SmartLess - "Seth Rogen"

Episode Date: August 10, 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. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to SmartLess 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 named it more smarter. Anyway, come take a ride on the SmartLess train.

Smart. Smart. Smart. Smart. 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 happier, healthy time globally, but I do have to say selfishly I am enjoying spending the time with my kids that I can't usually, as I'm sure a lot of people are, but I don't know. I would like to say I'm enjoying my time with you two very much.

You would like to say it, but you won't. I'm sorry. Well, do you want, are we on, we're on a meal break? Should we ask our guests to wait a little? Says you. You came on stuffing your face yesterday. Yes. Well, it was a little, it was a energy bar, energy bar.

And when does that kick in? It wasn't a Reese's Sorry Nuts. When does that kick in, he said? Hilarious. That's good. He took it yesterday and all of it. It's so good. And it's so true.

Yeah. 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. Okay. Some, some guests that we bring on do not need a long introduction, but today I've carved out 20 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 good. Energy. This fella has had more success than all three of us combined basically. It's not hard.

He's an actor, director, producer, writer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and pretty sure he's my personal driver too. His name is synonymous with Jed Apatow and vice versa. My guest today is the highly intelligent Seth Rogen. Hi guys. Hi guys. There he is. Uh-oh.

Seth. What's up? Seth. Seth's wearing his grandfather's sweater today. Exactly. This takes our, our guest list into a different, a different area here. Yeah. I didn't, I haven't Googled who, 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. Yeah. No, Seth. Very nice of you to join us. Yeah. Oh, look who it is.

Seth, eh? Glad to be here. Yeah. How about I didn't know you were Canadian? You didn't know I was Canadian? No. By the way, I didn't either. What?

I just thought all Jewish people are American. Yeah, exactly. It's, I'm complimented when people don't assume I'm Jewish. I'm not complimented when people don't assume I'm Jewish either. I didn't know you were Jewish either. 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 that? Do you agree with this intro element of synonymous with Judd Apatow and Judd Apatow as a synonymist? I don't, 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, uh-huh, that's when we first met in 1998, so I guess it was. Such a great show. Yeah, such a great show.

You both have career, you have, you have a career enough for seven people as does he. He really does. Seth, 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, I, yeah, I, it got- It wasn't till undeclared? Yeah, I feel like if maybe Freaks and Geeks went a second season, I had a chance of being hired as a writer, but then, yeah, I got hired on undeclared as well.

And how old are you on Freaks and Geeks? I was like 16 and 17 when we did Freaks and Geeks. That's amazing. How old are you now? I'm 37. Isn't it weird how we, I start, I start forgetting. 38, 38? I'm 38.

You start forgetting. I literally, I'm 38. Yeah. I had to do actual math to figure that out. Wait, so, and I read somewhere that you, when you were 16 doing Freaks and Geeks, that you were kind of the breadwinner of the family and you helped support the family. Is that any of that true? Yes.

When your parents are socialist Jews, it doesn't take much to hit that bar. Can I go deep on that? Sure. Go for it. I have a, I had a similar childhood. Yeah. Now, 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 with Jason. Is it safe to cry on a podcast? Exactly. No, no, no. Wait, 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, well, like 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 like couldn't afford anymore, but my sister had gone to college and I was moving out. So like it's, 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. 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 LA. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, 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 what's 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?

That's at a young age. I think when you're 13, you don't, you just don't give, like I look back, you just, you literally have no balls. So it just, it just like, it doesn't fucking matter. And you're trapped yet. Yeah. 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 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. Wow. Yeah.

So when you started contributing as significantly as you did to the family pot and Jason obviously wants to get back to you. Was there interest on the payback? Exactly. Did you also buy a gun in order to murder both your parents? How influence were the Menendez brothers in your life overall? 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, I look up to you parent, you can do things that I could never do like pay a mortgage and all that. Did you find an 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. No, 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 like, yeah, like it was just like, he's like, I don't like working anymore. Like why should I like, you know, and, and he's like, I don't have any special skills. Like why, like, why would this fall on me? Like honey, Seth'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 had a bar mitzvah when I was 13 and I got like $7,000 in bar mitzvah gifts. Dad said, I'll take that. Yeah, exactly. And years, they were like, we're just going to keep this in like a fund and you'll get it when you're like, you know, 70 or some shit.

