"Seth Rogen"
SmartLess- 3,751 views
- 10 Aug 2020
A destined drop-in from writer, creator, and comedian-extraordinaire, Seth Rogen (An American Pickle, Pineapple Express, Knocked Up). The guys grill Seth on his newly brined movie, his early stand-up days, longstanding collaborations with Apatow and Goldberg... amongst a big bundle of other scintillations. Seth's new film "An American Pickle" is available on HBO Max.
Welcome to Smart Lists with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and me, Will Arnett, each week one of us brings on a special guest and surprises the other two. They don't know who the guest is, which makes it fun. And then we laugh and we get a little less smart, less so, I guess. More smarter, more smarter. We should have needmore smarter anyway. Come take a ride on the Spartacus train. Smart. Smart, smart lists is brought to you by AutoZone, got an issue with your car battery visit AutoZone America's number one battery destination by online at AutoZone Dotcom and pick up your battery today.
Get in the zone, AutoZone. Jason, do you enjoy this time off? Let me answer for him. No. No, I do, I do, I enjoy it to a level I'm not feeling proud of, I'm a little I feel a little guilty like I could be or should be doing something more because there are so many people that are having trouble throughout it. It is not a not a happy or healthy time globally.
But I do have to say selfishly, I am enjoying spending time with my kids. And I can't usually, as I'm sure a lot of people are, but I would like to say I'm enjoying my time with you too.
Very much. You would like to say. But you won't. I'm sorry. Well, do you want we we're in Millbrook. We ask our guests to wait. Says you you came on stuffing your face yesterday. Yes. Well, it was it was an energy bar.
Energiser And when does that kick in?
It wasn't a reseize. Sorry not what did that hilarious. That's good. Yesterday. All of it. It's so good and it's so true. Yeah.
Oh, I'm going to bring the energy this time. I'm going to really bring the noise on this. This is going to be one of my best podcast sessions.
It's been fun watching you, Jason, on this road to go fuck yourself. You know, get some some guests that we bring on do not need a long introduction.
But today I've carved out twenty minutes now.
But today we have another Canadian actor on today, so. Well, you can help us translate.
Maybe I love how close Jason's fake laugh is to his real laugh. Right. That was scary. The energy.
This fellow has had more success than all three of us combined. Basically, it's not hard.
He's an actor, director, producer, writer, entrepreneur, philanthropist. I'm pretty sure he's my personal driver, too. His name is synonymous with Judd Apatow and vice versa. My guest today is the highly intelligent Seth Rogen. Oh, hi, guys.
Oh, hi. What's up, Seth? Seth wearing his grandfather's sweater today. Exactly.
This takes our our guests listen to a different a different area here.
Yeah, I didn't I haven't Googled who has been I assumed I was like, right in the pocket of who you are.
Yeah, well, it's taking it down a little bit, but. Oh, good. But, you know, sad. Very nice of you to join us.
Oh, look who it is.
Sad day here. How about I didn't know you were Canadian.
You didn't know I was Canadian, by the way. I didn't either words. I just thought all Jewish people are American. Yeah, exactly.
I'm complimented when people don't assume I'm Jewish. I'm not complimented. When I didn't know you were Jewish, I did see that. I think every Jew likes it when that happens a little bit.
I don't really think about religion or place of origin. You should, because they're both highly influential as to why people are who they are now.
What about do you agree with this intro element of synonymous with Judd Apatow and Judd Apatow? As it sounds? I don't I don't think so anymore. Right. I mean, maybe when you got you guys both kind of started around this was it Freaks and Geeks that you guys both.
Oh, that's when we first met in 1998.
I guess it was such a great show. You know, that show we both have careers.
You have a career enough for seven people, as does he.
He really does set. Did you write on Freaks and Geeks as well?
No, I was always trying to. And I was like, I would submit scenes and things like that and episode ideas. But I yeah, I it wasn't till undeclared. Yeah.
I feel like if maybe Freaks and Geeks when a second season I had a chance of being hired as a writer but then yeah. I got hired on Undeclared.
I was. And how old were you on Freaks and Geeks.
I was like 16 and 17 when we did Freaks and Geeks. That's how old you know I'm thirty seven. Isn't it weird how I start forgetting thirty eight. Thirty eight. I'm thirty eight. I wanna start beheading. I literally I'm thirty eight. Yeah. I have to do actual math to figure that out.
Wait so and I read somewhere that you, when you were sixteen doing Freaks and Geeks that you were kind of the breadwinner of the family and you help support the family. Is that any of that true.
Yes. When you're. Yeah. When your parents are socialists, Jews, it doesn't take much to hit that bar. But hey, can I go deep on that? Because I go for it. I might have had a similar childhood, you know, were your were your parents your manager as well?
No, not at all. Thank God. They, like had no. No. They knew that would be a weird dynamic I think.
Yeah, it is a weird dynamic. And this is about to get really dark and sad when it came to it.
Is it is it safe to cry on a doll though.
But but you are contributing. Some cash into the family pot? Yes, very much so. It was kind of like a convergence, like the timing was like coincidental in some way where like I was about to graduate will be the age when I one would graduate high school. Although I was not going to graduate high school, I didn't do it either. Yeah. Like and we lived in a house that my parents couldn't afford anymore. But my sister had gone to college and I was moving out so like it and neither of them and they had both lost their jobs around that time.
