Script Tease: Today's Hottest Screenwriters Bare All by Callaghan Dylan

Author:Callaghan, Dylan [Callaghan, Dylan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781440541766
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 2012-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

SETH ROGEN AND EVAN GOLDBERG

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:

Superbad; Pineapple Express; Da Ali G Show

“Judd Apatow really started to lay out for me his version of how you write a story, which is starting from an emotional thing that you’ve experienced, not even worrying if it’s funny, and building the whole story on that.”

—SETH ROGEN

Seth Rogen and his childhood pal Evan Goldberg started writing Superbad at age thirteen, shortly after meeting in bar mitzvah class (you can make this stuff up, but they didn’t). Years later, under the mentorship of comedy kingpin Judd Apatow, they learned how to make the script not just funny, but good.

The two speak in that always-on, who’s-gonna-say-the-funniest-joke-first way that veterans of comedy writers’ rooms do. They exist in a weird, highly successful limbo between the stoned, guffawing class clowns they once were and the grown-up, A-list comedy writers (and in Rogen’s case, actor) they’ve become. Among other things, they say Apatow taught them that to write a good comedy you have to start with an emotional truth you can build a story from, regardless of how funny it is.

And, whether or not it actually makes the script better, writing with someone is way more fun than doing it alone.

To what extent is Superbad a high school confessional or autobiography?

Seth Rogen: It’s not autobiography, but it’s definitely inspired by our lives. I was a loudmouthed dick in high school, and Evan was slightly less of a loudmouthed dick. We both really wanted to get laid, which was not happening. So there are a lot of little things that are similar.

Evan Goldberg: Definitely. When friends and family see it, they almost all say, “That’s a good Seth and that’s a good Evan.”

Can you each give me a one-line pitch to entice people to go see this film?

Evan Goldberg: Best fucking movie ever.

Seth Rogen: It’s an oddly honest and sweet-but-filthy story about high school. I would go by the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] rating—that should motivate enough people.

You guys worked together on Da Ali G Show. How much of your writing routine on this film was based on that experience?

Evan Goldberg: One thing about that show that is undeniable is that it was great for just hard-hitting jokes.

Seth Rogen: Yeah, we were just basically put in a room and asked to come up with two hundred hilarious questions to ask someone.

Evan Goldberg: It was like a comedy assembly line. The first seven days we were on fire and then we were like, “We have to keep doing this stuff?”

Seth Rogen: I remember thinking, “If I’m asked to write one more Bruno joke, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” I’ve literally written every gay Austrian joke I can possibly think of. But sometimes the funniest stuff comes after that point.

How about the actual structure needed for a feature, how have you come by that?

Evan Goldberg: When we first wrote Superbad, we didn’t even have an outline.

Seth Rogen: We just wrote it.

Evan Goldberg: That’s why it took twelve fucking years.

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