And then when I was like 17, I was like, do I get my bar mitzvah money? And they're like, you know, that washer and dryer that had been cleaning your clothes for the last five years, that's your bar mitzvah money, congratulations. And I was like, yeah, I mean, I got it ultimately, like it kind of made sense. So it wasn't a huge leap, like to Jason's point, it wasn't a huge change in the dynamic in the parent child. No, if anything, if we want to get 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. Yeah. So I was like, I better make a lot of money, you know. And 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 no, for sure. And it definitely like few, 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 today. So, but what's funny about that is, so your folks, what were they like? Were they ex hippies? How did they get to the place where they were living that way?

They met on a kibbutz in Israel, literally. So 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 that. And they were like, you know, they were very left wing by like Canadian standards, you know? So like they were always very like, like they're like socialists, you know, and my mother was a social worker. And like that's like my sister's a social worker and my half 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 like never had like, he was never like a career guy. Like he always admittedly like hated working basically so. So he hated working and they were in effect socialists. And then you then you become, you know, and deservedly so incredibly successful in like the basket of capitalism of in Hollywood, do they, do they reject that? Or do they, are they like, this is pretty sweet to know they were thrilled about it. And now they, they, because at the same time, my parents like nice shit is the funny thing.

Like they're more than happy turns out and they always did. Like that's like, even as a kid, we, we, again, we lived in a very like not fantastic house in a not fantastic neighborhood and did not have a lot of the fancy things that people have. I never had a car. We didn't, 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 things. They just didn't prior, they prioritized their. Everybody's still close. Yes. Very close. Oh, that's good. They are still happily spending my money. Do they live near you?

They have a place in Laguna Beach, which is, yeah, like 45 minutes away and. You mean you have a place in Laguna Beach? Exactly. I have a place in Laguna 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 it's, 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 yourself worth and where your career is, which is such a funny thing for my father to be telling people. But he's right. You know what?

Yeah. You're, you're a dad now too, aren't you? I'm not a dad. You're not? No. Would you like to be? Yeah. Tell him, Jay.

Yeah. Are you giving away your children? Yeah. The eight year old is just like, um, no, I don't know if I want to be, honestly, I don't look at any of my friends with kids enviously, honestly, I, I like the kid. There are a lot of kids in my life. I have nephews. I've, 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 actively have that conversation where, cause 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 50 years at worst, regret not having them for like a couple of years right before we die, you know?

Like, that's like, if we're really just talking like worst case scenario, it's like, yeah, but I'm like, when death is very close, that's when I'll be like, shit, maybe it'd be nice to have someone around. But like the decades before that, we're just having a good time. And like, sure. You're free to do what you want. And I've had this conversation with Ricky Jervis a few times and he's always like, I, he resents people who are like, why don't you have kids?

He's like, what do you mean that there's, there's no obligation to have them. And also I just had my third son and quick, what's his name, you got me, you got me again. This is the 12th time you've got me on this, 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 a, like I said with everybody else, I sent him a sort of a text saying my son was born and I'd get back, I'm Zep emoji. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

You know, and if I told him about some bid I had done, we'd go back and forth for half an hour, but no, well, truthfully, a good bid is, you know, slightly more of an accomplishment in some ways. It's a smaller bullseye to hit. The dumbest of motherfuckers have kids, I hate to say, 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 they fucking

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 what I mean? 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, they're, and I'm not even kidding. You should have to pass a test to be a parent. Oh, for sure.

I 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, that's exactly right. You know, Jason just met both of his kids recently and, you know, right when he wrapped Ozark season three and he came back from Atlanta. Have you tried to recast them since you met them? You're used to more control than this is not what I pictured.

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 brain power and discipline and a lot of a headspace and dark rooms and isolation. And do you enjoy that part of it? No, that's photography with the dark room. Oh, sorry.

I have my notes wrong. I write in photos, which is what a lot of people don't know that. I, no, 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, 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 fucking people around and shit, 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 in heaven and we're hanging out and we're 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, right? Have your roles or lanes changed significantly in, in how you guys write in, 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, have you guys overlapped a little bit more switch sides of the street or?