Totally coincidentally, both your parents had. Yes. And so we they were like, I guess if I hadn't gotten a job, they would have moved into a small apartment with me somewhere in Vancouver. Right. But then I got cast on Freaks and Geeks from Vancouver. And because they were both unemployed and we were selling our house anyway, we all moved to L.A..
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So hold the phone. So Freaks and Geeks is casting you go to a casting director or put yourself on tape out of Vancouver.
Yeah, that was weird. It was the second audition I ever went on, like I did stand up comedy for years from when I was like 13. And then I.
Where'd you get the balls to do that at such a young age? I think what, you're 13. You don't you just don't like I look back. Yeah. You just you literally have no balls. So it just seems like it doesn't fucking matter that I didn't give a shit like I look back and was so fearless in comparison to how much I overthink everything now. But I yeah, I did stand up and then I got an agent through Stand Up and and Freaks and Geeks Judd to his amazing, you know, credit has always been like great with casting especially.
And he did. They searched in every major city in North America, like they had open casting calls in every in Chicago and Toronto and Boston and Vancouver and New York. And and and I didn't go into the open casting call, but I had like a scheduled audition, like the morning of the open casting call this. Wow. Yeah.
And now when you started contributing as significantly as you did to the family pot and Jason obviously wants to get back to those guys, what was their interest on the payback exactly? Did you also buy a gun in order to murder both your parents? How influential were the Menendez brothers in your life overall? Yeah.
Did you notice that it changed the dynamic between child and parent as far as that natural and I would say healthy, dynamic of deference, right where I look up to you, parent, you can do things that I could never do, like pay a mortgage.
Did you find it equaling in the dynamic there that was actually not healthy, not helpful. In other words, it became more of a peer relationship. I'm not projecting at all now. Exactly.
I think what's interesting is my parents, like my dad, especially like never even remotely subscribed to the idea that it was his responsibility to financially carry the family in any way, shape or form like it was. He just all hands on deck. Yeah. Like it was just like he's like, I don't like working anymore. Like, why should I like, you know, and anything. I don't have any special skills. Like, well like why would this fall on me.
Like Oh he's got money. Exactly. And I actually like it actually started, it started very early because like my family never had a lot of money and we grew up on the east side of Vancouver, which at the time especially was like not a fantastic neighborhood to grow up in. And I didn't know, though, honestly, like but and it was like I remember I did a bar mitzvah when I was 13 and I got like seven thousand dollars in bar mitzvah gifts.
That said, I'll take that. Yeah. And here's what they were like. We're just going to keep this in like a fund and you'll get it. Would you like you know what I was like seventeen. I was like, do I get my bar mitzvah money of there? Like, you know, that washer and dryer that have been cleaning your clothes for the last five years. Right. That's your purpose for money. Congratulations. And I was like, yeah, I mean, I got it ultimately, like it kind of made.
So was it a huge leap? Like, to Jason's point, it wasn't a huge change in the dynamic and the parent child. No.
If anything, if we want to get like, you know, like, you know, if we want to go to therapy about it, I think probably a large part of the motivation I had from such a young age to be successful was because I did not have a lot of faith that my parents would be the ones to financially support me throughout my life. So I was like, I better make a lot of money.
You know, if you're like me, you also felt an early blast of responsibility and capability. And it was I actually took it as like a positive thing. I felt very confident that I could, like, go out there and make money and support not only myself, but. Maybe even a family at an early age, so I took it as a positive, but in hindsight, there were elements of it that probably weren't fantastically healthy.
But know for sure, it definitely like I'm sure if my parents didn't spend my bar mitzvah money on a washer and dryer, I would not be a successful comedian.
So. So but what's funny about that is.
So your folks were were they were they like were they ex hippies? Were they how did they get to the place where they were living? That way?
They met on a kibbutz in Israel, literally like they my dad would have never left. It was like for my mom, it was like a fun thing to do in her early 20s for a couple of years. And for my dad, it was like, I'm going to live my life on a kibbutz in Israel. And then they fell in love and she convinced him to move to Vancouver, which compared to Newark, New Jersey, is a kibbutz in Israel in a lot of ways, which is where my dad is from.
And so, yeah, so it makes you know, that's how they got there. And they were like, you know, they were very left wing by like Canadian standards, you know? So they were always very like like they're like socialist, you know. And my mother was a social worker and like that's like my sister is a social worker and my brother's a social worker like that became is like a career that kind of like ran in my family.
And my dad would like work at various like nonprofits, but never in like the same job. Like he dropped out of Rutgers and moved to Israel. And he never had like he was never like a career guy. Like he he always admittedly, like, hated working basically.
So so he hated working and they were, in effect, socialist. And then you then you become, you know, and deservedly so incredibly successful in like the basket of capitalism in Hollywood. Yeah.
Do they do they reject that or do they are they like, oh, this is pretty sweet too.
Oh, they were thrilled about it. And now they have because at the same time my parents like nice shit is the funny thing. Like they're more than happy. Turns out. Yeah. And they always did like that's you know, like even as a kid we we, we lived in a very like not fantastic house. It had not fantastic neighborhood and did not have a lot of the fancy things that people have. I never had a car. We didn't know any of that shit, you know, but like but we would go to Disneyland on vacation every single year, like they liked they liked going on vacation and shit like they they always liked, like, fun thing.
It was they just didn't they prioritize. There's everybody still close. Yes, very close. Oh that's they are still happily spending my money.
Do they live near you.
