Seth Rogen: The Mr. Skin Interview

Were you familiar with the site Mr. Skin before making this movie?

No . . . [long pause, laughs]. Yes, of course I was. Originally in the movie, there was no Mr. Skin. I can't remember how it actually played out, but the movie originally took place in a universe where Mr. Skin did not exist, and it really started to amuse us, the notion that Mr. Skin did exist and we just hadn't heard of it.

It just made us laugh a lot as we were writing, so that's where that kind of came from.

Yeah, definitely, the idea for our webpage came from Mr. Skin.

What was it like when you were shooting the fake sex scenes with Katherine Heigl (Picture: 1) ?

It's really kind of nerve wracking, you know. If I were eighteen, it'd literally be as far as I've ever been with a girl. You're essentially-you're dry humping; I don't know if you can say that, but I'll say it. You're dry humping a girl who you don't know very well; and I was just afraid I was going to sweat on her. That was my major concern, that I was going to drip a big gob of sweat on her head.

Luckily they're comedic sex scenes, supposedly. So that kind of helps; it's not like I'm supposed to be acting sexy. There's lines like, "This is my new record" in there; so that kind of alleviates some of the pressure that would be put on me to look attractive and sexy-which is nice.

Was Porky's (Picture: 1) or any other sex comedy an influence on you when you were a kid?

Porky's-you mean the highest-grossing Canadian film of all time! Yes, that was-Porky's was one of those films.

When they played it in Canada, I would tape bits of it-the nude scenes-and compile them. So I've seen the nine minutes of Porky's where people are naked a thousand times over and over. The rest I've recently caught up on, but that introduced me to adulthood-Porky's.

What about other sex comedies?

Bachelor Party (Picture: 1) 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. Kevin Smith was an inspiration, language-wise, I would say; his movies were the first that I saw that people were cursing up a storm and that was very amusing to me, so I think we took a nod from that, definitely when it comes to sexual language anyway. I don't know, what other ones are good? Any suggestions?

The Last American Virgin (Picture: 1).

Last American Virgin; I haven't seen that. I'm in.

Is the general idea of this movie that any guy is redeemable?

I think almost any guy is redeemable, yeah-if you haven't done anything truly terrible.

More than anything, I think, our movies have a very simple message and that is try to be a good guy or girl, do the right thing, as Spike Lee said. That's kind of all you need, I think.

You can kind of have all the people say all the filthy, despicable things you want and have them do stupid things, but as long as you get that that character's trying to be a good person through it all, that's kind of all I need to latch onto.

It's simple, but I think, emotionally speaking, it's true to my experience with people. If you meet someone, everyone has their shortcomings, but as long as you see they're trying to do well by others, then they're very redeemable I find.

How outrageous and R rated were you at age thirteen when you were doing stand-up in Vancouver?

I was not, I was clean; I didn't work blue back then. Mostly because my mother came to a lot of my shows I think; I was just embarrassed. My life wasn't that R rated back then, I guess.

I tried to be truthful to what was going on with my life and my friends and my experiences. Then it was more about my grandparents and playing video games and my bar mitzvah and stuff like that. I hadn't delved into the filthy world I now occupy.

Where was it where you first did your stand-up?

At a lesbian bar in Vancouver called The Lotus. I thought it was "Ladies Night." I didn't really get what was happening.

How did a thirteen-year-old get hooked up in a lesbian bar?

You sign up. The first time, there's actually a workshop that was being held at the bar where you go and basically learn-they tell you the loose format for writing a stand-up joke, and then at the end, you go and perform it for everyone.

Then, from there, you just start getting invited out, someone there would say, "I know this other guy who runs this other comedy room," and "Why don't you come and do five minutes?"

After that, you kind of get invited to do ten minutes and then you're kind of making fifty bucks a week and you don't need to work at McDonald's.

What were your responsibilities as executive producer on Knocked Up?

My duties were being near Judd at all times, kind of. I told him, "I'm just going to give you my opinion until you tell me to shut up. And take what you have and take what you will and don't take what you won't."

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 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 giving notes and going to the preview screenings and doing what I can-keeping off the couch.

Are you ready to be the lead in another romantic comedy?

We'll see; I don't know. It's a strange concept, I guess, that romance is what people want to see me do; but I had fun, I'd keep doing it, sure!

How often are you writing?

