INT: Apatow/Rogen & Goldberg

Okay, this is it, I
promise. It’s been all about
SUPERBAD
this week. A movie which I am
a massive fan of… but I promise I will stop writing about it after
this. But here I am, I’m
going to tell you that Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and Judd Apatow are
incredibly nice guys and they don’t seem to fall into the ‘I’m
too good to talk to you category’.

The fact that they
are friends and very comfortable with each other really shows.
They also feel very comfortable with the press as they gladly
answered any and all questions and didn’t have any trouble
laughing at themselves. Speaking
of laughing, Seth Rogen never stops laughing and it’s kind of
infectious. So here you go…
three guys who like to make people laugh.

Evan said they
were going to get you in phenomenal shape for THE GREEN HORNET,
are you aware of that?

Seth Rogen (SR):
We’ll see, I’ve been informed of that [Laughing].
That’d be funny.

Are you ready
for that?

SR:
I guess so, I don’t know.
Do they still have those things, like they just
electronically work out for you while you just do nothing?
[Laughing] They
electronically stimulate your muscles, so I could be lazy and
athletic at the same time.

Evan Goldberg (EG):
Madonna has that new thing that is like a plate. You don’t do
anything but hold onto it.

SR: Exactly, or
they electronically stimulate your muscles into working out.

EG: You could play
Halo while you do it.

SR: Exactly. I
could be lazy and athletic at the same time.

You know what we
have. We have one of those ab-loungers. You pass out it in, and then
we work out your abs for you.

SR: Yeah?
[Laughing] I pay someone to exercise me!

At what point
did KNOCKED UP make it on to the poster in this movie?

Judd Apatow (JA):
Well, there was an original poster that didn’t have KNOCKED
UP and then I think once KNOCKED UP did well enough to…

SR:
They had it already, they just tugged a cord and went
“thump“ [Laughing].

So Seth, what do
they think back home in Vancouver that this movie finally got
made… and I guess you had your friends sign releases so that you
could use their names? You
named almost all of the characters after people you went to high
school with. Are you still friends with these people?

SR:
We are still friends with these people. I think that was a
good indication that we maintained good relationship with everyone
we went to high school with is… pretty much everyone signed their
releases. And we knew
all of them still…

EG: Except for a
few bastards.

SR: Yeah, a few
bastards didn’t. But they’ve known since high school that we were
writing this movie. We told everyone.

EG:
All the names were the same.

SR:
We told people, “Hey, we used your name in our
movie.” So, it was really weird when we are finally, ten years
later when we were like, “It’s actually happening.”
Everyone seemed psyched. Thirty of our friends are coming to the
premier from Vancouver so… That will be fun.

You thought that
Jonah [Hill] was too old to play the part of Seth. What changed
that?

SR: Desperation.
Casting desperation. Purely out of our own lack of imagination
probably, we just assumed he looked too old. He has stubble, and
when you know him, its clear that he is not eighteen. But we saw a
lot of guys who just weren’t really doing what we wanted with the
role. And then we started thinking, “Maybe he doesn’t look too
old.” We had since cast Michael Cera, who is in actually
eighteen. And we realized when you put them together, Jonah does
look younger. He doesn’t look way older than Michael. It actually
works. It was really important to us that they all looked like high
school guys. And we were probably being over cautious with that. We
just didn’t want like thirty year old Gabrielle Carteris.
[Laughing]

Were the cops
always in the original version of the script that you wrote back in
high school?

SR: Yes. They were
always in there.

EG:
They were the worst part of the original script.

SR:
And maybe the worst part of the finished movie. Who knows?
But, yeah, they were always in there. The idea was that cops
would always take our beer and shit when we were in high school. The
joke was that, “I bet they take our beer and go drink it in the
parking lot afterwards.” Then we thought, “What if they
do? That would be funny to watch.”

How come we
don’t see anybody getting sick after they drink all of the detergent
beer?

JA: It’s magical
detergent?

SR: The next
morning everyone’s dead. That’s
the big reveal. It looks like a cult gone wrong. That is the
hilarious reveal. Stay tuned to the end of the credits.

EG: The sequel
takes place in Hell.

How much of the
script is based on actual experience?