No, it's pretty much the same. Like, and we never had like lanes specifically, like we were never one of like, I'm the story guy and he's the dialogue guy, like we've 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 if we all like our skill set is humiliatingly overlapping and redundant. And I think it really is like we are, 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. But 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, 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 mean, it's mostly out of sort of respect and delegating, you know, departments 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, no, I'm dialogue, your story. Like, I like that people can play nicely in the sandbox together. That's probably why you guys have been so incredibly successful and for so long. Now, what about how, what, 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, we 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.

Cause 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 like spent a lot of time directing television, for example, cause 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 go. So we were like, oh, we'll direct like five TV shows over the course of the next few years and that'll help us try a bunch of shit in 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, you know, 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 on it.

So you've been doing, so you've been going back and forth between TV and, I have long sort of, I feel like I've had this conversation with a bunch of different people, but I find it's, my own experience was, and I always joke that if it wasn't for bad movies, I wouldn't make any. But if, if the difference between making a comedy for TV and comedy for film, for a movie is, I always said, because, because the very nature of TV that you have to keep moving in a long, 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 they're just, I lose that immediacy of doing the bit, fucking around and moving on, 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 I can't. Yeah.

I can, I can attest to that. I work with Will many times. And when we turn around on me, it's, I'm like, Will, where did he go? Where did he go? Yeah. I, 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, 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, how 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 total 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 writing, but what about for a performer or observing performers? It's the same thing, honestly.

Like 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 where like by the time we're done shooting a scene, I'm like pretty sure we, you know, it won't have been for lack of effort that we've not. Because you had the time. Yeah. We have the time and we have time to stop and think and to 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, ah, if this episode is not great, the next one will be good, but movies aren't like that. Like they have to be good every, as good as you could make them every second because like that's it. And you'll be watching TVS in 20 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 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. Do you enjoy that kind of, do you have like a self-imposed pressure to always, you know, being funny is exhausting, you know, like, like constantly writing funny things, you know what I mean?

What's that? Being around it is. Yeah, right. That's for sure. But you know what 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 has to, 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, 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, which 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, it's, yeah, it's fun and I look forward to it and I get up like excited that I might be making something that I'll be 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 that's the Steve Jobs movie was probably like the easiest thing I've ever done. Yeah, 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 acclaimed than anything I've ever done. And it's like so much easier than most of the things I've done, you know, and that's why when he got nominated for 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. And then I hear, and then I hear his film is fantastic that he directed.

I haven't seen it yet. Oh, it's great. But I just did a great job with that. It's so good. Yeah. And, and, and it does both in a really good way, you know, like it's, but yeah, it's, it's tempting. And actually 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 could 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, and, and we should, and we just Academy Awards would have a comedy category. I was just going to say that it's mind blowing that the Oscars have a comedy.

Well, it's funny. Yeah. How like no one really talks about how like if the Emmys didn't, no 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. Yeah. Right.

Right. Otherwise they wouldn't be giving it to them. And 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, and announcements, announcements and deadlines should have a category. Yeah. Good announcement.

A really like a solid one. Yeah. Paramount ankles, VP goes to ankles. 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 anymore. 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 who get, and like all, and now of a sudden it's legal and you can buy it like a, like a, like there, there's more weed

shops than Starbucks nowadays. It's great. So do you feel any sort of validation about that? Yeah. Yeah. Very 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 realization that like almost every fundamental part of American life is some way tied into systemic racism and the, and the fact that weed is illegal is no different from that in any way, shape or form. And so it, 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 and 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 has just lived 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. Any other 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. And that is unfortunately what it's been for a long time.

And so I think morally, just from a moral standpoint, it is nice that this thing that I've talked about for so long, and that's always been something I've been aware of, is I've been making movies about smoking weed, I've been out there, I've been smoking weed at fucking award shows and shit like that, and people go to jail for that. And there are people in jail for that, you know? And that's always bothered me, honestly. Did you ever get threatened for that? Did anybody ever kind of reach out at any point?

No. Never. I've had cops ask to smoke weed with me. Wow. Wow. So, 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 gummy versus a joint versus a bong? I have pretty much only smoked joints.

Only joints. Never a bong, never an edible. I use a bong sometimes. Like if I'm going to a movie or something and 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 Marvel film, perhaps. Do you enjoy rolling, do 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, have you ever done a bucket bong? Yeah. A gravity bong, of course. Yeah. When was the last time you think you did a gravity bong? Not that.

