additional photography by billy huynh/unsplash.CoM
wasn’t,’ he said. Over a decade ago, he explained, there
was a project – 50/50 – that they’d approached Apatow
to produce. But because Apatow was working on his
l m Funny People, which overlapped thematically, he
declined, so Rogen and Goldberg chose to try their hand at
producing themselves.
It was a revelation. Now they could manage their
work as well as create it. ‘I’ve grown to appreciate acting
in things that we control. I get uncomfortable when
I’m involved in something but I don’t control it from the
beginning to the end,’ he said. ‘When I act in someone
else’s movie but I’m not the producer of it, I don’t have
a lot of say in how that movie is marketed or presented
to the world, and that makes me uncomfortable. e idea
of acting in movies we aren’t producing is a little scary to
me at times.’
When I observed that he and Apatow haven’t worked
together since he started his production company, in
2011, Rogen referred me to Apatow’s cameo in Th e
Disaster Artist and pointed out that Leslie Mann,
Apatow’s wife, starred in Blockers, the 2018 comedy
that Point Grey produced.
When I asked what it was like going from being
Apatow’s protégé to his competition, he gently
corrected me: Not competition. ‘Peers.’
A schism would have been wildly out of character
for Rogen, anyway. His is not a trail littered with the
carcasses of broken relationships. He and Goldberg- the presumptive ‘we’ in all of his conversations about
work – have ‘known each other since we were 12, so
we really developed our personalities together in
a lot of ways.’ And over the years, Rogen has repeatedly
collaborated with other allies, including the directors
Nicholas Stoller (the Neighbors movies) and Jonathan
Levine (50/50, Long Shot), as well as his frequent
actor coconspirators: James Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig
Robinson, Danny McBride, Paul Rudd.
h
his lack of major trauma is something Rogen talks
about a lot with his wife, the other enduring,
consistent relationship in his life. He and Miller-
Rogen, a fellow actor-writer-director, have been
together since 2004 – their friends were dating, and it
was a semi-setup situation – and married in 2011. Around
the time they started hanging out, Miller-Rogen’s mother
was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and the condition
advanced quickly. It was brutal, and Rogen recognised that
he had never experienced anything like it in his own life.
at lack of personal devastation is something he’s become
‘very conscious of, especially when you’re married to
someone who is constantly living under the crushing
weight of it. You get very aware of it very quickly. I have
a lot of friends whose parents have died, who have had
disastrousthings
happentothemand
theirfamily,so
I’mveryawarethat
I’mluckyandthat
I probablyhavea lot
ofterriblethings
comingmyway.’
Becausethey’re
intheir30sand
havebeentogetherfor ages, people bug him
(a little) and his wife (a lot
more) about having kids,
which, for the record, is
something they might do
one day. ey talk about
adopting, but are in no
particular rush. ‘We very
much like our lives, so
we’ll continue to put it o ,
it seems like, for a little
while,’ he said. ‘We have
a dog. We like the
dog a lot.’ It’s not the
responsibility that
frightens them so much
as the potential for
complicating an already
harmonious situation.
‘I’ve had my friends be
like, “Yeah, it really was
hard on our relationship.”
I’m not saying we couldn’t
overcome it, but, again, we
really get along and have
a very good dynamic. She
works very hard, and
a lot as well, so when we’re
together, we really try to
enjoy each other and hang
out.’ e Miller-Rogens
are domestic animals,
more inclined to stay
home and crush Million
Dollar Listing shows than
furiously socialise.
Rogen’s understated
and somewhat
incredulous relationship
to fame gives him a
certain credibility with
fans: he’s a tour guide
with a backstage pass.
His stories of surreal
encounters with public
gures – Kanye turning
up unannounced at his
door one morning,
asking him to play
basketball; introducing
Tom Cruise to the concept
of Internet porn – kill
on late-night TV by
depictingthederanged
alternateuniverseof
celebrity(actuallya
smallvillagewherethey
allknowoneanother)
andthevariouswaysits
inhabitantscanfalloutof
touchwithreality.
‘I’veworkedwith
enoughactorstoknowthat
onthegrandscaleofactorsI’m pretty well-adjusted,’
he said. ‘I think on the
grand scale of humans,
I have friends who are
constantly reminding
me that I have very little
insight into the struggles
of the average person. It’s
not lost on me that there
are massive elements of
life that I just don’t have to
deal with. I’m aware of it,
but it limits the amount of
true grounding I can have,
I think. At the same time, I
do think I try to steer away
from being a crazy person
as much as humanly
possible, in an active way.’w
eed helps. For
20-plus years it has
been as essential to
his daily life as his
glasses and shoes – an
unremarkable habit that’s
nevertheless constantly
remarked upon. Not
coincidentally, it’s also
powerful medicine for
taming the ego and
maintaining cosmic
perspective. ‘Not a lot of
people have delusions of
grandeur when they’re
high,’ Rogen agreed.
‘ at’s what cocaine is for.’
e not-inaccurate
stoner persona contributes
to his easy interaction
with fans, since it’s another
way he’s not bullshitting
the world, on some
fundamental level, about
who he is. ‘What’s nice is
when I meet those guys,
who took a picture with
me earlier,’ he said at
Canter’s. ‘I don’t feel like
I’ve lied to those people.
at’s probably one of
the reasons that they like
me, it’s that they don’t feel
I’veliedtothem. at’s
a dynamicI like.When
it comestomebeing
a personoutthereinthe
world,I don’tcareif people
thinkI’mfuckingsmart
orsomegenius– thefact
thattheydon’tthinkI’m
lyingtothemtogetthem
togoseemymoviesis
somethingI appreciate.’GQ.CO.ZA september 2019 /^73‘NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE
DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR
WHEN THEY’RE HIGH
ON
WEED . THAT’S WHAT
COCAINE IS FOR’