EG: The general
plot is. All sorts of tidbits.

SR: Actual
experiences though… I mean, yeah, we tried to get liquor a lot.
The period blood thing actually happened.

EG: We went to wild
parties like that. We went to a couple parties with older people.
Where we were terribly awkward and out of place.

SR: And everyone
started doing cocaine.

Did you really
have a problem with drawing the dicks?

SR: No, that was
merely an excuse to have beautifully illustrated penis drawings in
the movie.

EG: We are
connoisseurs.

SR:
Exactly… We just thought, “I’d just love to see a
Tiananmen Square penis. How do we write that into the movie?”
Evan’s brother drew every one of those. He’s a lawyer.

EG: His name is
David Goldberg. He literally takes the bar in seven days.

Are there any
plans to do a gallery showing of them?

SR: We might
release a book of them actually. It would be a coffee penis book.
[Laughing]

EG: I’m saying
animated HBO series. [Laughing]

SR: An animated Disney series. [Laughing]

How much of the
original script remains?

SR:
The general idea was always in there.
Two guys trying to buy alcohol to impress a girl, another guy
goes off with the cops with the fake I.D..
McLovin goes off with the cops.
I mean that was always the same.
The real evolution was the relationship between the guys.
I think in the first draft, a lot of the criticism we heard
was that the characters were very much alike.
And we were kind of similar, not like we’re totally
different guys. So we
really had a hard time wrapping our heads around, ‘how do we make
another guy?’. But
slowly we kind of developed with a lot of help and advice from Judd,
we kind of developed a relationship and an emotional story between
the guys.

Can you talk
about the day you came up with the name for McLovin?

EG: We were
literally just sitting there. We said, “Lets think of a funny
name for his I.D.” We said McLovin. Which was very stupid. It
made neither of us laugh.

SR: We’d just think
of something better later.

SR: Then we showed
it to a bunch of people, and they all said, “Best part, by far,
is McLovin.” We said, what ever floats your boat. Come to find
out, it floats everyone’s boat it seems so… That’s something we
felt like… that’s bullshit, no one would do that. [Laughing] We
tried to keep it pretty real, and we were very aware that, okay,
that’s kind of pushing it a little bit. But people seem to like
it. So, why not?

Judd you were
very involved with the process.
Could you also fill us in on your other projects?

JA:
Well, I wish I could remember… We’re shooting right now,
YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN in New York, we just got back from
New York. And that’s
kind of exciting. I
wrote that with Adam [Sandler] and Robert Smigel and it’s
hilarious. It’s about
a Mossad agent who is tired of the violence and he goes AWOL and
moves to America to find his real dream of a life of peace and being
a hairdresser in New York City.
It’s hilarious and it’s very fun to work with Smigel who
is just the funniest man on earth.
I’m excited to get that out there.

In Christmastime we
have WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY which stars John C. Reilly as
Dewey Cox. And it’s
kind of a goof on WALK THE LINE and RAY.
But it’s a pretty remarkable performance by John C. Reilly
because he is the guy that would get that part.
He’s doing something ridiculous but the acting is
fantastic. And he really
cries over stupid things. It’s
very funny.

And DRILLBIT TAYLOR
comes out in March which Seth wrote and Chris Brown and Owen Wilson
stars. Which is based on a John Hughes idea that he never wrote.
It’s about some kids who get bullied and hire a guy they
think is a Navy SEAL but he’s a homeless guy… and that came out
great and it’s all done.

And then in the
summer, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS comes out.
And STEP BROTHERS we start shooting September.
And [FORGETTING] SARAH MARSHALL comes out May 30^th,
that’s also shot. Not
much going on. [Laughing]

With writing THE
GREEN HORNET, have you read Kevin Smith’s draft?

SR:
No, I’m actually friends with Kevin Smith and he said… I
probably could read it if I want but I don’t want to.

EG:
I say we read it after our first draft.

SR:
Exactly. I have
no interest right now in reading it.

EG:
I don’t wanna see some awesome idea that I can’t use.

SR:
Exactly… [Laughing] I’m just afraid of that.

That’s all
folks… that is the end of SUPERBAD for my part.
Send questions and comments to [email protected]

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