They have a place in Laguna Beach which is. Yeah. Like forty five minutes away. And I mean you have a place in Laguna Beach. Exactly. I have a place to go to beach I've been to once and but they come stay with us a lot and I see them all the time and yeah. And I do like my parents like and I get along well with them and I don't like. That's great. Yeah. Like I, I get it like you know, I very much have the thing in me where like I wish I didn't care so much about work and like and, and I've seen my father like have conversations with my friends who are like down on themselves, like where he is trying to impart like you should not conflate your self worth and where your career is, which is such a funny thing for my father to be telling people.
But but he's right. You know what? No, you're right. And you're a dad now, too, aren't you?
I'm not a dad. You're not? No.
Would you like to be? Yeah, I'm telling you. Yeah.
Are you giving away to your children your role is just like, oh no, I don't know if I want to be.
Honestly, I. I don't get any of my friends with kids enviously. Honestly, I, I like there are a lot of kids in my life. I have nephews.
I have you know, I have we have a lot of close friends with kids, but I don't I shared this, saying this quote that I read that I now own and I shared it with Jason and Will that it was a woman who said it.
She said, I'd rather regret not having kids than have them and regret it later for sure.
And me and my wife actually have that conversation where because she also does not want to have kids in the same boat as me. And we're like, you know, like we might regret having them for like fifty years at worst, regret not having them for like a couple of years right before, you know, like I that's like if we're really just talking like worst case scenario, it's like yeah. What I'm like with death is very close. That's what I'll be like.
Shit like that would be nice to have someone around. But like the decades before that we're just having a good time and like you sure you're free to do what you want. And I've had this conversation with Ricky Gervaise a few times and he's always like he resents people who are like, why don't you have kids? He's like, what do you mean? There's no obligation to have them? And also, I just had my third son.
And quick, what's his name? You got me, got me again. This is the 12th time you've got me. But but but I sent him, you know, and so he's got no kids and he's happy about. And so I sent him in, like I said, with everybody else. I send some sort of a text saying my son was born and I get back up emoji.
Perfect, perfect, perfect.
You know, and if I don't if I told him about some beard I'd done, we'd go back and forth for half an hour. But no.
Well, truthfully, a good bit is, you know, slightly more of an accomplishment in some ways. It's a smaller Bull's-Eye to hit the dumbest of mother fuckers have kids.
I hate to say that's true.
And it was I was talking to one of my good friends who was a mother who has kids, and she was going on and on about how beautiful it is and how hard it is at times and the challenges and the ups and downs.
And at the end, she's like, but at the end of the day, a monkey could do it and and they can do it. They're not that different. A monkey baby is not a lot harder to keep alive or easier to keep alive than a human one. And they figure that shit out. So I think like. Yeah, I mean, but it's great if you're a great parent and you produce like that's the thing is like I think whoever, like Albert Einstein's parents are should be famous, you know.
And I mean, like we don't actually we don't actually incentivize parents to have good kids. We incentivize kids to become good people and they will maybe get praise. But more emphasis should be put on raising good children. Absolutely.
I always think, you know, there and I'm not even kidding, you should have to pass a test to be a parent. Oh, for sure.
Agree with that. I don't know why we don't do that. And you should have to redo it as well.
Just like driver's licenses, you know. Yes, that's exactly right. You know, Jason just met both of his kids recently and fantastic graduates because they right when he wrapped Ozark Season three and he came back from Atlanta.
Have you tried to recast them since you you're used to more control that? This is not what I picture. Exactly.
You know, Shawn, are you you know, you've got to look to you. You just you look so, you know, like like you've been in a zone.
Well, not just a zone. The zone. AutoZone Oh, that explains that.
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I want to get back to writing because of all the, you know, occupations in Hollywood, the writing, directing, producing, acting, whatever it is writing to me is I enjoy. But it takes a while for me to get there where you're just unbelievably prolific at it.
And it does take a lot of brainpower and discipline and a lot of headspace and dark rooms and isolation.
And do you enjoy that part of it?
That's photography with the darkroom. Oh, sorry, I have my notes. I write in photos, which is what a lot of people don't know that I know for me, I think I've been doing it for so long.
Like we started when we were so young. I think like that it really it's it's honestly the thing I feel the most control over. So it is the thing I'm probably the most comfortable doing. It's like as soon as we're on set and there's a million fuckin people around and shit that's that's when I get more stressed out honestly, because it's like, oh no. It's like now I have to make this real and like it's when I'm when we're writing, it's just me and Evan and we're hanging out or smoking weed and we're making each other laugh.
And it's like it feels like we're we're 14 years old still, you know, have your have your roles.
Are Layne's changed significantly in how you guys write in how you guys direct or do you guys kind of still kind of manage the same sides of the street or as you've gotten older, if you guys overlapped a little bit more switch sides of the street or not pretty much the same like and we never had like lanes specifically, like we were never one.
Like I'm the story guy and he's the dialogue guy. Like we worked with people like that and teams like that. And and again, even with our movies, it was never like. Yeah, like you talk to the actors and I'll talk to the camera like we like. Our skill set is humiliatingly overlapping and redundant. And I think it really is like we are like we have things that one will see that the other won't. But we are generally like our sensibilities were very much formed together, you know?
And so I think we very much see things the same more than anything.
Well, that's an interesting that's an interesting point, though, because, Jason, I see you and legitimately knowing that you're asking that question, because that confuses you a little bit. You're much more, you think, a long term of people having various lanes. Am I right? I'm not even doing a bit.
