by Seth Rogen
I then look around and realize that this chair I put him in is actually at the head of a table of about twelve people. They are all staring at me and Scott, not really knowing what to say, and before I can explain anything, a fleet of servers appears and starts placing food in front of them, not noticing that there is a maybe-dead man at the head of the table.
Server: Here’s your steak! Here’s your creamed spinach!
He notices Scott.
Server: What did he order? I don’t think I have anything for him.
Me: Umm…nothing. He’s just…uh…chilling here for a second.
The manager, who must have seen it all go down, comes over.
Manager: Is everything okay? Should I call an ambulance?
Me: No! No! It’s fine. He…hasn’t eaten very much today and he stood up too fast. I really think he’s fine. Right, Scott?
Scott: Hrm…flurmmmm…
Me: Uh…see? He’s fine. He just needs a minute.
Manager: Are you sure?
I think, I’m pretty sure. But ultimately, I’m worried that making a big scene will make the situation worse. He isn’t just passing out. He is passing out because he’s way too high, which is a whole other category of passing out. You gotta tread lightly or a tailspin can occur. He doesn’t need an escalation to this scene.
As someone who can smoke just about any amount of weed and not have it affect them negatively, I’m always having to remind myself that it’s something that can conceptually even happen. The idea of smoking an amount of weed that could incapacitate me seems impossible, so I’ve probably led a few people astray over the years. Still, at this moment, I don’t think Scott needs to or wants to or should get an ambulance.
Me: I’m sure. He’s fine. Just had too much wine, stood up too fast. Let’s give him a minute. He’ll be fine.
Manager: …Okay.
The manager leaves, and I turn back to Scott, who still looks like a corpse. I look at the table that he’s presiding over, and they’re all staring at me with their food in front of them.
Me: He’s fine. Go ahead. Eat. It’s fine.
They hesitantly start to eat their dinners, keeping one eye on me and Scott the whole time. I can hear them thinking, Are we eating iceberg wedges with a rotting cadaver at our table? But still, they keep eating.
A few moments later, Scott starts coming to.
Me: Are you okay?
Scott: Yeah, I’m fine. I just stood up too fast.
Me: Are you sure? Do you need an ambulance? Do you want to leave?
Scott: No. We came for dinner. Let’s eat.
He gets up very slowly and I help him back to his seat. Everyone in the restaurant is looking on like, “Oh thank god, this fucking guy is alive.”
We sit back down at our table.
Lauren: Are you okay?!
Scott: Yeah. That hit of weed was so big, and the wine, and I just stood up too fast.
Lauren: Should we go?
Scott: No, I’m fine.
The waiter appears at the table, doing his best to act perky.
Waiter: Whoa! Everyone alright?!
Scott: Yep, fine!
Waiter: So…you’ll still be joining us for dinner?
Scott: Yep. I’m fine. When I say I’m fine, I’m fine. We’re not leaving on account of me.
It’s hard to argue with.
Waiter: Alright! Here’re some menus.
When he hands them to us, Scott’s head starts kind of bobbling around again. He does not look well. I can feel everyone in the restaurant looking at us like, “These lunatics are going to sit at this table while this man dies, because they want to eat a fucking porterhouse?!” Which isn’t true but isn’t 100 percent untrue, either.
Scott: I’m hot.
Me: We’ll order you some water when the waiter comes back.
Scott: I still have to go to the bathroom.
Lauren: Maybe sit for a second and then you can go.
Scott: Okay…fine…
My phone dings. It’s a text from Lauren, messaging me from across the table.
Lauren’s Text: Should we go?
My Text: He says he’s okay. He’s clearly just incredibly high. Honestly, food is probably the best thing for him.
Lauren’s Text: I also just don’t want to embarrass him.
My Text: That ship has sailed.
Lauren’s Text: Well, embarrass him MORE, I guess. He’ll feel terrible if he feels like he ruined the night—
Lauren’s Voice: Oh no! Seth!
I look beside me, and Scott is trying to take off his belt and unbutton his pants.
Gaye: Scott! No!
Scott: I’m fine.
Me: Alright, let’s go!
I buckle his belt and help him stand. Lauren and Gaye lead him toward the door, and I tip the waiter all the money I have on me.
Waiter: Is he okay? Is he having a stroke?
Me: No. He’s incredibly stoned.
A huge smile comes across his face.
Waiter: Oh, thank fucking god! We’ve all been there, man!
By the time I get outside, Lauren and Gaye have lowered Scott onto a bench by the valet station. They’re lifting a bottle of water to his lips like he’s just been rescued from some desert island. We get him home, where he passes out on the toilet for the next three hours, a little prince on his throne. I don’t know what it is about Scott’s center of gravity, but the man can maintain a seated position while completely unconscious to a degree that I’ve never seen before or since. (I will now revert back to past tense. Thank you for going on this amazing literary journey with me.)
Lauren and I were driving to his house the next morning to say hi, and we were a little nervous. We really didn’t want him to feel bad. And we especially didn’t want the incident to deter him from going out and doing fun things, which, after a decade of being the caretaker for his dying wife, he was finally starting to do again. We were half-expecting a worst-case scenario of him saying, “I’m never going out again. This is what happens when you leave the house!”
