Interview: Seth Rogen for “Zach and Miri Make a Porno”

To say that Seth Rogen had a very good ‘07-‘08 run would be a gross understatement. No other actor under thirty, save for Michael Cera, has crashed the spotlight so readily. Knocked Up literally put his face all over town, but then he unleashed the perverse, endearing Superbad (as brilliant as Cera’s work is, the point still goes to Rogen), and built a cache of action cred in Pineapple Express.

Now Hollywood has been desperately trying to categorize him. But they’re wrong. He’s not the new Will Ferrell. He sure as hell isn’t the new Chevy Chase, and if his ballsy upcoming slate says anything, it’s that the studios are slowly but surely figuring that out.

Rogen talks with Screencrave about his personal stake in Zack and Miri Make a Porno, why audiences should look past the title, and why they should be ready to see a whole lot more of him. Figuratively speaking.

The first thing to notice is that the Seth Rogen doing interviews looks nothing like Zack (probably on your TV right now thanks to the marketing blitz). The beard and gut are gone, and don’t think he hasn’t noticed other people pointing it out.

“Yeah, yeah, I know the implication,” Rogen shoots back to a remark on his newly-svelte appearance.

“I’ve been eating well and dieting. It’s such a lame answer, No one wants to hear that. Yeah, I’ve been exercising. I hate it. I hate what I’ve become.” And Rogen signals it’s okay to laugh with his own guttural heh-heh-heh.

The subject turned to the marketing of the movie, a small bit of controversy involving the MPAA, and the stick figures that are the sole portion of the American print campaign. Rogen doesn’t share all of the frustrations of director Kevin Smith.

“It’s good! I like it, I think it’s a funny ad. It looks startlingly like me.”

Better than the head shots?

“Yeah, I don’t feel the urge to get my face up there, no way,” Rogen shuddered, assuming the question referred to the campaign for Knocked Up, rather than the blatant oral implications of the international poster.

“Oh, no, that one is waaaay better. Canada got it right, yet again guys. Take your cues.”

Co-star Elizabeth Banks mentioned earlier that she was prepared to go fully nude because she knew Rogen would be on top of her.

“Yeah I cover a lot,” he laughed and continued, “ It wasn’t my decision [to go naked] but yeah, I was ready. I don’t know what his plan was. I was prepared to show up and ask ‘what are we doing today’ and [Smith responding] ‘today you’re pulling your dick out’ but he didn’t say that. He said, ‘hey, we’re going to shoot it like this.’ I said okay. I’m up for anything, I’m a team player.”

Was Smith as comfortable with onset lovemaking?

“He was a little awkward about it. Not bad. There wasn’t a ton of direction that day. It was very professional.” Rogen observed. He was also candid about the differences between working with Smith and longtime collaborator Judd Apatow.

“Well the movies are similar, in how they mix raunch with sweetness, but their styles onset are very different. It’s as simple as Judd not knowing what he wants, but he knows what he wants the scenes to be about. How the information comes out, what the jokes are, he discovers that while we’re shooting and Kevin is very specific. He knows what the shots are, he literally edits the movie, so that’s the fundamental difference. But [Kevin] is totally open to changing lines and changing jokes. There was a fair bit of improv there.

“They’re both great. They both have the things that make them more fun and more relaxing and things that make them a little more difficult. But I wouldn’t want to do only one [style of comedy] either way.”

Comparisons aside, being in a Kevin Smith movie was on Rogen’s to-do list long before he started picking up momentum.

“Yeah, that was always a goal of mine and it’s thrilling that it finally happened. I was very flattered, It was shocking he even knew who I was. We’d met very briefly before, but when someone who inspired you really wants to work with you, and have you do what you do in the first place is thrilling.”

As if he couldn’t have gotten any luckier, Rogen also starred alongside Elizabeth Banks. The rapport they started with The 40 Year Old Virgin grew into a rare onscreen chemistry at the heart of the buzz around Zack and Miri.

“She’s great! We’re friends, I think that helps. You can tell we really know each other. She also has a really dirty sensibility which is one of the reasons I thought she’d be good for Miri in the first place. And she wouldn’t sue me. I give her all the credit.

For women [sex] is a more emotionally driven act and for men it’s a more physically driven act and I think it’s as simple as that. [ZacK and Miri’s love scene] gets into that. They think one thing is going to happen and then emotions develop. It’s the unspoken love. I think a lot of people are friends and in love and it takes an event to bring that to the surface. In this movie that event is making a porno. It’s a very relatable premise, just brought to an [R-rated] place.

Good friends make better lovers?”

“That’s what I think. Absolutely. That’s why Superbad works.” Rogen quipped. He’s also been hearing himself cast as a “Romantic Nerd,” at the forefront of a cinematic trend in less-typically dashing male stars.