Yes and no. I'm mostly out of sort of respect and delegating, you know. Yeah. Apartments and all that stuff. But I really admire duos that are comfortable with overlap and redundancies and and not being overly sort of territorial, you know, like, oh, non dialogue. Your story. Like, I like that people can play nicely in the sandbox too. And that's probably all you guys have been so incredibly successful and for so long now. What about how what's your ideal rhythm of work?
Do you like to be working as much as you do? And it seems like every single year you guys are even more and more invited to and creating opportunity and access. And I mean, it's it's you could probably work 365 days of the year, right?
I mean, it's nice that. Yeah. I mean, so far so good. I guess I do.
Are you wanting to respond? Are you wanting to respond to all the opportunity or would you rather be doing less like if you if you've created a monster that's too big?
No, actually this year was the first time, like me and Evan haven't, like, written and directed a movie in a very long time. Like even the interview. We didn't really like someone else wrote the screenplay and we were kind of doing other things and like but like I think This Is The End was the last movie that we wrote and directed. And it was like seven years ago. So and we realized it was because we just weren't giving ourselves the time to sit down and actually dedicate how much time it takes to write an entire movie from beginning to end, because for us that takes like a year around.
And so that was something like this year was the first time I like kind of set aside several things that I probably would have normally done, but would have distracted me from doing the thing that I probably should have been doing, which was just like sitting down and writing a movie, basically. So, yeah, it's there was but there's been like deliberate. You know, we deliberately spent a lot of time directing television, for example, because we had directed two movies and we felt like we could learn a lot.
But we were also a little frustrated with how long it took to direct a movie as far as like learning things goes. So we were like, oh, well, direct like five TV shows over the course of the next few years and that'll help us try a bunch of shit and like a much more condensed time period. So that was like a very deliberate thing we did. And then we just kind of came out of that like a year ago.
And that's when. I was maybe going to go act in other people's movies, but that's that's kind of the thing that, like, is always looming that I maybe will go do. But this year I but I haven't in quite some time. So.
So you've been doing this. You've been going back and forth between TV and I've long sort of like I've had this conversation with a bunch of different people, but I find it's my own experience was and I always joked that if it wasn't for bad movies, I wouldn't make any.
But if if if the difference between making a comedy for TV and comedy, for film, for for a movie is I always said because because the very nature of TV that you have to keep moving in along, that there is a much quicker pace that it lends itself to for me anyway.
Certainly as a performer, I find the process of making a comedy film so much longer and I get bored and it's not as fun. And then and then I lose interest. And there just I lose that immediacy of doing the bit fucking around and moving on. Yeah. Which keeps me going. As long as we keep moving I will keep fucking around. And if you and if it's all of a sudden takes 10 hours to shoot one side of a scene like I'm gone.
And yeah, I can, I can attest to that. I worked with well many times and when we turn around on me it's like, well, where did he go? Where does he go?
Yeah, I mean, I actually do. One of the things that was most fascinating about doing this was seeing how like TV and movies are two vastly different mediums and people who are good in TV. It's like there are people who are good at both. But just because you are good at one, it does not mean you'll be good at the other. And people think that that is the case. And I've been front row on several occasions to the startling realization that it is not at all the case and that just because you are good at writing television, it doesn't mean you're good at writing movies and vice versa.
And I actually find myself I actually have kind of the exact opposite thing in a way, like I think my brain is so geared towards film writing and my understanding of how a film works and is structured and how that is. There's a beginning and a middle and an end. And that to me is like I have a very good understanding of that. And as soon as we switch to television, like as a writer, I'm essentially useless. Like I can help with, like tonal things and character things.
But like on an episode to episode thing, I have very little to offer and I do not try to offer that much. Sure.
For, for writing. But what is it. But what about for a performer?
We're observing performers and it's the same thing honestly. Like I get I get frustrated when I feel like something could be better and we aren't able to do it. And with film, I'm used to the pace. We're like by the time we're done shooting a scene, I'm like pretty sure we you know, it won't it won't have been for lack of effort that because you had the time. Yeah, we have the time and we have time to stop and think and really think like and part of me likes it's funny because like I've referred to it as like a disposability to some degree that TV has, I think, in the eyes of the people who are making it even because like it's like this episode is not great and the next one will be good.
But movies aren't like that, like they have to be good every as good as you can make them every second because like, that's it. And you'll be watching TBS and twenty years and it'll be on, you know, and you have to like live with the fact that like oh shit. Like we could have made that joke better and people are still watching it, you know, and and like that. I'm actually more comfortable with that. And that like I like that everyone is geared towards like we got to make this as good as humanly possible.
Right. Every second instead of being geared towards like, let's keep going, like, yeah, it's fun. Let's just let's just keep going and do enjoy that kind of.
Do you have like a self-imposed pressure to always you know, being funny is exhausting, you know, like, like content would, you know, writing funny things, you know what I mean.
Being around it is. Yeah. Right. That's for sure.
But you don't I mean like the business of it, the business of having to be funny and writing and performing whatever. Do you ever get tired of it and do you have a self-imposed what you what you were just talking about, do you have a self-imposed kind of pressure that you enjoy or you hate about? I have to deliver the best. I have to be the funniest.
This is not good enough, you know, because a lot of people that gets it kind of carves away at them after a while.
Yeah, I enjoy doing it, but I hate the scrutiny of it. Like, I like I like the act of doing it. And when we're making movies, it can be exhausting. And but if I think it's actually good, what we're doing is I very much try to only put myself in situations where that is the case. And thankfully for quite some time, I haven't looked around and found myself in a situation where I genuinely didn't feel that was the case.
