The apocalypse strikes Hollywood in This Is the End, written and directed by Superbad‘s Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. The film’s nifty premise sees Rogen play a not-so-flattering version of his real-life self, while a gang of frequent collaborators do the same – including Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson. This Is the End‘s concept lends itself to plenty of cameos too, with the likes of Michael Cera, Rihanna, Emma Watson and plenty more popping up in James Franco’s house either as guests of his blissfully unaware pre-end of days party, or in the chaos that comes after.
I followed Seth Rogen’s booming laugh down a hotel corridor earlier this week to sit down for a chat about his awesome new film, making his friends look like assholes and more…
FLICKS: You can look at Hollywood from afar and go “If I was famous I’d make a movie like this”. And that’s the kind of film you’ve made – one that seems like the product of sitting around talking shit in the living room with your friends.
SETH ROGEN: Exactly! It’s kind of bizarre. I think in a way the movie’s almost making fun of that idea. We’re aware enough that every time we make a movie with these guys, people are like “they’re just making a movie with their friends, hanging out with their friends” so part of it was us thinking “let’s just do that then!” If everyone says we do that, everyone says we just play ourselves, everyone says its just an excuse to hang out, then what if we made a movie that plays into that idea as much as you could possibly do? Which was funny to us.
What was the last party you went to in Hollywood?
What was the last party I went to? The premiere party for our movie actually. It was fun, I was there until about 5.30 in the morning, it was ridiculous.
Who throws good house parties over there?
Evan [Goldberg] throws parties quite a bit. He has a nice house, with a pool and stuff, he’s had a few. He actually got married in October, and it turned into a house party. Everyone from the wedding went back to his house until 7 in morning or something, it was pretty insane actually.
Did Evan and yourself take the reins of how everyone in the film was portrayed, or did you leave it up to each cast member to decide?
We wrote versions for everybody and then worked with them. They had to be comfortable with what they were doing, obviously, because it’s so insane, so we were really collaborative. Some of them changed a lot from what we wrote, and some of them didn’t change that much at all. I think [James] Franco and Jonah [Hill] probably changed their characters the most and had the most input into what they wanted to do. Franco really came up with a lot of the stuff that is his character and Jonah too, the basic idea for the character was totally different in the original draft that we wrote.
Well that’s good, I can see it being a little bit awkward to go “we’re good friends and all, but I actually perceive you as a bit of an asshole”.
No, we still did that – it was just a different type of asshole! For Franco we played more on the Gucci model slick guy thing and not so arts-y, he kind of steered us in that direction. We made them all pretty bad regardless – and they were OK with it!
What a great vehicle to take the piss out of your friends…
It was a good way to take the piss out your friends. Some of them could use it.
Sample the piss-taking in this clip:
Could you describe the versions of the main cast members we see on screen in a sentence each?
James Franco: A pretentious, sexually ambiguous person, who is obsessed with me.
Jonah Hill: Kind of an overly nice, disingenuous guy trying to maintain an overly positive attitude trying to hide a darker thing within him.
Danny McBride: Just plays a complete psychopath who has no regard for anyone’s feelings or well being in any way, shape or form.
Jay Baruchel: Self-righteous holier-than-thou outsider, who’s kind of like a hipster in some ways.
Craig Robinson: Kind of has the most straight-forward arc. He plays someone who is very self-centred at first and then slowly realises that is not how he should be.
I kind of play a duplicitous people-pleasing sell-out, I guess you would say.
Jay’s portrayed as a Hollywood outsider in the film, and you must have experienced what’s that like. Are you still one?
It is weird. I think Jay’s character reflects honestly what almost every Canadian I’ve seen who has moved to LA experienced, which is this kind of intense culture shock. It’s your instinct to hate it, and the people there and you fucking complain about it non-stop to anyone who will listen – including people in LA, not realising it makes you look like a fucking asshole for being there in the first place.
I’ve been in LA for a very long time now, and I just know a lot of people. I definitely don’t associate with the Hollywood lifestyle in any way, shape or form, but when I do go to parties I just find that I know almost everyone there, so is hard to feel too much like an outsider since I’ve worked with so many people. It’s a weird mix. It does feel like high school, and now it just feels like I’ve been around for a long time so I know a lot of people.
I feel like comedians in general in the Hollywood structure are viewed as doing a lesser form of art in general, and I think as far as Hollywood goes in general the fact that we make comedies makes us outsiders because people like to think it’s easier or something like that.
Which it’s not.
Was there anyone who wouldn’t be in the film that you wanted to be?
Not really. Some people just for scheduling reasons couldn’t, but pretty much everyone we were after was into it. Which was very nice and very encouraging, because we were worried we were making a terrible mistake.
It’s unusual to have a film that is so in-jokey but also with a scale that is so ridiculous. Was it hard convincing the powers that be to write that big a cheque for the film’s budget?
To us that’s what was funny and original about it, this crazy collision between this small weird meta-idea and this giant scope. The studio was never afraid about the scope of it, they were afraid about the ‘us playing ourselves’ thing. I think they were a little sceptical that the two ideas would combine to make something that was palatable for people. We just had an image in our heads, we thought it would work and we just stuck by it, but they were definitely sceptical that the two ideas would mesh well.
It seems like it has worked well, the US box office looks good…
Yeah, thank God!
Does that empower you to do more things like this, you think?
I think it was really nice that we were able to make something that is so crazy and so weird. That it’s not only doing well financially but was critically well received is kind of shocking to us. I think it gives us a good argument next time when someone tells us our idea is crazy to say “well that’s what they said about the last one, and people seemed to get it!” People at the studios are always sceptical about whether people will get it or not. They’re always like “I get it, but will they get it?” and now we can say “they seem to get it…” We should be able to squeeze a few more fuckin’ crazy movies out of the system now that we’ve made this one.
It’s a hands-on directorial effort for yourself and Evan too. That could have gone in a different direction if someone else was at the helm.
I don’t think it’s the type of movie we could have made with other people directing it, honestly. Not from the horror or action standpoint but more from the meta-comedic standpoint. There are other guys who could have made it as scary or as epic as we made it, but I don’t think anyone could have gotten these guys to do what they did if they didn’t have the relationship that Evan and I have with them specifically.
Almost all of them did something comedically in one of our movies or we worked with them on a TV show or something like that. Over the years we’ve worked with them they have put themselves out there in ridiculous ways and we’ve handled it with care – not used the terrible stuff and only used the good stuff. And I think that the fact that I was in the movie with them and doing it also really helped them. The fact that I could make fun of myself and my movies helped set the bar.
Read our four-star review for This Is the End.
Check out the trailer:
