by Seth Rogen
Me: Yeah, it was! That happened! We’d be more than willing to sit down and explain everything. I love his work so much, I don’t want it to be weird between us!
Nic’s Manager: Great. I think that would be good. Nic really wants to talk to you.
He wanted to meet at the Smoke House restaurant in Burbank. We found him seated in the back with his manager. His short beard seemed to be dyed dark brown, which looked kinda bizarre in the most perfect way possible.
I sat down and launched into explaining The Green Hornet incident from our perspective and basically apologized profusely for the uncomfortable situation he was dragged into.
Me: I’m so sorry. You got caught in the crosswinds of a hurricane of a movie that was a shitshow in general. It was a fucked-up thing all around, and I’m just sorry that we found ourselves in that room that night.
Cage: Yeah, alright, it’s fine. Look, you’re friends with James Franco, right?
Me: …Yeah.
Cage: You saw Spring Breakers, right?
I was really confused as to where the fuck this was going.
Me: …Yeah. When it came out in theaters.
Cage: Well…did you ever tell him about that meeting we had? About the white Jamaican guy? Is that where he got the idea for the guy in Spring Breakers? Did he steal it from me?
Me: Uh…no. I don’t think I ever mentioned it to him. (I had.) And…I don’t think he’s playing a person of…Caribbean origin in that film? (He is definitely not at all.)
Cage: Because I saw it and I was like, “Fuck! I bet Seth told Franco about it, and then he took it and put it in that movie!”
Me: No. Don’t think so. I think there’s some Florida rapper that he based it on. Not that meeting we had.
He looked at me like he didn’t believe me. Then, just like before, he got up. “Sorry, I gotta go. Nice to see you all.”
He and his manager walked away. I turned to Evan.
Me: Did he just meet with us so he could ask us if Franco stole his white Jamaican guy character for Spring Breakers? And that’s it?
Evan: Absolutely.
Me: He didn’t even believe me when I told him the answer.
Evan: Nope. He sure didn’t.
Me: That’s amazing.
* * *
Although the making of The Green Hornet was difficult, you kind of have to delude yourself into thinking you’re making a movie that people are going to like no matter what. And you get hopeful. We started testing the movie and it literally tested better than any movie we’ve ever made. We were excited to go promote the film.
Because Jay Chou was an Asian megastar, they sent us all over Asia to do press. Every airport we landed at had throngs of screaming fans, like, for real. I’ve never seen anything like it to this day—and I know Zac Efron.
We went to Beijing, where we rode toboggans down a slide alongside the Great Wall of China.
We went to Tokyo, where we ate amazing sushi and I bought weed that came in little Hello Kitty bags.
We went to Seoul, where we ate barbecue and sang karaoke with women who our hosts had apparently paid to hang out with us.
Singapore was the biggest trip of all. The only real thing I knew about Singapore was that in the nineties, an American did some graffiti there and the punishment was that he was caned, as in whacked by a fucking cane, which is intense. I should also say I learned this fact from a Weird Al song.
The arrival was terrifying. We stepped off the plane, and they took our passports and slipped a little piece of paper inside each one that basically said that if you have drugs on you, they’ll execute you, which is a real threat for someone like me. I do, in fact, often have drugs on me, and even though I was pretty sure I didn’t at this moment, I’ve on more than one occasion accidentally brought contraband from one place to another, so this was some high-stakes packing I had just done. Never did the question “Did I accidentally leave a roach in one of my pockets?” have literal life-or-death stakes before, but I’m currently alive so spoiler alert.
We had a premiere, but there are laws against groups of people congregating, so the party was uncomfortable. I remember there was someone from the government there who kept telling people they were allowed to cheer for Jay.
Chewing gum is illegal in Singapore, and it’s because someone once stuck a piece to the door of a subway car and it got jammed, which delayed the trains for the next few minutes, and so the only logical thing to do was OUTLAW FUCKING GUM. I kept being assured it wasn’t a benevolent dictatorship, it was in fact a thriving democracy, even though I couldn’t find one person who had ever voted in their life, so you make the call.
A few months later, I went on Conan O’Brien’s show and talked about how culturally different and interesting I found Singapore to be. Singapore did NOT appreciate it. They published a HUGE news story about the shame I brought to Singapore, which I then brought back on Conan a few months later to talk about some more.
It’s really special when you’re able to mock someone, then that person (or country) gets mad, and then you’re able to mock THAT, as well. I now call it “the Singapore Cycle,” which also sounds like a dope sexual maneuver.
* * *
The Green Hornet came out, did fine, got pretty bad reviews, and basically became a punch line, which is better than nothing, I guess. Especially for someone who works in comedy.
It’s hard to have too much of a takeaway other than we made something that people didn’t love, which happens. It’s nice when it doesn’t; it sucks when it does. Some people did love it, and I’m appreciative of that. Still, it sticks with me, that we spent so much time working on something that so many people took so much joy in deriding, but then I remind myself, “It’s fine. Even Nic Cage doesn’t like a lackluster reaction.”
The first time I remember hearing any form of rap was in 1988, which means I was six years old. I had a cousin who was about fourteen at the time, and when my family went over for a visit, he looked at me and was like, “Let me show you something cool.” We went to his room and he pulled out a record with a colorful jacket and the words “Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble” written across it. He put it on.
I had actually seen I Dream of Jeannie in reruns, so I recognized the theme song when it played. Then a beat dropped under it, Will Smith started rapping over it, I was in.
One of the best byproducts of my job has been that I’ve gotten to interact and even work with some of my favorite rappers of all time. Musicians are, in general, much crazier than actors, and I think that’s because even the most famous actors have to interact with SOME people with regular jobs—film crews, day players, background players. As much as famous actors may try to completely isolate themselves from others, the job doesn’t fully allow it. They can get pretty fucking close, like 99 percent, but a full sweep of isolation and social curation is nearly impossible to achieve. But with musicians, it seems they CAN. They appear to be 100 percent insulated. They can handpick every person they interact with every second of the day. They roll deep as FUCK.
It really landed for me the time I tried to get a drink backstage at the Grammys. I had gotten a very random but exciting call that Eminem wanted me to introduce him, Dr. Dre, and Rihanna for a performance of their new song, and when you get that call, you fucking say yes. I’d been to a lot of movie award shows at that point, so I thought I knew what to expect, but the Grammys were way different.
Shortly after the opening performance, I was taken backstage. Normally, there’s a greenroom where all the presenters and performers and whatnot are milling around, and there’s always an open bar so people can have some drinks and dull some nerves while they wait. At the Grammys, every musician essentially had their own greenroom with its own bar, which was completely isolated from all the other celebrity greenrooms. I did not have a greenroom, because I had no idea they
were even on the table, so I didn’t ask for one. All this is to say, there wasn’t an easy way to get a drink. I was so nervous and uncomfortable, I just desperately wanted to inebriate myself in some slight way, and vapes wouldn’t be invented for years.
I spotted a big greenroom that said Bob Dylan, with the doors wide open. There were dozens of people inside, so I was able to sneak in and grab a beer from the bar. I looked for Bob but didn’t see him. It would have been amazing to meet him. I’m a huge fan of his, which is kinda like saying, “I’m a huge fan of pasta,” in that who the fuck isn’t? There are not a lot of cool Jews to look up to, and he’s objectively the top of the list. James Caan being right below him. James Caan is actually a scary Jew, which is almost unheard of. He’s in his own lane, Jew-wise.
I finally slipped out with my beer, when a security guard came up to me.
Guard: Em wants to say hi before you present. His dressing room is over here.
Me: Alright, cool.
Guard: But you can’t bring in the beer.
Me: I can’t? Why?
Guard: Em’s sober.
Me: Cool.
Guard: So you can’t bring it in.
Me: I wasn’t planning on pouring it in his mouth.
Guard: He can’t even be near it.
This was a level of sobriety that I’d never even heard of. He couldn’t even be close to beer in a cup? What would happen?
I didn’t want to find out.
I threw out the beer, which upset me, and then had a VERY awkward but thrilling greeting with Eminem and Dr. Dre. (The fact that these guys who I grew up listening to would spend even one moment with me is incredible.)
Dre: Hope the intro is funny!
Great, now I was more nervous. I left to go find another drink, which I got from some country musician’s dressing room, in the form of a screwdriver, an indisputably disgusting drink.
And then, I saw her—Beyoncé, arm in arm with Gwyneth Paltrow. I don’t usually go say hi to other famous people. I generally try to avoid it at all costs, but this was Beyoncé. Or, as my father-in-law calls her, “Bey-onsss.” I had to try to say hi.
In retrospect, I approached with too much confidence. I didn’t have nearly the reverence I should have. I should have gone up to her like you would the queen or that giant bird creature in Harry Potter that you have to bow to before you can fly around on it.
I marched up. “Hey, Beyoncé! I’m Seth and—”
A giant arm SWUNG out like a baseball bat and smacked me across the chest so fucking hard I stumbled back and spilled my screwdriver all over myself. I was soaked. Her security had (wisely?) batted me away before I could get close. And at that exact moment, a PA came up to me and said, “Alright, Seth, they’re ready for you!”
I was led over to the side of the stage as I tried to figure out if I could hold my arm in a way that covered the screwdriver spill but didn’t look too fucking weird. It turns out, I sorta could.
Me at the Grammys hiding my spill.
I told my joke, which got a C+ laugh at best, and got the fuck out of there the second I could.
I’ve gotten to meet Snoop Dogg a couple of times, the first of which was amazing and eye-opening. We have a moment in This Is the End where Craig Robinson is serenading a party of people with his staple classic, “Take Yo Panties Off.” We thought it would be funny if we had, like, an actual version of the song at the end of the movie, so we asked Snoop Dogg if he would collaborate with Craig, and he said yes.
I arrived at the studio, and soon after, Snoop comes in with, like, four or five people, one of whom is a blunt roller, as in someone whose only job is to roll blunts. He would take a pack of Phillies, open them one by one, empty them all, roll them with weed, and put them back in the Phillies box, then hand them to Snoop, giving him a constant supply.
Snoop wrote the hook with Craig, and after a few hours I was like, “Can you rap a verse?”
Snoop: You want me to rap?
Me: Yeah, man.
Snoop: Shit. I thought I was just doing the hook.
Me: It would be awesome if you could do a verse, too!
He put his head down and thought for a long moment. Then he looked over to one of his guys, narrowed his gaze…and said: “Bring in the hoes.”
The guy left, and within thirty seconds he returned with five or six women who were very much dressed like strippers at the start of a routine. The producer blasted the beat, and the women danced and drank while Snoop wrote a rap verse on his BlackBerry.
After about twenty minutes, he was finished writing and gestured to his guy, who escorted the hoes out, vanishing as mysteriously as they had appeared.
This obviously raised a lot of questions.
Where were the hoes up till that point? We were not in a big building, and I hadn’t seen them before that moment.
Why were the hoes there? This was probably the easiest one to figure out. It seemed to be for inspiration. Everyone has their writing process, I guess. I like to drink coffee and sparkling water while I write; Snoop likes to have a team of hoes magically appear and dance around while he writes.
Were they there just in case? He didn’t think he was gonna be writing any raps, so he, in theory, wouldn’t need the hoes’ presence. Yet the hoes were present. That seems like a complicated and expensive contingency plan to have in place at all times. A bunch of hoes following you around on the off chance you’re asked to write a rap verse. “Who are they?” “Oh, that’s just my bus full of muse-hoes in case a song-making opportunity arises!”
Why have I been saying “hoes” this whole time? I definitely shouldn’t do that.
But, ultimately, my relationship with Kanye West is probably the longest and weirdest.
It all started in 2004. I lived in West Hollywood near Santa Monica and Fairfax, which is meaningless if you don’t live in L.A. and uninteresting if you do. One day, I was coming home and there was a dude jogging by my front door who looked exactly like Kanye West. He said, “You’re a funny motherfucker,” and kept jogging. A few weeks later, I learned I lived right around the corner from one of the most high-end personal trainers in Los Angeles, and Kanye was a client of his. He was there every week.
One morning a few months later, I was unbelievably hungover, and our phone, which is connected to our front gate, rang. Lauren answered.
Lauren: Hello? Who is this? (Beat.) “Kanye” who? (Beat.) “Kanye East”?
Me: Kanye East? It’s Kanye West!
Lauren: Oh, he’s trying to be funny. I get it.
I ran downstairs and opened my front door to see Kanye standing there with a basketball under his arm.
Kanye: Wanna come out and play basketball?
Me: I’m way too hungover. I’ll throw up all over the place.
Kanye hung his head and walked off, sadly.
It’s a bummer to have to say no to people when you’re a fan. Once, we ran into Diddy in Sonoma and he asked me and Lauren if we wanted to go hot-air ballooning with him the next morning, but we had to say no because we were scouting locations for our wedding. We both still talk about how insane and awkward that would have been, and we wish we could have experienced it. I can’t decide if he’d have been really brazen or endearingly scared of the heights and the fire.
I’d seen Kanye fairly regularly over the years, but it all came to a head the day we saw the music video for “Bound 2.”
We were filming The Interview in Vancouver, and Kanye was on tour. He kept canceling his shows and we were kinda pissed. Then “Bound 2” came out. The video itself is, in a word, terrible. It’s basically Kanye and Kim writhing around on a motorcycle in front of a green screen while images of mountains and skies are superimposed behind them. The production budget appears to have been somewhere in the neig
hborhood of $27.68.
It was obvious someone was gonna make fun of it, so we were like: Can we do it sooner and better than other people? Sooner probably being the more important of the two? We bet that we could.
If the original video came out at 10 a.m., by noon the same day we were filming our version. At first, we were just gonna make fun of a little bit of it, but Franco was like, “If we’re gonna do this, we should do the entire thing shot for shot. Let’s not half-ass it. Let’s just fucking do it if we’re gonna do it.”
So we did it.
Making viral videos is impossible, in that you don’t actually know what’s gonna go viral. Marketing people in Hollywood always think they can control it—they’re always like, “We’ll do this video of you guys being funny, and it’ll go viral.” But it never does. This was not like that. The whole time we were making it, we were like, “There’s zero percent chance it doesn’t go everywhere instantly. It will go viral.” And it very much did. A few weeks after it came out, an eighty-year-old woman came up to me and recognized me as “the guy from the motorcycle video.” I remember thinking that it was maybe the most popular thing I had ever been a part of.
About six months later, I was in New York with Lauren to film a tiny guest spot on the first episode of Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show. We had just bought a bunch of dessert and brought it back to the Mercer Hotel, where we were staying. We stopped in the lobby to get some plates and cutlery and shit, when I heard a voice from behind me.
“Yo!!”
We turned around, and there was Kanye West. I was nervous at first. I’d clowned him pretty hard and pretty well. It really landed. Thank god, he wasn’t mad.
Me: Yo!!!!!! Hey, man, first off, I’m sorry if you were offended by the video or anything! I love the song and the album so much!