It's yeah, it's fun and I look forward to it. And I get up like a. Cited that I might be making something that I'm proud of for a long time. Do you ever feel like giving yourself a break from that pressure of having to be funny or making sure that it's funny and taking something easier like a drama?
Yeah, I've done it a few times. That was my question, but much shorter. Yeah, I've done it. I've done it a few times. And it is it is it's more it is easier for sure.
Like the Steve Jobs movie was probably like the easiest.
You were awesome on that. Thank you. And it was and it's so funny because me and Jonah Hill have talked about this a lot because he also switches back and forth from drama to comedy, you know, and we're always like, I remember when he was shooting Moneyball, he's like, what's so annoying is I know this is going to get me more acclaim than anything I've ever done. And it's like so much easier than most of the things I've done.
Right. And that's why when he got nominated for The Wolf of Wall Street, I was so psyched because it was actually like a like a comedic performance and like a big swing. And it was like it was something that was both great and and like something that I knew was challenging and not like a walk in the park for a comedian, you know. But yeah.
Then I hear and then I hear his film is fantastic that he directed. I have great. But I just did a great job with that. It's so good. Yeah. And and it does both in a really good way, you know, like but yeah it's, it's tempting but honestly it just takes it's, it's so much less rewarding in some ways, unless it's like a director that I'm like oh I like have to work with this person or like it's someone I've always looked up to.
I really think I learn something just from being around them. Then then it's. Yeah. Then it's like I think when I was younger I wanted to like show I could do it. And I was sick of how little respect comedians get. But now I just like have accepted that that is the way of the world. And we should be just the Academy Awards would have a comedy.
I would have to say that it's mind blowing, that the Oscars.
Well, it's funny how, like, no one really, like, talks about how like if the Emmys didn't know fucking comedy would win an Emmy ever. The only reason it happens is because they realize, like, oh, we got to carve out a whole fucking category for this. Right. Right. I think. Would it be giving it to them?
I even think I even think trailers should have a category at the Oscars. It's such an important part of the business. And they're like little mini movies. And yeah, I don't get percentage in announcements.
Announcements and deadline should have a category. Yes, it's a good announcement. I really like a solid one. Yeah. Paramount Ankles V goes to those guys.
They know we like to joke around a lot, but if you could just take a knee for a second because I want to get real. And you know what, for reals, I do want to get real because I want to point out that Smart is supported by better help online counseling.
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Can I get your take on any sort of validation you feel about weed becoming legalized now and no one has to, like, sort of hide it any more? You just oh, I just always thought you were so courageous about how forthright you were about that you enjoy weed and that you smoke it. And like now all of a sudden it's legal and you can buy it like like a like there's more weed shops than Starbucks now. It's great. So do you feel any sort of validation about that?
Yeah, yeah, pretty much. It's about time.
It's nice that people are acknowledging that, like the war on drugs was a hundred percent bullshit. Yeah. And and it is not like, you know, disconnected from people's realisation that like almost every fundamental part of American life in some way tied into systemic racism. And and the fact that weed is illegal is no different from that in any way, shape or form. And so, yeah, I mean, it is very validating for all those reasons. And just as someone who smokes weed all day, it's nice to see it having worked its way into culture in a way that it isn't stigmatized as much and that people are accepting that it is, you know, a part of life.
Yeah, that's such a great point, because obviously the war on drugs were just another whether it's weed or cocaine or whatever, it was all just varying levers of control used to suppress and to kind of enforce this systemic racism that is just lives here forever.
And then now imagine if all the time and money and resources that were spent on the war on drugs, imagine if all of that had been dedicated to you name it.
Yeah. Yeah, right. Anything else in the world? Anything else in the world. Yeah. Yeah. Like, imagine if you took the money and resources that was poured into the war on drugs and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Imagine what a different fucking place we would live in. However, that can never happen. And hopefully we're now at the turning point. And it's funny that weed is such a weirdly such a big part of that too.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
I mean, yeah, I mean, it really is. And it was I mean, if you just take something everyone likes and that almost everyone does and you only arrest certain people for it, it can become a very powerful weapon, you know, and that is unfortunately what it's been for a long time. And so I think like morally, just from like a moral standpoint, it is nice that this thing that I've talked about for so long, like and that's always been something I've been aware of, is like I've been like, you know, I've been making movies about smoking weed.
I've been out there. I've been smoking weed like fucking award shows and shit like that. And like people go to jail for that and like and there are people in jail for that, you know, and that's always bothered me honestly.
But did you ever get threatened for that? Did anybody ever kind of reach out at any point?
No, never. I've had cops asked to smoke weed with me. Wow. Wow.
So what at what place or what's the event or what is the day or what is the mood time of day where you would go for a gumee versus a joint versus a bong?
I pretty much only smoke joints and I only joints. Never a bong, never sometimes.
Like, if I'm if I'm going to a movie or something, I need to try to get as much weed in my brain as possible before an edible might come into an edible. Might be for like a long movie, like a short film.
You just you enjoy rolling, you enjoy rolling joints or do you buy them pre rolled?
I don't enjoy rolling them, but no pre rolled joint smokes to my liking. So I do roll my own joints.
When was the last you have you ever done a bucket bong. Yeah. Gravity bong of course. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. When was the last time you think you did a gravity.
But not that embarrassingly. Not that, not that long ago. What is that. What is that.
It's where you use like the top half of a bottle or bucket to suction air and smoke into. Oh OK.
