Seth Rogen appeared on Justin Long’s Life is Short podcast this week to promote the paperback release of his memoir, Yearbook. On the podcast, however, he found himself talking extensively about Jonah Hill, if only because Rogen and Justin Long had Hill in common as a friend.

To wit: Rogen said that, on the set of Superbad, which was shot at a real school, in between classes the kids would come out and repeat a Jonah Hill line from the movie Accepted, which was being heavily marketed at the time: “Ask me about my weiner!”

“The look on Jonah’s face,” Rogen laughed. “Every time, the bell would ring, and out would come hundreds of high school kids, and every one was like, ‘It’s the weiner guy.’ He did not enjoy it!”

Something else that Hill did not enjoy was Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who would eventually be cast as McLovin in Superbad. Rogen knew Hill from a scene in 40-Year-Old Virgin, and though he begged Rogen to cast him in Superbad, Rogen repeatedly refused, saying that he was too old for the part. “But one day, he literally convinced us to go into my trailer and film him auditioning and you could hear us laughing,” and they realized then how obvious he was for the role. Jay Baruchel, meanwhile, insisted that Michael Cera would be perfect for the film, as well. Once he read it, Cera’s role was a lock, too.

“And then we needed a McLovin guy,” Rogen continued. “We had Michael and Jonah … and they’re two of the funniest comedic performers of all time. And so it was hard to find the third person to slot into the group and the more [Cera and Hill] read together, the more it was apparent that they were powerhouses. They had real chemistry. They were really confident and quick and firing on all cylinders.”

“They read for months and we auditioned tons of people and almost cast a ton of people … and then we started doing open casting calls at high schools. And then, Chris Mintz-Plasse, he wasn’t even going to do it. His friend was going to do it. And the casting director literally went out into the waiting room and saw him and was like, “Who is this little f**king guy?’ and he was like, ‘You gotta come in and read.’”

“And then he read with Michael and Jonah, and Jonah f**king hated him. Jonah tries to fall into a rhythm and Chris would not abide to it. As much as Jonah [during the audition] would be like, ‘Shut the f**k up,’ [Plasse] would be like, ‘You shut the f**k up’ and Jonah would be like, ‘WHAT? What is happening?’ [Mintz-Plasse, because he was not an actor] had no respect for the process and I remember that it was so perfect and we were all laughing so hard.

[Jonah] could tell we thought it was funny. In real-time. He was absorbing how much we were enjoying it, and it made him angrier, and literally Chris left, and he was like, ‘You cannot cast that f**king guy. If you cast that guy I will not do this. I can’t do it.’ And we were like, ‘Dude you are so wrong. All those feelings are why we have to cast this guy.’”

To Hill’s credit, after seeing the tape of the two together, he immediately understood why. And that his how McLovin was cast.

Source: Life is Short