Seth Rogen's guide to making movies: lie to the studio, hire your friends, offend the church and have a lot of fun Seth Rogen in Melbourne plugging his new comedy . (Nicole Cleary) Source: News Limited When Seth Rogen moved from Vancouver down to LA as a teenager, he didn't think there was much demand for a "chubby Canadian Jew" in movies. With a bit of help from Judd Apatow and through his own initiative with childhood friend and long-time writing partner Evan Goldberg, it turns out Rogen was wrong. As Hollywood's No.1 comedy man-child, 31-year-old Rogen has carved a niche with successes including Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express and supplying his voice to the Kung Fu Panda franchise. He's also built up a kind of comedy rat-pack including Jason Segel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, fellow Candian Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Michael Cera and Craig Robinson - which came in handy when it came to his new film, This is the End. Written and, for the first time, directed by Rogen and Goldberg, This is the End begins at a party at James Franco's Hollywood house. When the world starts exploding outside, the actor egos on the inside start imploding. All of the aforementioned actors appear, whether prominently or comically briefly, as themselves in the film. Rogen passed through Australia in June to promote the apocalyptic comedy. This is what he had to say ... Jonah Hill makes a crack in This is the End that Jay Baruchel is the last connection to your 's---ty, weird Canadian life'. What are your Canadian connections these days? My dad is American, so I've always been an American citizen, which is very nice because it's made my life much easier. Evan, on the other hand, has no American in his family and literally got a Green Card like two weeks ago. It's been a constant nightmare for him. I definitely associate with being Canadian much more than being American. I was in Canada until I was 18 so ... you're always, 'Wow, that happens here?' As long as you're (in America), there's still new weirdness to uncover. Seth Rogen (left) on the set of This is the End with co-director Evan Goldberg. Was it a culture shock when you found yourself as a teenager on set in LA making Freaks &Geeks? Almost every Canadian who comes to LA goes through exactly what Jay Baruchel's going through in the movie - where they hate it, everyone seems phony, it seems like bulls---. Most of them get over it, Jay just never did (laughs). It was a definite culture shock, it was super weird. People spoke differently in a lot of ways. I also moved there around 9/11 happening, so it was a weird time to be in America in general. Culturally, it was definitely outside anything I had a lot of experience with. The timing of your arrival in the US seems fortunate though, as you converged with a lot of other young guys who are now your comedy crew - including a lot of the cast of This is the End. Yeah, I mean the guys in this movie, I'm friends with them, but they're all so busy, they're not the people I hang out with on a weekly basis. But it is amazing how many of the people I first worked with when I first moved here are now doing really well. How did you find your first time out as director? It's not the hardest job that we've had on a movie. Producing movies is a lot harder than directing movies; we've been doing that for a few years and it's waaaaay more difficult and stressful, it takes way longer. Me and Evan keep saying, 'Producing a movie is getting someone to give you $30 million; directing a movie is spending $30 million' - so it's a lot more fun to spend a bunch of money than to convince someone to give you a bunch of money. Thank God over the years we've worked with a lot of really good directors. We waited until we were really confident and thought, 'We can do this'. So we dove in head first with a technically really complicated movie. And we're super-happy with how it turned out. As we made it, it wasn't that stressful, it seemed funny, it seemed like it was turning out well, which was encouraging. You were worried that having the actors play themselves could be the one big "miss" of This is the End. How did you test that it would work, before you could show the film to test audiences? We just did it! We just asked a lot of our friends who were writers; as we were getting cameos involved, all those people seemed to think the idea was really funny ... Aside from the studio, there was almost no voice of 'It's not a good idea'; everyone else was like, 'It's a hilarious idea', which is what we thought it was. So we just had to trust our initial instinct. It makes it more fun, honestly, if you're making a movie under the umbrella that it might just be completely wrong. As you're saying the jokes, just the fact that you're thinking, 'This might be a terrible idea' adds an energy and fun to it. (L-R) James Franco, Rogen and Jay Baruchel in This is the End. How did you convince the studio it was a good idea? We honestly told them that we would shoot a version where we could cut it out a little bit ... and we just didn't do that. So we basically lied to them! Is it at all bizarre to think you are well known enough that you can play yourself in a movie? I mean, that's partly what the movie's about, how weird it is that me and my friends are now famous, by a lot of standards. It is something we constantly talk about as super-weird and conceptually it is strange to us. That's part of the reason we wanted to put it in the movie - not to get sympathy or anything, it's just a theme in our lives that's very strange. It was fun to be able to comment on it because most people don't get to do that or just don't try to do it. It's something so many people making movies probably relate to