Embarrassingly, 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 a, it's kind of complicated. So when I smoke weed, I have panic attacks, which is why I stopped smoking it. 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 Geeks and Geeks. So and everybody's like, you know, everybody's like, well, you got a sativa, indica, like all that. No, I'm telling you, like, it doesn't- How much of it did you smoke? I used to smoke it for years. But how much did you smoke the last time you had it? Oh, that last time?

I did, like, a vape thing and I did, like, I don't know, two puffs. Yeah, vapes are, 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 in its own bucket. Like, smoking a joint and hitting a vape pen give you very different solutions. Yeah, but it makes you, makes me not want to ever 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- I'm sure you have at some point, right? Does the government know about your huge growth operation? Yeah, exactly. No, you can grow your own legally, can't you? You can.

I did it in high school. It's not as, I'm not good at growing it, personally. But- Do you like going into the stores and kind of shopping and, and, oh, look at that. Well, now they do, they do delivery. Since the quarantine started, weed delivery has gone up like several hundred percent, I think. So, that is, that is now the way to go.

What is the worst drug you've ever done and what happened? The youngest or worst? The worst. Both. Cocaine is objectively the worst drug, I would say. It's terrible. It's the terrible. Cocaine's a bad drug.

Like, I, and, and what's annoying is that it's almost the best drug, like, in that- It can certainly be misused. Yes, there's, there, like, the fact that it, you could, that it's discreet 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, it, like, you can't stop doing it once you start doing it, essentially. You can't speak, you can't eat, you can't screw.

You can't speak, you can't eat, you shit yourself all day, like, but other than that, it's- It sounds like a nursing home. Yeah, and, like, I've been at, 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 vibe in the cocaine group in the corner and, like, and every once in a while I would join the cocaine group in the corner and I'm just, like, oh, this is

such a worse group than the other groups, you know. It's generally the fucking douchebags who are doing coke. It's the worst. It turns everybody into an asshole. Oh, yeah. It's, it's for total chumps and people who can, people who I know who, who still do it today are, are some of the worst people I know. And there's maybe nothing worse on earth than talking to someone on cocaine.

Oh, my God. It is. And cocaine is not. Unless you're, unless you're also on coke. I was going to say, like, rarely is cocaine good enough to deal with someone on cocaine. I hear it's back, by the way. I hear it's coming back. That's what I hear, that it's everywhere.

It keeps coming back every five years. Seth, 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 a coating 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 suit of fed and then I was freaking out like crazy. And Scotty, my husband, he 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 and stop breathing. And he's like, what? He's like, wake up, wake up. And finally, I went, all of a sudden I went, and I took a deep breath and I woke up like, what's happened? Isn't that nuts? What happened? You were Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction for a while.

Yeah, 1000%. What a lightweight. So suit of fed and Vicks with codeine got you. That's not really like a drug store. That's like, this is like a fucking accident, like a domestic accident. Seth's about to bring the noise. I drink bleach and I almost died, is that a bad drug story? I thought rat poison was sugar.

I didn't know. Sean. No, 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 objectively, alcohol is also a terrible drug, maybe worse

than cocaine, honestly. I agree. I agree. I've been on so much shrooms that 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 the next day. They probably made an ass out of yourself while you were drunk.

That is a bad drug if it makes you feel that bad for that long. That's the one that should be outlawed considering how many people die from it and all these car accidents and stuff. Alcohol is the worst drug. I keep going on and on about the pot thing. 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 affected by it. I've never really had a bad experience smoking weed.

I've had bad, like, once at the Golden Globes, I ate a weed lollipop and had to leave. Because you got paranoid? I got so high, I could not, I literally just couldn't, I thought I was keeping it together and I ran into like Brian Cranston at the bathroom and he was just like, what is wrong with you, man? And I was just like, I'm going to fuck out of here. I am not holding this together as well as I thought I was. But what did that look like because you're a lollipop?

I honestly can't. It elicited a strong visceral reaction from someone I did not know that well. It was enough for me to be like, I have to leave now. Did you end up tracking him down and just emailing him and joining like, hey, man. I've never followed up. He knows I'm out there. He's seen me since then, yeah, in the public space. But yeah, no, weed food has fucked me up to the point that I've had very bad experiences.

On Shrooms, I've been too high a lot, but I'm generally like in someone's house, so it's not like the worst. What does too high look like? Like a bad trip, like crying or paranoia or just laughing too much? This is 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 an experience. I quit two jobs the next morning.

