just happened to be very dirty. It’s what made us laugh. When me and my writing partner, Evan Goldberg, were writing it, we were teenagers in Vancouver. There was no real implication that it would ever get made into anything. It was just to amuse ourselves. Unfortunately, really filthy jokes are what amuse us, so that’s what we wrote. It was born out of a desire to see teen characters act like what we acted like, when we were in high school.
MediaBlvd> What is the humor like in Pineapple Express, and how action packed is it?
Seth> Sexually speaking, Pineapple Express is not nearly as dirty as Superbad, or even Knocked Up. It’s not really a sexual movie. It’s more of a marijuana-themed, buddy comedy, in the tone of 48 Hours or Midnight Run. Action wise, it’s pretty jammed packed. We’ve got car chases, shoot-outs, explosions and me holding many machine guns, which is amusing to me. I hope other people find it entertaining. We thought it had to function as both an action film and as a comedy. We took that very seriously.
