It's the end of the world and Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg feel fine.
The childhood friends and writing partners (Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express, Funny People, The Green Hornet) make their directorial debut with This Is The End, an apocalyptic comedy that suggests the safest place to spend the end of days might just be James Franco's house.
Rogen, Franco, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Emma Watson, Michael Cera and dozens of other celebrities play themselves in the audacious comedy, which is already a monster hit in the US. None of the celebrities come off too well in the film, but when we caught up with Rogen and Goldberg in real life, both gents were warm and witty.
The signature Rogen laugh flowed freely as we talked religion, Oscars, Pineapple Express 2, Kim Jong-un and Kanye.
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Now that This Is The End is a hit, it's easy for people to say they always knew it was going to work. But were you or the studio nervous about how well a metafictional comedy about the Biblical apocalypse would do?
Evan: Oh, yeah. It's our craziest idea yet, and it was a little worrisome as we were working our way through it. But once we had the film done, we kind of knew, like, it's a good film and it's going to work even though it's bonkers.
Were you worried people would think it was self-indulgent?
Seth: [Laughs] Tell that to the crew! Yeah! But I mean...
Evan: I don't know if you can call it self-indulgent when everybody's making themselves look absolutely terrible.
Seth: We knew that the stupid people would think it was self-indulgent. [Laughs] The people that didn't want to take the time to really try to read into what we were doing in any way, shape or form. I mean, it's self-referential, more than it is self-indulgent. It's all done with the goal of entertaining the audience and telling a story. It's not just so we could hang out with each other. There are much easier ways for us to hang out with each other than to make a movie!
Did any of the cast have issues with the way they were portrayed in the movie, or the things you chose to heighten about them?
Evan: No. They felt like they'd been set free, you know? They live their lives under the eye of the public and this time they got to comment on themselves before anyone else got the chance. They all revelled in the madness of having that opportunity.
Seth: Yeah! They seemed to think it was really funny.
If, like, James Franco had pulled out just before you started shooting, would you have re-written the character completely, or just cast someone else as James Franco?
Evan: Oh, we would have had to completely re-write the character. All six main characters are completely designed for these actors, and we did it with the actors. We worked on it with them, so... that would have sucked.
Is that something you really had to stress to them beforehand, before you even wrote the script? 'If you say you're going to do this, guys, you absolutely have to do it?'
Seth: [Laughs] We really put on as much of that pressure as we could, yes. We really tried to get across to them, you know, that if you tell us you're doing this, it would put us in a really weird situation if you then decided not to do it.
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It seems like you got everyone you wanted for the movie. On a base level, who was the most fun to kill?
Seth: Ah! That is a gooood question. I think Michael Cera was, honestly, the most fun to kill.
Any particular reason?
We just knew it would blow people's minds. [Laughs] And his death was just very elaborate! We had to attach him to this pole and hoist him, like, 25 feet up in the air; it was pretty hilarious.
This Is The End is an astonishingly accurate depiction of the Book of Revelation. Man Of Steel was marketed at church groups, did you guys consider marketing This Is The End to church groups at all?
Evan: No! But inherently, it is a movie that would draw church groups!
Seth: Yeah, it's true! We should have marketed more to the religious right. [Laughs] If we made one mistake, I think that was it. I'm sure our movie is more religiously affirming than Man Of Steel. He's an alien! There's no aliens in the Bible, right? That right there is blasphemous!
That's exactly right. On that note, were you worried about a religious backlash?
Seth: We were kind of hoping for one.
Evan: Honestly, I'm a little disappointed!
Seth: I'm a little disappointed as well! We've got, like, one video of a preacher on YouTube kind of saying that he doesn't like the idea of our movie.
Evan: And saying the name 'Goldberg' very intensely.
Seth: It's true! The implication in this whole deal is like, 'I can't believe Jews made a movie about the rapture!'
Evan: Hey, we're the ones who deal with the most repercussions if it ever goes down! Everyone else gets to go up to Heaven; we've got to deal with a whole tonne of shit down here.
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This movie might make more jokes about jerking off than any other movie. Do you feel like that was an important wall to break down?
Seth: Yeah, someone had to!
Evan: Bridesmaids heralded in this new wave of female comedies, and now we're heralding in a new wave of jerk-off comedies.
Seth: It's about time jerking off had its day.
Given the outrage that jokes about rape tend to generate, particularly in the last couple of years, did you have any concerns about how that scene with Emma Watson would go over?
Seth: A little bit! We were actually just talking about that last night, how we're kind of shocked that it didn't get more of a reaction. Again, we wanted more backlash!
Evan: I think it's just that the guys are so sincerely appalled by the mere concept of even mentioning it... that kind of makes it okay.
Seth: It's true! The joke of the scene is that we're so uncomfortable with the notion that we would be thought of that way. It's an anti-rape joke, inherently. [Laughs] I think that's why people go with us on it. But when we were filming it, we were definitely like, 'man, there is no way to cut around this. If this doesn't work, we are really pretty screwed.'
There are a couple of Academy Award nominated persons in This Is The End. Is that a goal for either of you guys?