and ... it's probably the least sympathetic thing in the entire world and you just have to be willing to accept that and move beyond it, which is what we tried to do. The actors joke in the film about each other's flops, such as Your Highness and The Green Hornet. In real life, how honest are you with each other about your less-successful movies? We're a lot more sensitive about it in real life. But we talk about it. You need to talk about it because, when a movie doesn't do well I'm most concerned what these guys think. It's not the public perception I'm that worried about, it's my friends - brutal. So you want to talk about it with them just to clear the air. It's awkward if one of your friends is in a horrible bomb and you don't acknowledge it in some way; it's the elephant in the room, I guess. What's been your elephant-in-the-room movie? Every movie I've done that hasn't turned out great, there's been some reason that it seemed like maybe it wouldn't have been bad. None of them are that embarrassing, honestly. Like I don't think any of these guys loved Guilt Trip (with Barbra Streisand) that much, but that script was spectacular and I know a few of them had read it because it was going around. I even remember at the time they were like, 'Oh that script's amazing, you're so lucky you're doing that movie'. But even that isn't that embarrassing, because they know the motivation behind it - like, everyone hopes they're making good movies. You talk about it, you have those conversations, definitely. Rogen with Barbra Streisand in The Guilt Trip. Have you got more acting jobs lined up or now you've written and directed your own film will you focus on more of that? We already filmed one movie (Townies) since we made this - with Rose Byrne actually, Australia's own! Then we're gonna start directing another movie that I am gonna act in - also with Jim Franco - in October. That one, we came up with the story but another guy wrote the script - it's actually a little smarter than we're able to do (laughs). It'll be interesting to do something that someone else had a large hand in writing, which we haven't really done much. Comedy is your specialty, obviously. But Evan says you have some more serious stories floating around that you might look to hand off to someone else to direct. As producers we are open to anything. People have brought us slightly more serious ideas that we're developing now; a couple of them. But honestly, my instinct is always: any serious idea could be funny if you really sat down and tried to make it like that, without diminishing the idea at all. It's just more fun to make funny movies, so I would generally prefer to do that, personally. Is that you in real life as well - trying to crack jokes during serious moments? Ahhh, no, I'm a little more sensitive, probably. Like 10 per cent more sensitive in real life. If producing is such hard work, why do you continue to do so much of it? Because you get to be in control of the movie in a real capacity. We're still young producers because we don't have as much control as bigger producers have. But with 50/50, the fact that we were in complete control of it meant we could give (director) Jonathan Levine control and protect them in a way. That was the first movie we produced on our own and it went really well. It was probably the most fun we had ever had doing a movie. There was no one else we had to worry about, like trying to soften it or water it down or be too sympathetic to the people giving us money. It was just really nice. And they've just turned out better, the ones that ... not to say, the ones we did with Judd (Apatow) are fantastic also, we want to work with Judd more, honestly. But we just felt like we should try to do it on our own. Everyone just has the instinct, eventually, 'We'll try to do this on our own'. The story for This is the End was hanging around for six or seven years before you got it made. Do you have more ideas like that or is it time to start afresh? We've been trying to make an animated, like R-rated Pixar-style movie for years and it seems like now they might be actually making it. We wrote the script while we were filming 50/50 and developed it for years before that, even. There's plenty more that we've been trying to make for years and years and years and people keep saying they're too crazy to make. Which is nice (laughs). Who do you make that movie with? A Disney-Pixar or DreamWorks Animation might not want to touch an R-rated animation ... No, we're doing it separately. I think actually Sony is gonna do it with us ... and Megan Ellison. So from the producer of Zero Dark Thirty (laughs) will come Sausage Party ... which is what it's called. (L-R) Jay Baruchel, Rogen and Jonah Hill in This is the End. Even with all the R-rated shenanigans, your stories always have a sweet core. This is the End is ultimately quite a morality tale - be good and ... And you'll go to heaven. It doesn't get more moral than that! Is it touchy ground, getting religious in a movie? We thought that would be something the studio had a giant issue with and they literally didn't say a word about it. There was never the, 'Are you guys gonna talk about Jesus?' They didn't give a s---! We were actually surprised at how well-digested that element has been. I thought it was a touchy subject - apparently it isn't. The scene where we're sitting around talking about, like, 'Jesus f---ing Christ. You can't say that. There's a God? Who saw that coming?' - while we were shooting that, even Jay was like, 'Are we actually having this conversation? This is crazy! It just felt like these guys would be talking about it and exactly how they would be talking about it. We almost pass no judgment. If anything in this movie, we're saying Christianity is right. We