That's how high I was. Did your agent know enough to just kind of just let it breathe for 24 hours? No, I actually quit two jobs. Like I actually, there was like two, there was like a thing we were going to direct and another thing I was going to act in and I was like, I was just like, I can't do it. I reached the revelation while high. I can't do these things anymore. And it held.

It held up. I did hold. Wow. I remember a good friend of mine about two years ago, a guy I know, a musician, he called his buddy, he was in his band with, oh, 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 and he goes and he goes back and he goes,

man, I wrote all this down and he goes, yeah, yeah, it's total garbage. Sorry. Exactly. I would never pretend I could do something creative on Shrooms. Like I would never, that would not be an, like maybe in the wake of Shrooms, something might arise, but I would never be like, let's do Shrooms and write. You ever try to find them? You ever try to pick them in a field?

No, never. In a sun, in a sun dress with a, with a basket. Do you own a VW van? You're asking, Jason. I once tried to do that with a buddy of mine, it's a crazy cow pasture somewhere and that was, that was. We've talked about it. It's come up.

We never, we never went there fully. Ended up stepping in a lot of cow shit. Yeah. Sean, have you done Shrooms? I did Shrooms once. Shrooms when I was like 21 and it made me feel like I weighed 800 pounds. You should do them again. I think you should do them again.

And I know you're prone to paranoia and I know that we'd make you talk to your TV. And sleep with your eyes open. With your eye or make you sleep with your eyes open. Right. Sean, Sean once talked to his TV, but, but the other thing. So you think I should try it? I think you should try it. So 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. Okay. And then just do Shrooms. And then get in the bottom. So you're safe. You're in the pool. Okay.

Okay. God, this sounds like a plan. I'm writing it down. 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 drive and, and, but like, do you ever, is there, is there a master plan or like a bigger thing?

Like do you want to open like a big studio or like, or do you like what you're doing? You're like your lane you're in. It's good just to go from project to project, right? When I'm stoned. Act. Do you 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 for remembering dialogue when you're hired now? You're just so that muscle is pretty strong. I'm just always like, there's no, I don't have two gears at this point. It's like, when people say, do you wake and bake?

Do you say, what's the alternative? Like, yeah. Yeah. I generally, 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, gets brined for a hundred years and returns to modern day. Is that right? Yes. I play exactly that.

It starts in the old country. It's a similar, it starts similarly to how most Jewish people's stories started. Like filler on the roof. Yeah. Like Eastern Europe and the Cossacks come and try to kill Herschel 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 a vat of pickles and is brined for 100 years and then is found.

He's discovered and he's, he has that. He smells great. Yep. He smells good and he's not aged today and his only living relative is his great grandson who's a app developer in Williamsburg and they're the same age. Can I read for that part? I play that part also. God damn it.

Did you write it? No. Simon Rich wrote it. Oh, he's a smart guy. Very smart guy. Yeah. I met him. Got a smart dad too.

Smart dad too. Yeah. He's from, 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 a 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 we've been, it's all, it was a hard movie to, to write.

It's super strange and getting the tone right took a long time. Is it a comedy or? It's like a dramedy. I think it has like a 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 Trost directed it who has been our cinematographer for many, many years and shot,

shot almost all the movies we've made as a company. 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 probably. And so they, we were already kind of trying to shop it around to other places and then HBO Max came into existence. Do you care at all about whether something is in the theaters or at home?

I do in general, 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. I mean, I think I 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, for 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 I, 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 do bad. You could get good reviews, but do good or you get 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 then that doesn't really matter as long as, is, you know, there are lots of things can get bad reviews, but are still seen as a success because people watch them. I mean, exactly. And in theaters, you get that, but on streaming, that narrative is harder to carve out for yourself, I think. Well, Seth, 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. No, seriously, 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, in this business and, and becoming the man you are today. It's incredibly impressive and I've always, I've always admired you. So I'm, I'm a huge fan and thanks for being on. Well, thank you so much. I second that.

I want to hang out with you more. I third that I echo what Sean says, man, it's, you've done such awesome stuff. So, so much hilarious stuff over the years. Thank you. It's really, it's really awesome to watch and thanks for coming and being and doing this. We're, we're just getting going on this, but I guess we don't know what we're doing at all.

