Seth Rogen has been making us laugh for two decades, both in front of and behind the camera. To celebrate the launch of Long Shot on DVD and Blu-Ray on 9th September, we are counting down Seth’s best roles to date… Scroll to the bottom for a lovely uncensored interview with co-stars Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron.
Ken Miller – Freaks And Geeks
His first ever role as Ken Miller, a high school gear head, saw Seth star among some of Hollywood’s now most-famous actors including Jason Segel, Linda Cardellini, Busy Phillipps, and his frequent co-star James Franco. Often criticized for being cancelled too soon, Freaks And Geeks lives on among its cult following. Reflecting on the role, Seth says, “As the show goes on, you can chart my acting progression – it gets a lot better towards the end. I had a great time on that show and still work with a lot of those same people to this day.”
Cal – The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Playing a Smart-Tech shop assistant, Seth stars in one of his most iconic supporting roles in his first major motion picture – The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005). Seth assisted director Judd Apatow producing this film and is credited with creating one of the most iconic and quotable lines, “There’s a scene where Steve Carell gets his chest waxed and we waxed his chest for real. One of my assignments was to make up things for him to scream as he was getting waxed, so he didn’t have to come up with it on the spot. So, there was supposed to be a dirty list and a clean list, and I remember the dirty list was easy, and the clean list was really hard, and as I was making this list American Idol was on and it was the year Kelly Clarkson was on and I wrote ‘Kelly Clarkson’. I just wrote it to fill the page so Judd wouldn’t yell at me, but it ended up being a line that people still remember”.
Dale Denton – Pineapple Express
There are usually a number of factors which make a Seth Rogen movie, a Seth Rogen movie including marijuana, James Franco as a co-star and plenty of dirty jokes. 2008’s Pineapple Express is no exception. Rogen stars as Dale, a process server with Franco by his side as a marijuana dealer who wind up on the run from hitmen and a corrupt police officer after witnessing a shady murder. On making this movie, Seth says, “Originally, when we wrote Pineapple Express I was supposed to play the drug dealer and we would get a more conventional leading man to play Dale, like James Franco. But then we started to think that maybe that was a bit expected, so we met with Franco about it for the first time and he was like “I kinda wanna play the other guy”, and we thought you know what that’s probably more interesting. It gave me the chance to have a bigger role and allowed him to do something totally unexpected.”
Seth Rogen – This Is The End
This 2013 disaster black comedy directed by and starring Seth Rogen as himself. When 6 Los Angeles celebrities are trapped in James Franco’s house after a series of devastating events, they not only have to face the apocalypse…but themselves. Speaking of playing himself in the role Seth said, “The reason we directed it was because we knew none of these people would do this, if we’re not directing it. We couldn’t hire someone else to do it because there was no one we trusted enough and with me starring in it also, it broke down a lot of the barriers with the actors. It’s a lot more informed by real-life than people actually think”.
Ben Stone – Knocked Up
In his first leading role, Seth plays Ben Stone, a fun-loving party animal who finds his world turned upside-down after his one-night stand (Katherine Heigl) tells him she’s pregnant with his child. Another film inspired by his own life, Seth’s real friends played his friends in the movie, as well as actual plotlines and quotes being directly lifted from what they were going through at the time. On acting alongside Katherine Heigl, Seth says, “A lot of the movie is us fighting and shouting at each other, and she is a good fighter and made for what I thought was a funny dynamic”.
Officer Michaels – Superbad
A teen cult classic and often hailed as one of the greatest comedies of all time, Superbad put Rogen on the map as one of the greatest comedy writers of this generation. When talking about the inspiration behind Superbad, Rogen says, “Me and Evan Goldberg, my friend and writing partner to this day, started writing Superbad when we were in high school and we incorporated a lot of our high school stories. Originally (again) I was going to play one of the lead characters in this movie, but it took us so long to get it made that I pretty much aged out of the role. Instead I, much more convincingly, played this irresponsible cop, alongside Bill Hader, who had just begun his stint on SNL.”
Fred Flarsky – Long Shot
Long Shot sees Seth team up with Charlize Theron to play journalist Fred Flarsky who is unexpectedly reunited with his childhood babysitter (Theron), now one of the most influential women in the world. As she prepares to make a run for the Presidency, Charlotte hires Fred as her speechwriter and sparks fly. You can catch Long Shot on DVD and Blu-Ray from 9th September.