Seth Rogen’s New Show Is Getting Him Yelled at by Hollywood

Hollywood executives don’t have the most sterling reputations. Studio bigwigs have been the targets of artists’ ire for decades. However, they are often portrayed as cigar-chomping figures who are larger than life and still get pictures made. There’s something mythic about how they are presented onscreen. Yes, they are hardasses, but in a way that demands respect. Or, they are so shallow and vapid that they don’t do anything resembling human behavior. It kind of works for both parties. The creatives get to mock their overlords but said overlords don’t have to worry about being portrayed honestly. Now, Seth Rogen is shaking up that formula.

It’s hard to think of someone more well-liked in Hollywood than Seth Rogen. He’s a good dude who seems determined to make pottery, smoke weed, and stay on the right side of history. He runs in all Hollywood circles, having worked for most studios as an actor, writer/director, or producer. You’ll see him attend parties or galas from the very fancy to the chill. He isn’t ruffling any feathers unless they belong to Kim Jong Un. So, it’s interesting to hear that his new show, The Studio, is hitting a nerve with some executives. Not because he’s making them caricatures, but because he’s making them human.

“In the show, I run a Hollywood movie studio that exists in today’s version,” Rogen told Stephen Colbert in a recent interview. “And in the show, the major conflict is one I’m sure you’re familiar with is that of, like, art versus commerce. And my character loves movies and is a huge movie fan, but as the head of a studio often has to make choices that make movies worse. And he loves directors and he loves movie stars, but he’s constantly having to disappoint them by giving them notes they don’t want to hear or by just, in general, ruining their passion.” Portraying studio execs as sympathetic people who don’t want to lose their jobs is groundbreaking in a way, but he’s drawing from real-life experience.

As Rogen explained when pressed by Colbert, he has had executives lament their positions to his face. “Very much so!” Rogen noted. “Me and my partner Evan [Goldberg] were in a meeting early in our career, we were rewriting a movie, and the executive said exactly that. He was giving us notes. We wanted to make it very R-rated and edgy, and he was telling us we couldn’t, and even though he thought it was funny, he hung his head and said exactly that: ‘I got into this because I love movies and now it’s my job to ruin them.” Sticking to real inspirations is part of what makes The Studio feel fresh and interesting, but it isn’t saving Rogen from criticism.

“Yes, I’ve been yelled at three times in the last week,” Rogen explained when asked if any executive has pressed him on whether they are the inspiration for certain characters. “Some of them are pleased, some of them are not pleased, I will say.” While executives have been skewered in movies and TV, the portrayals are usually versions of like three different dudes. The fact that Rogen is getting reactions from multiple people in charge shows how wide he is casting his net while remaining very specific.

“There’s an episode in particular about the Golden Globes and the whole thing is my character just wants desperately to be thanked in the Golden Globe speech, which is very important to Hollywood executives,” said Rogen. “Years ago, we made a film that won a Golden Globe and at the afterparty, we saw one of the executives crying, and we assumed they were crying because we won and they were happy. We went over and we’re like, ‘We won! Is that why you’re crying?’ And they said, ‘No, they forgot to thank me during the speech.’” Look, that’s not not relatable. However, the person in question did not appreciate that moment being recreated.

“Then we made a whole episode about that, and the person who it’s based on knows that we made a whole episode about it and, in no uncertain terms, yelled at me very recently.” It’s very funny that Seth Rogen’s version of getting people mad at him involves showing them as vulnerable people. It’s working both ways. Some people are flattered they’re being depicted… even if they aren’t. “People have projected themselves onto these characters in a way that is not accurate,” Rogen laughed. “Conversely, I had a call from a studio executive who said, ‘It was so real and it was so truthful to my story, I couldn’t stop crying when I was watching it.’ And I didn’t have the heart to tell him, but I was like, ‘It’s not based on you at all, man.’”

You can watch The Studio on Apple TV+ and don’t feel bad if you didn’t know that already. The show is being heavily promoted, and even that isn’t very much, which is kind of Apple’s whole… thing. But it exists, I swear! And it’s not, like, already in its third and final season!