kind of tweak the exact grounds for which you get sucked up into Heaven a little bit, for dramatic reasons, but basically we're supporting Christian ideology. Which is probably one of the reasons it was well-digested, for the most part. Although someone sent me a YouTube clip of a preacher talking about an article he read about the movie and how appalled he is that 'Hollywood people' - which to me, the subtext is 'Jews' - are making a movie about the Rapture. Which ... I could see where he's coming from (laughs). Would a comedy work with no moral or emotional centre, or does it need to have some kind of sweetness? For me, it has to. Some comedies don't have that and I don't like them. It's more of a challenge to give it an actual story and actual emotions. Even a movie that's a joke completely, like Anchorman, it's a ridiculous story, but underneath it, it has the bare-bones structure of a morally-affirming story: he makes the right choice, he chooses love. For me, it's more interesting creatively to do. I think it's funny that we make disgusting movies with nice messages. And it's more challenging to actually make people care. One of the things that's interesting about This is the End is people actually find themselves invested in some of the relationships. It's such a ridiculous movie and the fact that even for a brief second we're able to make you care about what happens to these guys is a giant accomplishment ... because there are so many giant d---s in the movie. There's a line in This is the End - 'Actors are soft as baby s---'. That's part of the joke for us - actors are the least-equipped people to deal with any actual real-life situation ... the apocalypse being the first one, probably. Besides the female actors in the film, do you ever road-test your jokes on women to make sure you're not crossing a line? I would never think of it in those terms, honestly. I mean, my wife is a writer ... We give them to female writers that we know and are friends with, but never with the consideration of, 'Are we going too far?', just to get their opinion (laughs). Maybe we should ask them that ... That question comes to mind because we know from the trailer that Harry Potter's dear little Hermoine, Emma Watson, is in This is the End. Then you see the full film and there's five minutes of you guys discussing 'giving off rapey vibes' in her presence ... I know. It's funny. People kept saying, 'Why isn't there a woman in there?' And the answer is, it's kind of like what (Danny Boyle's 2002 zombie apocalypse thriller) 28 Days Later becomes about - you can't ignore the sexual thing that would happen if the world's ending and there's a woman and guys ... We didn't want the movie to be about that at all. To us, sexuality kills this type of movie, in a weird way. The studio kept saying, 'Can you put a woman in?' and we kept saying, 'It'll feel rapey, it'll feel rapey'. Then one day, one of the studio executives literally said, 'Then make that the joke in the scene'. And we were like, 'Oh, you know what, that's actually a good idea'. So the discussion off screen became the discussion on screen. Emma Watson wards off Jonah Hill and Rogen in This is the End. Your first job in LA, Freaks &Geeks, was a straight acting gig. You'd been writing with Evan for a good five years by then. Did you ever waver from the plan to create your own projects? We had been writing Superbad already when I moved out to LA and I'd been doing stand-up, so I always thought the key to my success would be to create my own stuff. I didn't assume there was a bunch of rich studio people in a room going like, 'We need a chubby Canadian Jew in movies!' There wasn't a lot of precedent of, 'That guy looks like me and he's famous!' But at the same time I was a fan of Kevin Smith's movies and Wes Anderson's movies, even Quentin Tarantino's movies - we knew there was a way to make little movies. So it was always, if nothing else works, we could just make movies ourselves ... and I would want to act in them. And being in Vancouver where a lot of movies actually get made, it would have seemed even more possible. It was around us, which was helpful. It's not like we grew up in the middle of Kentucky in a field somewhere ... And we were from the city, we weren't even from the suburbs. So there were comedy clubs around and it was easy for me to go do stand-up ... We were from a major city, which was helpful. Another joke you make in This is the End is telling Jay you're on 'a cleanse'. What is the most Hollywood thing you've done? I have gone on a cleanse my wife made me. I lasted one day, maybe two. But from the cleanse, I stopped drinking coffee and now I only drink tea. What other Hollywood bulls--- stuff do I do? Not that much. I lead a pretty unhealthy life, generally speaking (laughs). You did lose a little bit of weight ... A little bit. Was that your wife's doing or was that the pressure to play a superhero? It was partially I just got a little older and my body changed. I lost my baby fat (laughs). I still eat pretty bad and don't exercise much. You've been to Australia to promote movies a few times, but have you actually had a chance to have a real look around? The first time I was here we took like two weeks out. We went to Cairns and to Lizard Island which is out there in the Reef, which was lovely. What's your favourite thing about our great nation? It reminds me a lot of Canada, honestly. Sydney and Vancouver are very similar cities. Oh really? Aussies tend to say Melbourne/Vancouver ... And Sydney/Toronto? But Sydney is on the water like Vancouver. It has a bridge, Vancouver has a big suspension bridge ... Melbourne is actually more like Toronto. As an outsider, I think you've flipped that. Either way, it feels delightfully Commonwealthy (laughs).