Seth: I think if this movie doesn't do it, then I don't know what will. [Laughs]
Evan: I strongly assume we're going to get nominated for numerous Oscars off this film.
Sure. Why not? Who could do a better job of playing Seth Rogen than Seth Rogen?
Evan: It's insane of them to imply that it's not the best performance ever by all of the cast.
Seth: [Laughs] That's true!
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There's been a lot of talk about Jonah Hill's interview in Rolling Stone recently. As two guys who know Jonah Hill as well as anybody, and who deal with interviewers asking stupid questions on a regular basis, can you guys feel for him?
Seth: Definitely. I think if you asked Jonah, he'd be the first to admit that he did not handle that interview in the best way possible. [Laughs] But that being said, sometimes they just get you on a bad day and they ask you weird questions and it's very off-putting sometimes.
Evan: When you're in a sensitive mood, maybe you're having a bad day, and somebody asks you how you fart...
Seth: Yes! Sometimes you're just like, really? This is the fucking interview? This is what we're doing? That's your job, to ask me how I fucking fart? Sometimes it's just appalling that this is the person you're forced to deal with.
Evan: He kept it together when they asked him about how he masturbates and when they tried to get him to smoke weed, but when they asked him how he farts... it probably got to him. But he's a very respectful guy, and he called us immediately and said, 'sorry, I mucked up that interview'.
Seth: Yeah, exactly!
Evan: We said, 'no worries, man, it's going to happen to all of us at some point'.
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Jonah does make an excellent Woody Harrelson in the film.
Seth: [Laughs] He does! Woody Harrelson actually saw the movie and liked it, I heard. Thank god, because we didn't get his permission to do that joke.
Evan: But that's okay, because it wasn't Woody Harrelson, it was Woody Hairelson.
Famed marijuana advocate Woody Hairelson. Of course.
Seth: [Laughs] Woody Hairelson.
Now is there any chance you guys would actually make Pineapple Express 2, or is the fake trailer the closest we'll ever get?
Evan: There's always a chance, we're always talking about it. The plot we came up with is actually the plot you see in [the fake trailer in] the film.
Seth: Yeah! And now that Woody Harrelson's seen it, maybe it'd be easier to get Woody Harrelson to be in the actual movie!
Evan: Oh, that's true, eh? That'd be great!
That seems like it would be a waste of Jonah Hill's talents, though.
Seth: To not play Woody Harrelson? [Laughs] We should have Jonah play Woody Harrelson!
Comedy sequels are hard, though. There aren't many comedies that have great sequels. Is that off-putting at all?
Seth: It is off-putting, definitely. Yes, that's definitely been one of the reasons we have not jumped into it. They so rarely turn out good, and what are the odds that we'll be the guys to overcome that? [Laughs] Not that good.
I might be the only one, but I'd kind of like to see another Green Hornet movie. That movie made more money than people remember, and it had a lot of great ideas. Would you ever go near a franchise like that again?
Seth: Maybe. Honestly, I think the PG-13-ness of it all is the most off-putting thing for us creatively. It's just so frustrating when you're making a movie and you know it could be funnier than what you're doing. That was the thing we encountered a lot in Green Hornet. There were so many times when we were like, 'oh man, if they could just say this, it would be so fuckin' funny'. But you just can't do it, you know? That's what's so much fun about a movie like This Is The End. You can do anything! Those crazy ideas? You can do them! For us, honestly, for how we want to spend our days... it's so much more fun to spend your day doing what you really feel is the funniest thing you could possibly be doing, as opposed to doing what you know is a muted version of what you could be doing.
What can you tell me about the Kim Jong-un movie you guys are working on?
Seth: It's a pretty crazy movie! Franco plays an entertainment journalist, like a Ryan Seacrest-type guy, and I play his producer, and we find out through a leaked report that Kim Jong-un is a big fan of his show. You find out these guys are into weird American pop cultural shit. In an attempt to gain legitimacy, the journalist attempts to get an interview with him, and actually does, and then before we go to North Korea to interview him, the CIA comes to us and asks us to assassinate him, because we're going to be the first Americans in a room with him for, like, forever.
You seem to have assassination on your mind a little bit.
Evan: Violence is funny, man.
Did you guys have the idea for this before Dennis Rodman went over there? Were you like, 'oh fuck, he beat us to it?'
Evan: It was way before it! And actually, we came up with this idea when his father was in charge.
Seth: Yeah, it was Kim Jong-il originally. No, when he went over there, we thought it was great for the movie. It's the exact kind of ridiculous thing we're talking about.
Will Ninja Rapists be your next movie after that?
Seth: Ninja Rapists is on the slate! [Laughs] That billboard was way more prominent than we hoped it would be.
I know you guys are both big Kanye West fans. What do you think of Yeezus?
Seth: Man, I've actually listened to a lot of it, it's pretty awesome. It's kind of unbelievable, actually. It makes our next movie, Yeezus, look silly. [Laughs] We should have done a religious tie-in with him in our movie, though! Yeezus Christ!
This Is The End lays waste to Australian cinemas on Thursday July 4.