“I just try to do the movies I would like to go see, and romantic comedies if handled right can be a very great genre. That’s all the thought I put into it.”

Chances are that label will get crushed beneath the wave of fascinating (if not slightly risky) projects he has on the way, one of the most anticipated being Judd Apatow’s Funny People.

“We just started shooting, we’re three weeks in and it’s great. It’s me and Adam Sandler and Jonah Hill, Jason Scwartzman, Eric Bana, Leslie Mann, and a slew of stand-up comics and it’s been a lot of fun. I play a stand-up comic and Sandler plays a comic as well and it’s a really interesting movie.”

In what way?

“It’s a little heavier. Definitely in its subject matter. It deals with death in a lot of ways, an interesting mixture of penis jokes and death jokes. That’s new for us. And it’s a beauty! Janusz Kaminski is shooting it which is incredible to watch.” For those who don’t watch credits, Kaminski is currently Steven Spielberg’s cinematographer of choice.

“It’s great to see Janusz because people always say our movies don’t look good so now they can fucking shut up about it. Judd was like ‘how can we get people to shut about this?’ and he hired Janusz. He’s found ways of shooting our improv, he shoots with three cameras at once and it still looks beautiful. That’s really fun to watch.”

If that won’t alter moviegoers’ perceptions of Rogen then Observe and Report will. Director Jody Hill earned the admiration of Will Ferrell and Adam McKay with his twisted debut The Foot Fist Way.

“I think it’s amazing, I’m unbelievably proud about it. It’s a very dark dark comedy, like a comedic ‘Taxi Driver.’ That’s what we’re going for and they somehow let us do that. It’s a very edgy, dark, hilarious movie and probably one of my favorite if not the favorite movie I’ve ever been in. I can’t believe how balls-to-wall it is.”

And in March shooting begins on Rogen’s biggest gamble, a big screen take on tv superhero The Green Hornet.

“Stephen Chow is directing! He was always our first choice, and we like to consolidate our team so having a guy direct and play Kato is really nice. We love his movies, we’re huge fans and we think he’s hilarious and we got him!”

It’s true, they are excited, but with Chow on board what kind of movie are they making?

“We actually don’t know. Originally we were going for kind of a serious action movie, but we feel no obligation to live up to anything we’ve told any of you in the past.” Rogen deadpanned. The rumor was that Chow was in the Four Seasons hotel that day wrestling with that issue. The future Hornet welcomes the challenge.

“We’re really right now in the process of discovering what the tone is exactly. We know the story we want to tell, that’s going to be the same, but you don’t bring a guy like Stephen on and say ‘No! What are you doing? We don’t want your ideas!’ He is a genius, obviously, so it’d be stupid not to let him inject some of his own sensibilities.”

His zen attitude is a healthy approach considering that isn’t the only vague hurdle the project has to clear.

“The Green Hornet always just fought criminals. There were never any villainous characters, it was always men in suits. We’re taking that as our cue.”

At that point Rogen was informed that the press kit for Zack and Miri mentioned that Jason Mewes was in The Green Hornet. This was news to Rogen.

“It Does?? Uh, maybe, I dunno. We’ll let him go for it. But… no. That is not official.”

Regarding the release of the much-delayed Fanboys, Rogen’s take is, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Not that he needs the exposure. Currently demand is high, and Rogen admits he has been fortunate to avoid financial situations as dire as his onscreen counterpart.

“[Early on] No, it was never that bad. I did have to punch up a Hilary Duff movie, once.”

And if he did make a post-Jade Caruso-like dive into obscurity, Rogen wouldn’t rule out making a porno to make ends meet, being a fan of the “down and dirty stuff.”

“I honestly don’t know who would see it, but…maybe, yeah! I’ve thought about it, yeah. I’ve worked with porn stars in literally every single movie I’ve been in, so it was not weird to work with them [in Zach and Miri], it was par for the course. To me you need a porn star on set, just to make the film.”

So who would be the co-star of the Rogen sex tape?

“I would choose Jonah Hill.”

And the porno moniker would be? Pet’s name first, street name last?

“Alowishus St. James.”

Sure to get a boost in promotional sales from Zack and Miri is a male masturbation aid called the Fleshlight, an item Zach mistakenly spends his last few dollars on. One would assume they’d come knocking for an endorsement.

“No! I don’t think they are. I don’t think they exist.”

They exist, alright.

“They do? Really? They didn’t even send me a free one. What ya gotta do?”

So which legendary Hollywood director, in the fictional porn auteur’s mind, would make the best porno flick?

“I’d like to see a Cassavetes porno. It’d be really real, really raw porno.” Rogen laughs.

“And he’d put his whole family in it.”

Zack and Miri Make a Porno glides into theatres October 31st