We walked up to the door, and he opened it. A big smile on his face.
“I got too fucking high last night! Holy shit, that was crazy!”
He knew getting too high was nothing to be embarrassed by. It happens to the best of us.
Nicolas Cage is an odd, magnetizing, confusing man, whose bravery and talent are almost unmatched in his field. His performances as both Castor Troy and Sean Archer in the 1997 action extravaganza FACE/OFF are wild and wonderful, as he truly convinces the viewer that they’ve just witnessed an FBI agent switch faces with a crime lord in an attempt to go undercover in a prison where all the inmates wear magnetized boots in order to find the location of a hidden explosive device somewhere in Los Angeles. Also, I read that he owns a Tyrannosaurus skull, which is objectively badass as hell. But as he stood across from me one fateful night in 2008, I thought, “Man, maybe we shouldn’t have signed on to write The Green Hornet.” But let me go back.
Me and Evan grew up loving comic books and action comedies, and we really thought we could contribute creatively to those spaces. We wrote a draft of a script for The Green Hornet, a radio show that was later turned into a comic book that was later turned into a TV series, which most famously starred Bruce Lee as Kato, the Hornet’s much more formidable partner. The studio liked the draft enough that they told us we could start looking for directors.
There was really only one name we had in mind, and it was perfect because if it worked out, he could both direct the film and play Kato. We wanted Chinese actor/director Stephen Chow, who had recently made the film Kung Fu Hustle, which was
fucking dope as fuck.
He read the draft and flew to L.A. to meet us. We really seemed to get along and he said he would love to work with us; he just had a few small notes on the script. We were thrilled.
He went back to Hong Kong, and a few weeks later we received an email from him that wasn’t a few notes on our script but an outline for an entirely new version of the movie. We were thrown at first, but honestly, we really loved the guy’s work, so we were excited to see what he had come up with, fully accepting that it was likely better than what we had come up with. I remember printing it out, and when I sat down to read it, something caught my eye. Near the bottom of the page, nestled in a paragraph I hadn’t yet read, was the word “AIDS.”
It really stood out because of the capitalization, much like it does on this page you’re reading now.
I thought, What’s that word doing there? That’s a weird thing to have in this outline for a comic-book action comedy. Oh well, I guess I’ll just keep reading, and hopefully by the time I get there, it’ll make sense. Maybe it’s a metaphor? Or it stands for something else in Hong Kong? I’m sure it’ll all make sense!
Well, it did NOT make sense. What it turned out to be was a joke wherein the Hornet finds out that Kato had slept with his girlfriend, so he tells Kato that he has AIDS, hoping to fool Kato into thinking he would then also have AIDS. Needless to say, this was fucking batshit crazy, especially for a PG-13 superhero movie.
It seemed like our sensibilities were not exactly jiving, so we agreed to part ways with him as director, but he would still play Kato.
After a long process, we replaced him with French music-video and film director Michel Gondry, a hilarious and eccentric little man, which is a description that I know will enrage him, and then make him laugh.
Over the next few months, me, Evan, and Gondry would work on the script and send drafts to Chow, who kept refusing to sign his contract and fully commit to the movie. We got into a process that I’m sure was frustrating for everyone, where we would send him the script, he would send notes, we would try our best to do them, likely not do them that well, send the script back, and then he’d send more notes. It culminated in him wanting to come back from Hong Kong to meet one more time to give us notes. We were very willing to hear them, but only if Chow would commit to the movie before he came. I’m not sure it was a completely reasonable request: “You know how we’ve never been able to do what you’ve asked, well just sign on in the hope of that one day, despite there being NO evidence that it’s possible…we will!” It was starting to feel like a real potential waste of time to keep rewriting the movie for an actor who might not even be in it ultimately. I think Gondry’s exact words were “Tell him not to get on the plane if he isn’t one hundred percent committed to being in the movie.”
He showed up and his first words were “Before I commit to this, there are a few things we need to fix in the script.”
And Gondry fucking lost it.
Michel (in an incredibly thick French accent): You ’ave no respect! You jerk us around like fools! Thees eez OVER!!
Stephen (cool): Alright. I understand. It’s unfortunate you feel that way. Let’s just shake hands and end this on a good note.
Michel: NOOO! I WEEL NOT!!
It was cold as fuck, but at the time I respected it.
Now we had no Kato, and the studio very much pushed us to hire Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou, who was awesome although he literally spoke no English whatsoever, which is not ideal for a buddy comedy. They still had no faith in the film, so it became this paint-by-numbers casting game. Basically, if we could get enough super-famous people involved, they’d make the movie. We got Cameron Diaz, who was great if miscast. And then there was the villain role. The studio wanted Nicolas Cage. I love Nicolas Cage, but our first thought was “There’s a wide variety of Nicolas Cages out there—there’s Leaving Las Vegas Cage, and there’s Wicker Man Cage. And about a hundred Cages in between. Which Cage are we talking about here?”
