Seth Rogen Lands The 'Tragic' Job Of Studio Head
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What is the inspiration behind Seth Rogen's new series?
This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Let's go back to the year 2000. A young Seth Rogen and his writing partner, Evan Goldberg, have arrived from Canada, and they're meeting with a studio executive to go over a screenplay they've written together. During the meeting, the executive makes a cynical confession. "'I got into this job because I love movies,' he says, "'and now I feel like it's my job to ruin them.'" Rogan and Goldberg never forgot what that executive said, and 25 years later, they've made it the basis of a new satirical comedy series called The Studio. Rogan plays Matt Remick, a Hollywood executive who gets an unexpected promotion as the head of the fictional Continental Studios after his boss is fired. In this scene, the CEO of the studio, played by Bryan Cranston, offers Matt the job, but asks if Matt really has what it takes to do it the Continental way.
Patty's time has come and gone, and I'm seriously considering you to replace her.
Oh, my God. Yes, yes. I'm the guy. I'm the guy for the job. Why are you... Tell me that. Why are you the guy?
Well, um... I've worked at Continental for 22 years. I bought the original spec script for MKUltra, which, as I'm sure you know, spawned a franchise that's made us over $3 billion for the... Hey, Rene! Where the f*** is my green juice?
You want a green juice? Uh, yeah, I'd love one. Two green juices! Now! Now! Sorry.
Continue. Film is my life. Ever since I came to the studio as a kid and went on the tour, being the head of Continental is the only job I've ever wanted. That is adorable.
All right, well, listen, I honestly just have one strong reservation about you. Oh. I've heard you are really into artsy, fartsy filmmaking bull . You're obsessed with actors and directors liking you, rather than being obsessed with making this studio as much money as possible.
Me? Yeah. That could not be further from the truth. I am as bottom line oriented as anyone in this town.
I believe you. Great. Good. Good. Because at Continental, we don't make films. We make movies. Movies that people want to pay to see. Yes.
From there, the audience is taken on a funny but also absurd and often cringeworthy adventure as Matt, always flustered and desperately needing to be liked, has to find ways to keep the studio afloat. Seth Rogen has produced, directed, written, and starred in many films, including Superbad, Knocked Up, This is the End, Sausage Party, and the limited series Pam and Tommy. He founded the production company, Point Grey Pictures, along with his writing and directing partner, Evan Goldberg. And the two have founded the cannabis products and home goods company, Houseplant. And Seth Rogen, welcome back to Fresh Air.
Thank you. What an intro.
Well, I really want to go back to this time, 2000. You and Evan are in this executive's office. And he says this thing to you, like, I now ruin movies. Like, what was your reaction? Yeah.
I was shocked by the honesty. Honestly, like I really could tell that he was in a position in that point in his career. And that person still works in Hollywood as one of the heads of one of the major studios in Hollywood. So he stuck around. And it was an ancient Roman teen sex comedy. Yeah. Oh, really? Okay. So this wasn't super bad or something. What's funny is we had written super bad and no one was making it. And that's how we got the job for this movie. And, and honestly, we were like, let's just put all of like our ideals from super bad into the movie basically. And so that's how desperate we were to make something. And so we sort of became like an ancient Roman version of super bad, which as I say, it is insane.
But, um, and it was very dirty. It was very dirty. Um, And what I recall, I think at the point in this process, yeah, we had handed in a draft that he really thought was funny and we thought was funny and was ridiculous and crazy. And he was telling us in this notes meeting that, like, it couldn't be so dirty. And it was clearly the notes he had been given from on high.
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Chapters
2 chaptersSpeakers
21 identified
Seth Rogen 24 min
Tanya Mosley 11 min
Narrative Commentator 4 min
Brittany Luce 1 min
Bryan Cranston 1 min
Catherine O'Hara 1 min
Molly C.V. Nusberg 1 min
Host of Consider This
A. Martinez
Life Kit Host
Embedded Podcast Host
NPR Host
Jesse Thorne
Matt Remick (Character by Seth Rogen)
Mickey Fitzpatrick (Character in Long Bright River)
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Host of Shortwave
Host of All Songs Considered
Advertisement Speaker
Truman
Ike Barinholtz
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