Good. You're killing it. So, but thank you. Well, I appreciate it. Thanks for coming, Seth. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. All right, pal.

I'm sorry. See you, pal. All right. That, that's a, that's a nice fellow that Seth, I mean, look, he's Canadian, so you know he's going to be nice. That's right. All Canadians are. I didn't get an all Canadian with him because I knew that Bateman would get all like, Oh

fucking you Canadians. Yeah. No. Well, 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, for sure. 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 friend circle because you guys are it.

You guys are it. I'd like more than two. You know, it is kind of astonishing what one person can accomplish. I mean, it's all goes like to, to kids. If you know what you want to do in your passion about something early on, the odds go up so much that you'll become successful at it. Isn't it true? Wait a second.

Wait a second. That was to the kids? No, as, as children, like as kids, I thought you were, I thought you were saying kids, if you're listening, parents leave the room, go get a drink of water. That's okay too. The earlier you know, and he found out, I mean, he knew what he wanted to do at, you know, 12 years old. And he has stayed at the top of his field and he is, he's not just picking up the phone

and, and, and, and managing offers. He's creating stuff and it's, it's pretty admirable that he stayed this successful this long and, and he's more successful this year than he was last year and the year before that and the year before that and it's, it's pretty cool. Yeah. Are you less depressed today? Yeah. Why?

Yeah. Wait. Why was I depressed yesterday? You didn't know. Yeah. No, I think I just slept weird, maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

I slept with my eyes closed. Wow. Oh, Sean. Did you hear that? Yeah. I gotta try that. Try it. Have you guys, do you guys nap?

Do you really do? I try not to. I, I, I do. Actually, you know what? I think maybe I did. Maybe I took a little nap yesterday. That was it. Yeah.

And you, you hit that, you hit that wallet about three 30 or four o'clock. I think it's a lack of testosterone too, Will. Well, I was going to say, I always nap, 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 to hammer it down. What is the talk show version of the story? And then I go and I'd fall and I'd go to sleep and this show often puts people to sleep. But you beat me to that one.

But I would, I would build in cause I had to take a nap in the middle of the day in order to, to do the second half of the day. And then you, and then you get the base camp PA going, yeah, first team, we're ready. Yeah. First team. Yeah. The first time I started doing Broadway and are you guys still there? Nope.

I would take a nap on a two show day because, you know, it's like a three, there was three hour shows. And I was like, when we first started, I took a nap and I'd wake up like a half hour before the show started and they'd be like, Sean, you ready? Yeah. I'm ready. I'm ready to do this. Like there's no way, there's no way I could sing.

And so I had to like scream, I had 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 a, Barry Sonofil taught you to, to nap sitting up so that you don't get puffy eyes. Is that right? So I do. When I nap, I nap with a bunch of pillows so that I'm up and I was doing that RV with

Barry Sonofil and Barry said to me, I came back once after lunch and he goes, you were napping. And I go, what do you mean? I was napping. He goes, you know, I can see it in your face. I was like, what? And you're like, no, Barry. I just eat a lot of sodium.

Can I get a bounce card? You can just Hollywood that. I'll Hollywood it myself. I'll just hold this right under the frame. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that, isn't that tough? And now 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 a urban myth? Oh, hey, welcome to first grade. Hi, I'm Jason. Do horses eat standing up? And then I got a question about the earth and what it's round and what, tell me about the horses.

Sean. Sure. Uh, I'm not sure about horses actually. Oh, interesting. Will. A cow? 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 you're Googling. That's what cow tipping is. You know what? How dare you? Or you unwrapping another candy bar. Um, no, they, they actually, they doze when they're standing, but they, for REM, you know,

for REM sleep, they, um, when they're listening to REM or REM sleep or this podcast, they do it lying 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, a special system of tendons and ligaments that enables a horse to lock the major joints and its legs is like, how I'd say it, I know you're trying so hard to make it conversational, but it's so not. We're so dumb. What should we call this podcast?

If we're three dumb guys, what should we, if we're not smart, like dumb asses, you're less, less, you're less smart. You're less. Oh, what about that? Let's see if that's taken. Okay guys, listen. Okay. Super fun.

Bye. Oh, you did it. Bye. I had to beat you to it. Smart. Less. Smart. Less.

Smart. Less.