It's kind of complicated but so when I smoke, when I smoke weed I have panic attacks, which is why I stopped smoking at and then so I ate it and went to sleep the entire night with my eyes open.
So I can't like I. Sean's working on a new show called Gigs and Gigs.
So, so and everybody's like, you know, everybody's like, well you go to sativa indica like, no, I'm telling you, like it doesn't how much I used to smoke it for years, but how much did you smoke the last time?
Oh, that last time I did like a vape thing and I did like I don't know, two puffs. Yeah.
Vapes. I don't I don't personally trust vape pens that much either. Like I don't know what that is. And like I think and that's a different experience as well. Like I would put that on his own bucket, like smoking a joint and hitting of and give you. Yeah. But it makes you. Makes me. Want to try it again? That's how bad it was. Now, do you like going to these stores and buying your weed or do you grow your own?
I don't grow my own. I'm sure you have. At some point, does the government know about your huge growth? You know, you can grow your own legally.
I did in high school. It's not as I'm not good at growing it personally.
But you like going into the stores and kind of shopping and now they do they do delivery right now. Since the quarantine started, weed delivery has gone up like several percent. I think. So, sure. That is that is now the way to go.
What is the what is the worst drug you've ever done and what happened? Strongest or worst?
The worst. Both cocaine is objectively the worst drug. It's terrible. It's a terrible cocaine's a bad drug like and and what's annoying is that it's almost the best drug like. Yeah. In that it can certainly be misused. Yes. There's like the fact that you could that it's discrete to do and it lasts for like a very controllable amount of time. And what it does for that amount of time are all good things. Every other thing is terrible about it.
Like, like you can't stop doing it once you start doing it. You can't speak. You can't you can't screw it. You shit yourself nothing like it. But other than that, it sounds like a nursing home. Yeah.
And like I've done it, like I remember like when my friends were all starting to get married, like we'd go to bachelor parties and like we'd be on acid or shrooms or shit like that. And then there'd be like the cocaine group in the corner. And it was always like a dark side and it became a group in the corner and like and every once in a while I would join the cocaine group or the corner.
And I'm just like, oh, this is such a worse group than the other groups.
You know, it's like the fucking douchebags are doing coke. It's the work that turns everybody into an asshole. Oh, yes, it's for total chumps and people who can people who I know who still do it today or some of the worst people I know.
And there's maybe nothing worse on Earth than talking to someone on Coke. Oh, my God, it is. And cocaine is. Unless you unless you're also on Coke. I was going to say, like, it rarely is coke good enough to deal with someone on cocaine.
Like, I hear it's back, by the way. I hear it's coming back. That's what I hear, that it's everywhere. Keeps coming back every five years.
Do you have any, like, crazy drug drugged out stories that happened?
I'll tell mine it's not hardcore drug story, but one night I couldn't sleep, so I took a cough syrup with codeine in it and I took a lot of it. And then I was like, my nose is kind of stuffed up, too. So I took a Sudafed and then I was freaking out like crazy. And Scottie, my husband came running up the stairs because he heard a thug. Right. And I was on the floor again with my eyes open and my head on the floor.
Oh, no, stop breathing. And he's like, what? He's like, wake up, wake up. And finally I went all of a sudden went and took a deep breath. And I woke up like, what's what happened?
Isn't that nuts? You were Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. Yeah.
How what a lightweight. So Sudafed and Viks with codeine. I'm really like a drug store that's like this is like a fucking accident, like a domestic accident that's about to bring the noise. I drank bleach and I almost died. Is that a bad drug story? It's rat poison was a trigger. I didn't know. I love it. I love shit like that. I love drug stories.
Where does booze sit for you, Seth? I very rarely drink. I don't like because I think like objectively, alcohol is also a terrible drug thing. Worse than cocaine. Honestly, because I agree. I agree. I think like what I like I've done like so much like I've been on so much shrooms that like, you know, reality itself ceases to exist and you feel fine. The next day. I've had like four glasses of wine at dinner and feel like shit the entire day day.
They probably made an ass out of yourself while you were drunk. Like that is a bad drug. If it makes you feel that bad for that, that's the one that should be outlawed, considering how many people die from it. And, you know, these car accidents and stuff, it's a hundred percent. Alcohol is the worst drug.
And so I keep going on and on about that.
The pot, things like you've never had a bad experience smoking weed because I want to do it again.
But I'm so afraid because of how I was if I never really thought about smoking weed, I've had like once at the Golden Globes, I ate a wee lollipop and had to leave. Like I because you got paranoid. I got so high I could not I, I literally like just couldn't. I thought I was coming together and I ran into like Bryan Cranston at the bathroom. He was just like, what is wrong with you bad. And I was just like I to fuck out of here like I have.
I am not holding this together is what. I thought it was, but what did that look like, because, you know, I honestly had elicited a strong, visceral reaction. So what? I did not know that well, like it was, wow. It was enough for me to be like, I. I have to leave it. How did you end up tracking him down and just emailing him enjoy. Like, Hey man, I never do.
I've never followed up. He knows I'm out there. He's he's been in the public space but yeah. No that yeah we we food has fucked me up to the point that I've had very bad experiences. I've on shrooms, I've been to high a lot, but I'm generally like in someone's house.
So it's not like what is too high look like, like a bad trip, like crying or paranoia or just laughing too much.
It's kind of all of the above. Within a four hour umbrella of time. Yeah. Yeah I did recently. I did way too many shrooms at a friend's house and it was, it was an experience. I quit two jobs the next morning. That's that's that's how I was. Did your agent know enough to just kind of just let it breathe for 24 hours?
