“I HAVE NEVER THOUGHT, ‘I WISH I COULD MAKE THAT JOKE, BUT CANCEL CULTURE WILL COME AND GET ME.'”
When Total Film catches up with Seth Rogen in December 2022, he's peering into Zoom from his standing desk, leaning in and out of the digital frame with a restless energy. If he's acting like he has somewhere else to be, he probably does. Forget the slackers he became famous playing; Rogen is one of the busiest people in Hollywood.
He's been an in-demand comedic leading man since Knocked Up in 2007, but he also writes and produces, having established production company Point Grey Pictures with longtime creative partner Evan Goldberg, which creates movies as well as such TV shows as Preacher, The Boys and Pam & Tommy. Rogen and Goldberg also co-founded cannabis company Houseplant; Rogen describes the business as “gratifying in a way that's totally different from movies”.
The leaping-off point for our talk today is The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical awards favourite, which has, at the time of writing, already won big at the Golden Globes. Rogen plays ‘Uncle’ Bennie, a family friend of Burt and Mitzi Fabelman (Paul Dano and Michelle Williams), whose son, Gabriel, is an aspiring director.
Spielberg's parents’ divorce famously cast a long shadow, and it's the connection between Mitzi and Bennie that will ultimately cause a rift in the Fabelman family. But Bennie's no villain. Far from it. “When you talk to Steven and a lot of people who knew the actual guy that Bennie is based on, they would really light up,” explains Rogen. “They were very fond of him. What happens with Bennie and Mitzi is devastating in some ways to the family. I put a lot of thought into how to make a character so that when that did happen, you were not sad for her.”
The Fabelmans is far from Rogen's first dramatic role: see also Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz and Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs. For Rogen, drama is an easier gig than comedy. “A comedy also has to do all the stuff that a movie like this is doing, in a lot of ways,” he says, dressed casually in a short-sleeved sweater and sporting his trademark thick-rimmed glasses and prodigious beard. “To me, comedy is honestly this, plus an entire other level of expectation that will objectively be put to the test.”
Rogen's been), and he also worked with James Franco across 10 features, although their partnership has ceased following misconduct allegations levelled against Franco. Rogen's also done a line in funny and heartfelt, in smart comedies like and .
