121THE NOT-INACCURATE STONER PERSONA CONTRIBUTES
TO HIS EASY INTERACTION WITH FANS – IT’S ANOTHER WAY
HE’S NOT BULLSHITTING THE WORLD ABOUT WHO HE IS
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. “That’s
what cocaine is for.”
The 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. That’s probably
one of the reasons that they like me, is that they don’t
feel I’ve lied to them. That’s a dynamic I like. When it
comes to me being a person out there in the world, I
don’t care if people think I’m fucking smart or some
genius or how hardworking they think I am – the fact
that they don’t think I’m lying to them to get them to go
see my movies is something I appreciate.”he day after Canter’s, Rogen arrived at
the Hand of Destiny ceramics studio on
Beverly Boulevard for a private session at
the wheel.
Very quickly, it became clear that he
had done this before. He can cone! He
knows how to use the shaping tools! It
turned out Rogen has taken classes with his
wife and finds working with clay soothing: “There’s
something that’s so therapeutic about it. It’s like yoga,
if you got a thing at the end. If you were doing yoga and
then some object was produced at the end of it.” In the
time it took me to form one wee, homely vessel, Rogen
produced two immaculate, symmetrical ashtray/pot
situations. (As followers of his Instagram know, Rogen
is an ashtray aficionado and collector.) Destiny, our
teacher and a master potter, who I’m pretty sure had no
idea who he was, murmured words of praise.
To understand how Rogen manages his various
silos without collapsing them, I asked him to walk me
through his typical schedule. He hesitated; every day is
different. That morning, for example, he got up at 6:45- normal, but the early side of normal – worked out at
home, made coffee and sat with his dog. He wrote for
an hour on Invincible, a comic-book movie he’s writing
with Goldberg, then took a long call about Houseplant,
the new cannabis company. Point Grey’s offices recently
moved off the Sony lot to Sunset Boulevard, near his
house, so after the call he popped over to check in on the
edit for the as-yet-untitled comedy, written by Simon
Rich, in which Rogen plays dual leading roles. He ate
lunch in five minutes and then came here to throw
some pots. After this, he was meeting with a storyboard
artist for a movie he and Goldberg are hoping to direct
at the beginning of next year.
“I’m fully able to bounce, and I quite like it,” said
Rogen of all the quick pivots. “Every once in a while it’s
a lot, but if I don’t feel overwhelmed and I feel like we
have enough time to do everything, then yeah, I find it
really stimulating and invigorating. I’m pretty good at
compartmentalising, in a non-sociopathic way.”
Lately, he’s been examining his own motivations
for choosing projects, and sometimes they don’t bear
up under scrutiny. “I’ve tried to sharpen my sense in
recognising when I’m acting out of hubris and when I
feel like I may be doing something just ’cause of how
fucking cool I’ll seem once I did it, how smart everyone
will think I am once I did it,” he said. “I think as you
become successful and famous, gravity will pull you
towards hubris and just trying to fly straight is not
enough. You have to steer away from it. Because if you
just try to go straight, you’ll get pulled into it. And that’s
something, even still, every once in awhile, I’m like, ‘We
gotta jerk this wheel.’ We’re getting pulled into it slowly,
because everyone else around you is like, ‘Yeah, do it, it’s
a good idea, here’s money, take it, do it, we want it.’ And
you have to be like, ‘No. That’s not a good idea.’”
On the other hand, he said, a surplus of confidence
can lead to breakthroughs: “It is a fine line, because
I do look at Kanye, for example, and I remember the
truth is at first, people were like, ‘Why you making
shoes, man? Just make music.’ And his shoes are
great. People love them. He’s made Adidas billions of
dollars. So there is something to be said for staying
in your lane, but sometimes people do really great
outside of their lane,” Rogen said. “Kanye kept going
on about this theatre experience he wanted to make.
He wanted a movie to play on eight screens: There’s
one in front of you, two above you, two on the side of
you and, like, below you. And I did have this thought
like, Dude, you have made some of the greatest rap
albums of all time, and I’m sitting there, like, Why
are you trying to design movie theatres? Just keep
making these great fucking rap albums. But who am
I to say that? He made shoes that are cool, I like ’em,
I wear them sometimes. So it’s something that I look
at with myself: How much do you expand? How much
do you try new things? How much do you spread your
wings, or how much do you stay in your lane? It’s a
constant modulation.”
Rogen’s ashtrays were finished, and he handed
them over to Destiny. As he prepared to leave, I looked
at the pots we had just made, neatly lined up on the
counter, waiting to be glazed and fired. He was right:
It was satisfying to have an object to show for your
efforts. But Rogen had no chance to dwell. The clay
interlude was over, and he was expected at the next
appointment.T