No, I actually quit two jobs that like I actually it was like two. There was like I think we were going to direct and I think I was going to act and I was like I was just like, I can't do it. I reached the revelation while, hi, I can't do these things anymore. And and it held and held up. I did hold wow.
I remember a good friend of mine about about two years ago, gyno musician.
He called his buddy who was in his band with Fuck Man. It was great last night I did shrooms and I wrote it all down.
I wrote some incredible I had some incredible ideas. I'm so glad you reminded me. Hang on one second. He goes and he goes and goes, man, I wrote all this down he goes, yeah, yeah.
It's total garbage. So exactly.
How about I would never pretend I could do something creative on shrooms like I would never that would not be like maybe in the wake of shrooms something might arise, but I would never be like, let's do shrooms and write like you ever try to find them.
You ever try to pick them in a in a field?
No, never in a in a sundress with with a basket. Do you own a VW van, you asking Jason.
I once tried to do that with a buddy about it. It's a crazy cow pasture somewhere. That that was, that was we've talked about it.
It's come up. We never we never went there. We ended up stepping in a lot of cow shit. Yeah. Sean, have you done shrooms.
I did shrooms once. I did shrooms when I was like twenty one and it made me feel like I weighed eight hundred pounds. You should do them again.
I think you should do that again.
And I know you're prone to paranoia and I know that weed makes you talk to your TV and sleep with your eyes, open with your eyes or make you sleep with your eyes open. Right. Shunda Sean wants to talk to his TV. But but the other thing. You think I should try it? I think you should give it a try for sure. So give it a try for sure. What I think you should do is you and Scotty should empty the pool, OK?
And then just do shrooms and then get in the bottle. So you're safe. You're in the pool.
OK, I know this sounds like a plan.
I'm writing it down.
No, wait. So, Seth, you know, you you really do have a thousand things going on all the time. It feels like and I love that about you.
You know, you talked earlier about your ambition and your driving and but like, do you ever is there is there a master plan or like a bigger thing, like you want to open like a big studio or like or do you like what you're doing? You like your lane, you're in. It's good just to go from project to project, right when I'm stoned. Act you have ever acted stoned?
Oh yes. Exclusively for the last decade and a half I would say. Yeah, I love it. Wait, wait.
Is that tough remembering dialogue when you're high or. No, you're just so that muscle is pretty strong.
I'm just always like there's no I don't have to geer's at this point.
Like when people said you wicked big, do you say what's the alternative like. I mean, yeah I yeah I. Yeah. Well tell us a little bit. I know an American pickle. Yeah. Because I read a little bit about it. It's a great idea. It's an HBO max. A Jewish immigrant comes to America in the 20s and falls in a vat of pickle juice.
Yes. Get Brind for one hundred years. It returns to modern day. Is that right?
Yes, I play exactly that. It starts in the old country. It's similar. It starts similarly to how most Jewish people's story started. I like Fiddler on the Roof. Yeah, it starts in Eastern Europe and the Cossacks come and try to kill Hershel Greenbaum and his his wife. And they come to America and he gets a job in a pickle factory after his wife gets pregnant trying to support her. And then he falls in Nevada pickles and is brind for one hundred years and then is found.
He's discovered and he has that. He smells great. He he smells good. And he's not age today. And his only living relative is his great grandson, who's a app developer. Or in Williamsburg, and they're the same age and and they can I read for that part, I play that part also hot it. Did you write it? No, Simon Rich wrote it. He's a smart guy. Very smart guy. Yeah. I met him and a smart dad.
Smart dad, too. Yeah. He's from a of smart of smartness. But yeah, I met him when I the first time I hosted SNL, he wrote my monologue and I was like, this guy's really genius. And yeah. And this is based on like a short story he wrote for The New Yorker, quite like maybe six or seven or eight years ago at this point. And I've been it's it was a hard movie to write.
It's super strange and getting the tone right. Is it a comedy or. It's like a dramedy? I think it was about Being John Malkovich ish kind of tone of the movies we've made is probably closer to like like the disaster artist or 50/50, kind of like did you and Evan directed. No, Brandon Frost directed it, who has been our cinematographer for many, many years and shot has shot almost all the movies we've made. And did you say this is for HBO, Max HBO?
We made it for Sony originally, and then it very quickly became clear that it was not a movie that Sony should release from you. And so they we were already kind of trying to shop it around to other places and then HBO came into existence.
Do you care at all about whether something is in the theaters or at home? I do in general. I do like to have our movies in theaters and and I do prefer it. And I do think that, like, you know, that is what my brain is geared towards. Right.
But something like this, which it sounds like it's got some real some cultural ambitions, you know, like hard to hard to market.
Right. For sure. Very hard to market in four theaters and in and honestly, like it is also a relief in some ways because like it is it is one less box to take. You know, as far as someone who likes to appear successful in the world, like no one will ever necessarily know, you know, and that is always like when we're releasing movies for theaters in a good way, like you have more opportunities for success because, you know, you could get bad reviews, but do well, you could get good reviews, but too bad you could get good reviews, but do good or bad reviews and do bad.
But when you're on a streaming service, you you don't have one of those things. You either basically either get good reviews or bad reviews. And that is how you were culturally viewed in the world.
And and you can pretend it's a big hit. Exactly. And even that doesn't really matter as long as is you know, there are lots of things that get bad reviews but are still seen as a success because people watch them.