But, as bona fide Cage-heads, we were open to it, so we started to have some phone calls with him.
Cage: I want to play a bald guy but have hair tattooed on my head and big prosthetic lips.
Me: …Alright.
Cage: I wanna do a voice like Edward G. Robinson.
Me: Okay.
Cage: Actually…maybe not the tattooed hair. That’s something I might want to do in real life, so it might be weird if I also do it in a movie.
Me: …Yeah. That might make it weird.
Cage: Cool. Let’s talk more.
We called the studio and were like, “I’m not sure we’re gonna find common ground here. He’s coming with weird ideas…FOR Nicolas Cage, which is saying something.”
The studio came back with “You gotta play this out. Find a way to make it work.”
So if you’ve ever wondered, “How valuable is Nicolas Cage as a movie star?” the answer is “So valuable that most movie studios would rather hire him with tattooed hair and fake lips than not hire him at all.” Or if you’ve ever wondered, “How NOT valuable are you, Seth, as a movie star?” the answer is “SO not valuable that my presence has to be offset by Nicolas Cage in even the strangest of forms.”
Amy Pascal, one of the studio heads, told us that the best way to hash it out would be if we could all just get together at her house and meet face-to-face.
Amy: If we all get along, great. If not, we tried, and we move on. And there’s a new idea that he wants to run by you!
Me: Any idea what it is?
Amy: He likes the idea of being a white Bahamian.
Me: A Bohemian? Like a hippie?
Amy: No, A BAHAMIAN. Like…from the Caribbean.
Me: Like…with an accent?
Amy: I assume, yeah! Otherwise it would be hard to tell he’s Bahamian.
Even in 2008, this was a TERRIBLE IDEA. Aside from the fact that it had basically been done in True Romance, it seemed to us that it could be very racist.
Amy: There ARE white Bahamians.
Me: I mean, I guess, technically, there must be—
Amy: He said he met one once! Rented scuba equipment from him!
Me: I’m not sure that convinces me.
Amy: Just meet!
A few days later, me and Evan found ourselves driving to Amy’s house to have dinner with Nic Cage. I was anxious.
Me: He just better not do the accent. I just…I don’t know what I’ll do.
Evan: He won’t do it! That’d be like auditioning. He’s a huge movie star. He’s not gonna, like, perform for us.
Me: You don’t think so?
Evan: No way!
Me: Fine. He better not. I truly don’t think I’ll be able to hold it together if he does.
Evan: Don’t worry. He won’t.
We arrived and Nic Cage was already there, and I’m not sure my memory is 100 percent accurate, but I think he was wearing leather pants with pink flames embroidered up the sides of them, which is fucking dope.
We sat down, and within about ten seconds he was on his feet in front of all of us in the middle of the room.
Cage: Alright, this is how I picture it. You’re the Green Hornet, and you’re tied up, and I’m dumping pig’s blood on you in some, like, creepy voodoo ritual….
Keep in mind there is NO scene in the screenplay that even remotely resembles this, but honestly, maybe there should have been?
Then he did it.
Cage (in a Bahamian/Jamaican-sounding accent): ’Ello, Green ’Ornet! Wagwan! Why you wear dis mask ting, mon? What dis be, mon? Why you ’iding you face, mon?! I kill you, ’Ornet!! I KILL YOU, ’ORNET!!!!!!!
He stopped and stood there as if he was expecting a rapturous round of applause. There wasn’t. Everyone looked to me to say something.
> Me: Yeah…uh…maybe…yeah. That’s…not, like, exactly what we were picturing…but, uh…maybe?
Nic was visibly devastated by the lack of enthusiasm. He was super-thrown. And it quickly got very awkward. He was REALLY putting himself out there, which I would assume wasn’t a big deal for Nic Cage, but he was not immune to the lackluster reaction.
Amy was like, “Let’s sit down and eat!” So, we went to her big table, but AS the appetizers were being put out, Nic suddenly got up and was like, “I just realized I gotta go. Sorry. Good to meet you.” And he walked out, leaving us at the table.
Amy turned to us with a huge smile on her face, completely oblivious to how awkward it was. “Soo?? Pretty amazing, huh?!”
Me: No! Not amazing! Crazy. We can’t do that.
Amy: You have to.
Evan: What?
Amy: If you wanna make the movie, you gotta cast Nic. He’s popular overseas. We’ve done really well with him. You’ll figure out the creative stuff.
Evan: Will we?!
Amy: If you want to do the movie, you will.
A few days later Nic called and left me a message saying that he could sense that we weren’t happy with his take on the character, so he thinks he’s not the right guy for the part. At the time I was happy about it, but sometimes I imagine the movie that could have been and think, “Is that worse than what we did, or just way more interesting?”
* * *
Recently, a movie Nic Cage was attached to star in came across the desk of our production company. We were open to producing the film, and then we got a call from Nic’s manager.
Nic’s Manager: Nic isn’t really sure about you guys. He remembers having a really awkward meeting a few years ago.