they’re a Jewish couple,” both worked for government
agencies, his mother as a social worker who specialised
in teaching parenting skills, and his father for the BC
Coalition of People with Disabilities. Sandy, Rogen’s
mom, has a popular Twitter account – capsule movie
reviews, wine appreciation, domestic observations and
hefty doses of maternal pride – that indicates a strong
comedic voice of her own. (Sample tweet: “When you
wear a big heavy coat no one can tell when you fart”.)
These days, she teaches kundalini yoga. “Me and her
did it in my living room once, but I mean, if there’s one
thing that’s not relaxing, it’s the sound of your own
mother’s voice,” said her son.
Of the two, though, Rogen said his dad, Mark, is the
more indelibly eccentric: “My dad has fully undiagnosed
OCD, I would imagine. A good example of how weird
he is, is that when I was a kid, he had all these white
Champion socks – which is funny, because it’s the
same thing I wear – and he didn’t like that they would
get washed at different frequencies and would have
different thicknesses when they were paired. So he
numbered each of his pairs of socks – 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 – so
that he knew that the 2s had always been washed the
same frequency and he would never be stuck with a
sock that had been worn [down more than its mate]. It
is a very specific personality.”
As he gets older, Rogen notices he has more in
common with his creators than he previously imagined.
Lately he’s recognised his father’s cadences in his own
voice, and he’s become increasingly sympathetic to his
dad’s other weirdnesses, such as his habit of wearing
a purse. “What’s funny is it makes his mother really
uncomfortable,” Rogen said. “My grandmother hates
when my dad wears a purse. And around her he still
wears a purse but in more muted colours. He’ll wear
pretty bright purses, generally speaking. He buys his
own, like a Le Sportsac or Kipling purse. But then,
recently, I found myself talking to my wife, like, ‘Man,
I have too much shit in my pockets, I wish there was a
thing I had where I was able to keep this shit.’ And she’s
like, ‘You mean like a purse, you motherfucker?’” He
sighed. “This is how it happens.”
Idiosyncrasies aside, his parents were always big
boosters of Rogen’s creative pursuits, even suggesting
he sign up for the stand-up comedy workshop that set
his career trajectory in motion. “I was the only kid, but
it was a non-threatening way to try it,” he remembered.
“You got up in front of the class, you said your jokes, it
went pretty well, so it was encouraging: This might not
be a disaster.” You can watch his old routine on YouTube,
and as he slow-rolls through jokes about Jewish summer
camp, Jewish grandparents and bullies, it’s the fact
of his confidence – unusual at any age, but practically
brazen during early adolescence – that dazzles the
brain. “I thought I could do it,” he said with a shrug.
Kind words from the older comics on the scene
cemented that instinct, and he stuck with it. “Especially
as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that stand-up comedy
can be a very tough world to grow alliances in and find
support in. If I met a fucking 14-year-old kid who was
trying to do what I was doing, my first instinct would
probably be pretty dismissive,” he admitted. “I’m very
appreciative that people were nice to me, because
without that I probably would have just stopped.”
Instead, he began doing sets around town, getting easy
in front of an audience and perfecting his timing. By
the time the casting apparatus for Freaks And Geeks
rolled into town, a few years later, Rogen was prepared.
“I remember they laughed hard,” he said of the audition.
“I remember walking out and being like, ‘If I didn’t get
that, fuck those people.’”
Overnight, Rogen went from being a high school kid
who cut class to smoke weed to working 14-hour days
on a set surrounded by adults. That, he said, even more
than geography, accounted for the culture shock. His
parents, who were both out of work at the time, joined
him in Los Angeles, so in addition to suddenly having
a serious job, 17-year-old Rogen became, for a time,
the family breadwinner: “I was a low-paid actor on a
network TV show, but I remember my dad being like,
‘In this year you will make more money than I made
my entire life.’” That sounds like an insane amount
of pressure for a kid, and I said as much, but Rogen“THE IDEA OF ACTING
IN MOVIES WE ARE
NOT PRODUCING IS
A LITTLE SCARY TO ME
AT TIMES”
SHIRT, SHORTS;
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