Translation from English

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Seth Rogen - WNYC


Seth Rogen Learns that Women Can Be Funny

Interview

Friday, May 09, 2014

Play
00:00 / 00:00
Seth Rogen in <em>Neighbors</em>  
Seth Rogen in Neighbors (Glen Wilson) 
 
Over the past decade, the overgrown man-child has become the go-to comic type — and that’s due in large part to Seth Rogen, who has played a version of the lovable, foul-mouthed stoner in Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, and Zack and Miri Make a Porno, among many other movies. In his latest film, Neighbors, Rogen plays the man-child grown up — or trying to grow up. He and Rose Byrne star as young parents who still want to party, although their new daughter’s sleep schedule doesn’t make it easy. Their orderly lives get turned upside-down when a fraternity moves in next door. One night they call the cops with a noise complaint; the frat trashes the lawn; hell breaks loose.

But while Rogen’s bromance comedies relegated their female characters to roles as mature adults (nags, scolds, killjoys), Neighbors lets Rose Byrne’s character share the laughs. In early drafts, Rogen admits, his character’s friends got involved in the pranks, sidelining Byrne. But his actual wife of three years, actress and writer Lauren Miller, pointed out how unrealistic that was. What if the couple liked each other?

“That actually became the most exciting idea of the movie to us — that we could portray a couple where the wife is just as fun loving and irresponsible as the guy, and where they got along really well,” Rogen says. “In a comedy, that is almost nonexistent — a healthy couple that really likes each other. Me and my wife are much more like that.” Some of the humor, like an outrageous breast-pumping mishap, aims squarely at married people, and will probably freak out the bros.

As for pot smoking, Neighbors portrays it as just a regular part of yuppie life. That’s in keeping with a pro-weed agenda, and Rogen’s not shy about it. “They used to have James Bond walk into a bar and order a martini,” he says. “At the time, were people like, ‘Why is he such a proponent of drinking?’ I think the more you casually show it as part of culture, the more people will realize that it’s something everybody does.”

Apart from the smoking, the cursing, and the antics, Rogen thinks the type of comedy he and his peers — Judd Apatow, Steve Carrell, Jason Segel — have developed is successful because of its emotional realism. “Very few movies that are as funny as ours actually have a heart, and have characters that people have thought through,” he says. “Movies like Superbad and The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Pineapple Express were some of the first movies to take a step back and examine the emotions behind the traditional types of comedy people were used to seeing.”

Seth Rogen's 3 for 360
Seth Rogen's 3 for 360
    Music Playlist
  • Funny Man
    Artist: Horace Andy
    Album: Mr Bassie
    Label: Heartbeat / Pgd
    Purchase: Amazon

Guests:

Seth Rogen

Produced by:

Matt Frassica


No comments:

Post a Comment

Please leave a comment-- or suggestions, particularly of topics and places you'd like to see covered