I mean, exact. But in theaters you get that. But on streaming, that narrative is harder to carve out for yourself, I think.
Well, I want to thank you for coming on, because I've always been so impressed with you and your brain and glad to do whatever I can to try to dispel that.
I know. No, seriously, in the way you handle yourself in the business and just you as a human being, I've always I mean, 16 years old, starting out in this business and becoming the man you are today. It's incredibly impressive.
And I've always I've always admired you. So I'm a huge fan. And thanks for being on my.
Thank you so much. I second that I want to hang out with you more. I heard that I echo what Sean says, man. You've done such awesome stuff. So much, so much hilarious stuff over the years. You you just it's really it's really awesome to watch and thanks for coming in and doing this.
We're just getting going on this. But I guess we don't know what we're doing at a good year killing it.
So but thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming. Thank you for having me.
I realize how I can't see if I. That that's a that's a nice fellow that said, I mean, look, he's Canadian, so, you know, he's going to be nice to all Canadians.
I didn't get an old Canadian with him because I knew that Beyman would get all like, oh, fuck you Canadians.
No, that's two of us. But I he's he's another one of those those people we've had on this show that I just I'd like to be friends with. Yeah. This is that's what I'm going to use this podcast for, is just sort of just audition a bunch of people to widen out my my friends circle because you guys are it. You guys are it.
I'd like more than to you know, it is kind of astonishing what one person can accomplish.
I mean, it's all good, like to to kids. If you know what you want to do and you're passionate about something early on, the odds go up so much that you'll become successful at it, isn't it?
That was to the kids.
You know, as far as children like as I thought you were saying, kids, if you're listening, parents leave the room, go get a drink of water. That's it. To the earlier, you know, and he found out.
I mean, he knew what he wanted to do at, you know, twelve years old.
And he has stayed at the top of his field. And he is he's not just picking up the phone and managing offers. He's he's creating stuff. And it's it's pretty admirable that he stayed this successful this long. And he's more successful this year than he was last year and the year before that. The year before that. And it's it's pretty cool.
Yeah. Are you less depressed today? Yeah. Why? Yeah. Well, I was so depressed yesterday. You didn't know. Yeah, no, I think I just slept weird maybe. Yeah. I slept with my eyes closed and. Well when did you hear that. Yeah. I got to try that. Try it.
Have you guys, do you guys nap. Really. I try not to. I do actually.
You know what I think maybe I did. Maybe I took a little nap yesterday. That was it. Yeah. It's called being north of fifty and you that you hit that you hit that wall at about three thirty or four o'clock. I think it's a lack of testosterone too.
Well, well I was going to say I was not. But like when I was making when I was doing my show on Netflix a couple of years ago, I built in that at lunch I would have food like, you know, I can hammer food five minutes, you hammer it.
What is the talk show version of the story?
And then I go and I and I go to sleep. And this show often puts people to sleep. But because you beat me to rent one.
But but I would I would build it because I had to take a nap in the middle of the day in order to do the second half of the day.
And then and then you get the base camp going. Yeah. First time already for me, like.
Oh yeah.
The first time I started doing Broadway. And are you guys still there?
No, I would take a nap on a two show day because, you know, it's like there were three hour shows and I was like when I first started I took a nap and I'd wake up like a half hour before the show started and they'd be like, Shawn, you ready?
Yeah, I'm ready. Ready to do the show.
Like, there's no way there's no way I could sing. And so it's like Scream I to get my voice up way high.
It was it was a lot of anxiety.
Will you taught me about lunchtime naps for on camera stuff. You got, you got to Barry Sonnenfeld taught you to, to nap sitting up so that you don't get puffy eyes. Is that right.
Yeah.
So, so I do when I buy nap with a bunch of pillows so that I'm up and I was doing that RV with Barry Sonnenfeld, Barry said to me, I came back once after lunch and he goes, You were napping. And I go, What do you mean who was napping? You know, you I can see it in your face. I was like, was.
And you're like, No, Barry, I just eat a lot of sodium. Can I get a balanced card.
Just Hollywood that Hollywood it myself. I'll just hold this right out of the frame and. Yeah. Isn't that, isn't that tough. I know you sleep standing up like a horse now. I sleep like a horse. So Sean sleeps with his eyes open and I sleep standing up.
Do horses sleep standing up or is that just an urban myth.
Oh hey, welcome to first grade. Hi, I'm Jason. Do horses eat standing up? Then I got a question about the Earth and whether it's around.
You know what? Tell me about the horses. I'm sure I'm not sure about this, actually. Oh, interesting.
Well, I don't cause so just officially, none of us know whether horses sleep standing up or laying down or how about a cow? Does a cow sleep? Stop Googling. Well, I can see your Googling.
That's a cow tipping it. You know what?
How dare you or you unwrapping another candy bar? No, they actually they doze when they're standing, but they for RTM, you know, for REM sleep, they when they're listening to RTM or REM sleep or this podcast, they do it line down to protect themselves.
Horses, you know, instead doze while standing, you know.
Oh God. Look at him reading the computer.
Like what did you put into the search window, you know, special system of tendons and ligaments that enables the horse to lock the major joints in its legs is like how I'd say it is. I know you're trying so hard to make it conversational, but it's so, not so dumb.
What should we call this podcast if we're three dumb guys, which mean if we're not smart like dumb asses, you're less less you're less smart.
Smart less.
Oh, what about that? Let's see if that's taken. OK, guys, listen. Oh, you did it. I had to be smart. That's.