Pretty much when I'm not acting, which is often, I guess, or doing press. Yeah, as soon as I finish doing the Knocked Up promotion, I will start writing again. And between movies, that's kind of my default mood is-sitting in my underwear writing; that's where I want to be, if no one else expects me to be anywhere else.

Which creative hat do you enjoy more-writing or acting?

I've got to say, with movies like Knocked Up, where I have a significant amount of input and Superbad, which we just did, I really love doing them both; it's hard to pick one. Ideally I'd just keep doing this and be able to wear both hats at once. I view them-they're kind of the same thing to me; they're both kind of making movies, it's not really compartmentalized in two separate halves of my brain, really. It's all part of the same goal and, yeah, I like to be as involved as I can.

How much improv was there and how involved were you in the testing process?

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 for those dynamics to kind of show on film.

It's funny that Martin [Starr]'s the one with the beard because he's the one who always gets shit from all of us and it really suits him so well to be this one guy who's constantly getting it from all of us. And it's those little things that really amuse me, especially watching it-and it's really weird, his name is Martin in the movie. It's very confusing in a way.

Generally we shoot the script once or twice and then we just kind of go off. Harold Ramis put it well, he was talking about it, and he said when he did Ghostbusters and stuff, he would always say, "The script is the worst case scenario. The script is what we have if we can't think of anything better." That's pretty much what we do-and it was a pretty good script to begin with, so it was a pretty good worst case scenario we all thought.

But we basically said what else came up-the whole Munich (Picture: 1) thing, that wasn't even implied in the script at all. That stuff just comes up as you're shooting.

And as far as the test screenings, I was at every single one; I'd kind of hang in the back, try not to laugh too loud, 'cause people recognize my laugh, apparently. And luckily it was a pretty pleasant test-screening process, so people seemed to like it, it got good reactions. It didn't make me want to kill myself, which makes it much nicer, I would say.

Can you talk about the birth scene?

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 the crotch.

It's always implied in movies, but not really 100 feet tall. So I just knew that that reaction would be fun from the audience. It's one of those things that I couldn't imagine how people would react. I assumed they'd just scream, which pretty much happens.

But it was stressful to shoot that scene; Katie was really working hard. She actually pulled her back out pushing and screaming so much; I just had to stand there and hold her hand, which I felt a lot like I imagine a real husband feels during the birth. It's her show, stay out of the way and try not to ruin anything. But it was weird to film.

In Superbad, are you trying to bring back that dirty talk with teens?

That is our prime directive with Superbad was to bring back-unaware of where we were bringing it back from.

Movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Picture: 1), that stuff we really like and has a really relatable feel to it, and the language feels true to life.

We hadn't really seen that when we started writing Superbad; we were fourteen years old when we started writing it. It was born out of a very pure desire to see kids acting as how we acted on film, and speak how we speak and spoke-and it just happened to be very dirty. And it's also just 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 something, into anything, it was just to amuse ourselves. And unfortunately, really, really filthy jokes are what amuse us, so that's what we wrote.

Yeah, it was just born out of a desire to see teen characters act like what we acted like when we were in high school.

What's it like all being together from Freaks and Geeks?

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 at this time, this was a really great show we were doing and these actors were amazing. It really just seemed so there and given.

Looking back, it's a great show with some really talented people involved, and we all got along really well, so I think that's why we all want to keep working together. I just finished a movie with James Franco a few days ago, and it was amazing to be able to work together again. We kept looking at each other saying, "If you told us eight 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.

How dirty is the humor in The Pineapple Express and how action packed is it?

Sexually speaking, Pineapple Express is not nearly as dirty as Superbad or maybe even Knocked Up; it's not really a sexual movie.

It's more of a marijuana-themed, buddy/buddy comedy, more in the tone of say, 48 Hrs. or Midnight Run. I mean, action wise, it's pretty jammed packed; we've got car chases and shoot-outs and explosions and me holding many machine guns, which is amusing to me.

I hope other people find it entertaining, but when you say you're making an action comedy, it's like anything else. We thought it really has to function really both as an action and as a comedy; with a romantic comedy, it needs to function in those worlds as well. We took that very seriously.

What strikes you most about working with Judd?

What's amazing about Judd is about 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 know 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 would say it was the best acting experience they've ever had because they would have gotten a whole role of film to get the funniest version of that line.

Everyone kind of 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.