Jonah Hill's 'Reprehensible' 'Superbad' Character Was Not Allowed To Play PlayStation 2

By the end of high school, I had an afro and weighed over 200 pounds. I was incredibly unhealthy, but thought it was okay as I envisioned a “fat funny guy” career for myself as an actor. An acting teacher once advised me not to lose weight for this reason! It would take years for me to start eating better and exercising regularly, and a few more years for that to stick, to any significant degree. It may have happened sooner if it weren’t for that acting teacher, because I f***ing hated how much I looked like Jonah Hill.

I graduated from high school in 2007, two months before Superbad hit theaters and thank Zod for that. Popularity wasn’t my strong suit in school because I was loud, not easily embarrassed, and did theater. Those things also kept me from getting, like, abused. I was amusing to my classmates, but I wasn’t invited to parties. I was never far from being made fun of, especially because I had an afro (and went to a mostly white school). If Superbad had hit a year earlier, I would have been doomed.

I’m not just saying this, either. Two weeks after the film was released, I went to the beach with my family, when someone walked up to me on the boardwalk and asked if I was Jonah Hill. They quickly realized their mistake, but people at my school would not have moved on so quickly. It would have been hell, especially because I hated the movie, which bummed me out because I was already firmly on the Seth Rogen train (and still am). The characters were people I was happy to be moving on from, especially Hill’s. So, I totally understand why Sony refused to let Hill’s character use a PlayStation 2 during the movie.

Rogen, a true gem who has only gotten better, recently revealed at SXSW that Sony would not let Hill’s character play their already outdated console. “Jonah Hill’s character, Seth, was so reprehensible to the studio,” Rogen noted, sporting his signature laugh. “They were like—there’s a scene where [Cera and Hill] are playing video games—and [Sony’s] like, ‘Jonah can’t touch a PlayStation.’ They were like, ‘We can’t have him interact with our products as a character, because [he’s] too vile a character.’” I get it! And it’s even funnier given that the PlayStation 3 was already being hawked on eBay for three times the price at that point.

While I didn’t like getting compared to Hill or his character, Rogen took the request from Sony personally (in a fun way). The character is named Seth for a reason. “I was, like, ‘It’s based on me! That’s very insulting,’” Rogen playfully continued. “But we accommodated them, ultimately.” There is a world where Rogen didn’t accommodate Sony, ruined their relationship, and didn’t go on to make a movie at Sony making fun of Kim Jong Un resulting in one of the biggest hacks in Hollywood history. Instead, we live in this timeline, which sucks but (maybe) not for those reasons.

Sony put its foot down and the rest is history. Now, Seth Rogen is turning into a rad older dude who makes pottery and doesn’t stick by abusers. Meanwhile, Jonah Hill is making the news for all the wrong reasons. Hashtag Sony was right?