Which creative hat do you enjoy the most?

Seth Rogen: I’ve got to say, with movies like Knocked Up, where I have 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?

Seth Rogen: The first part, yes, 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; our hope was to be able to tell we were all friends and we actually all know each other really well and the best way to get that stuff out is just through improving and letting loose the actual dynamics play out of it. It’s funny that Martin’s the one with the beard because he’s the one who always gets sh*t 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. But yeah, we improvise heavily; 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 what we – 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 worse case scenario we all thought. But, we basically said what else came up – the whole Munich 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, and can you talk about your past and how you grew up?

Seth Rogen: The birth scene, ok, 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 Something About Mary when you see Ben Stiller’s zipper and the crotch. It just kind of reminded me of – 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 assume they’d just scream, which pretty much happens. But it was stressful to shoot that scene, Katie was really – 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. As far as my past goes, I started doing stand-up in Vancouver around when I was thirteen and then I got cast for Freaks and Geeks – by Judd – when I was 16 and I moved to LA, and sunk my claws into him and haven’t let go ever since.

Can you talk about the many characters you play in Fanboys and what about the raunchiness of Superbad?

Seth Rogen: Yes, all involving teens, according to the MPAA; that was the big thing.

Are you trying to bring back that dirty talk with teens?

Seth Rogen: Yeah, we really – that is our prime directive with Superbad was to bring back – unaware of where we were bringing it back from. Movies like Fast Times, 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 14 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 filty jokes is what amuses us, so that’s what we wrote. But, 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. As far as Fanboys, I haven’t seen the final movie; I play several kind of characters throughout it. My good friend, Jay Baruchel is in it, who is here today; you may speak to him later. Yeah, I don’t know ultimately what my roles in that are – I hope they’re funny; it seemed funny when we did it.

How did a 13-year-old get hooked up in a lesbian bar?

Seth Rogen: You sign up. The first time, there’s actually a work shop 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 5 minutes.’ After that, you kind of get invited to do ten minutes and then you’re kind of making 50 bucks a week and you don’t need to work at McDonalds.

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

Seth Rogen: It’s amazing, I don’t know; it’s funny, 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 8 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 Pineapple Express and how action packed is it?

Seth Rogen: 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 Hours 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 as 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?

Seth Rogen: 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.