4 AR THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2020Film
We may try to live up to the ideals that our
ancestors embodied and strive to lead lives
that are less onerous than theirs. But how
do they think we’re measuring up, and
would we ever want to find this out from
them? It’s a philosophical question that is
put to an unusual test in “An American
Pickle,” a new Seth Rogen comedy that
HBO Max released last week.
In the film, Rogen plays Herschel Green-
baum, a struggling ditch digger who flees
his Eastern European shtetl in 1919 for a
better life in America. At his new job in a
Brooklyn pickle factory, he accidentally
falls into a vat and is preserved for 100
years. When Herschel awakens a century
later, he is perplexed by the present day and
by a great-grandson, Ben (also played by
Rogen), an aspiring internet entrepreneur
who shares few of Herschel’s values.
“An American Pickle,” which is adapted
by Simon Rich from his short story “Sell
Out” and directed by Brandon Trost, may
have an inherently absurd premise. But for
the 38-year-old Rogen, its “Rip Van Win-
kle”-style story is an opportunity (after
some initial reluctance to play both roles) to
take on deeper ideas about resilience, forti-
tude, death and spirituality — ideas that he
said he was already contemplating before
the coronavirus pandemic invested them
with new urgency.
As Rogen explained in a recent Zoom con-
versation, “Fortunately or unfortunately,
not that much changes — everything’s al-
ways on the brink of disaster at all times, at
least in my head. It’s always a good time to
be reflective.”
Though best known for starring in com-
edies like “Knocked Up,” “Neighbors” and
“This Is the End” (serving as producer on
the last two) — often about young men who
aren’t ready to accept responsibility for
their lives — Rogen said he hoped “An
American Pickle” would reflect a more ma-
ture sensibility while still delivering laughs.“I implored everyone to try to make the
movie as deep and emotional as possible,”
he said, “and to really lean into what could
be the harder-to-explore themes.”
Rogen spoke about the making of “An
American Pickle” and how the movie
plumbs the past to reflect on the present
day. These are edited excerpts from that
conversation.
The prominent theme is that our ancestors
would be deeply disappointed if they could
see us now. Where did that come from?
That was one of the first conversations that
Simon and I had, years ago, about the mov-
ie. He said he had this picture of his grandfa-
ther when he was, like, 28, and he was a griz-
zled, muscular man who had seen the hor-
rors of the world. He’s like, if we knew each
other at this time, he would hate me. On my
desktop, I have a similar picture. My grand-
father was a very tough man. He was in
[World War II], he was in the [Royal Cana-
dian] Navy. He played professional football
in Canada and was just the opposite of
many of the things I have come to repre-
sent. We got along, but he was incredibly re-gressive in a lot of ways. He was offhand-
edly racist, all the time. We did not vibe on a
lot of things. So that idea was really interest-
ing to me. Your family can represent a lot of
things that you yourself do not like. But, in-
herently, you love them and you arethem.
Was it always your intention to play both
Ben, the modern-day character, and Her-
schel, his great-grandfather?
That’s how Simon envisioned the movie,
and it took me probably five years to wrap
my head around the idea. We actually did a
table read where we had another actor, Ike
Barinholtz, read the Herschel role and I was
playing Ben. I thought it was funny. But
there were still a lot of voices being like, it
might be great if you played both.Why were you hesitant to do it?
There’s just so many bad examples of it,
honestly. I was terrified of it, and I wanted to
make the type of movie that was good and
meaningful and deep. I didn’t want it to
seem like my vanity or self-indulgence was
subtracting from the emotion of the story.
But as I became older, I understood that youcannot be removed from your own lineage.
As I speak now, I just hear my father.
How did your ancestors come here?
It’s a similar story. Rogen is an unchanged
last name from Ukraine. My grandmother,
who passed away in 2014, was literally born
in a caravan fleeing the pogroms. She emi-
grated to Canada and she got to pick her
own birthday as a child. It was an interest-
ing thing to wrap my head around as we
were trying to dramatize it.
The film’s prologue takes place in 1919 and
introduces us to Herschel, the hardships
that he endures in the old country, and his
courtship of his wife, Sarah. Was it difficult
to establish the right tone?
There were sillier versions of it at one point.
There was a version where I was fighting a
giant for money. [Laughs] We cut that. It
needed to feel like, oh, this was a hard life
and they didn’t pity themselves.
Is that a trait you saw in your grandparents?
The simplest of things had been unobtain-
able to them. I was literally a movie star in
Hollywood and that was unimpressive to
them. But the fact that they could go to Mc-
Donald’s and steal the entire register’s
worth of napkins was a real thing they were
proud of. That’s something I saw firsthand.
Even in the midst of a pandemic, do you find
yourself feeling that our ancestors could
have handled the challenges we face better
than we are handling them?
I think from a physical peril standpoint, our
ancestors dealt with things better. My own
grandparents, their lives were physically
dangerous. There were people trying to kill
them and simple amenities were not avail-
able to them. Compared to people today,
who are being asked to stay at home and
wear a mask, and society is teetering on the
edge of collapse because of their inability to
do that, I think that would probably seem a
little silly to a generation who fought Nazis.
My grandfather was in the engine room of a
ship around the Horn of Africa getting shot
at by U-boats when he was in his late teens.
So I didn’t have to deal with that.
What is the bravest thing you’ve ever done?
Nothing. [Laughs] I would never give my-
self that credit. As a creative person, I un-
derstand the challenges of making good
work. When I undertake something that I
know is going to be hard, I view that as
something that takes courage but I don’t ex-
pect anyone else to. At times I will speak on
social issues in a way that, maybe, some-
where in my head, I’m thinking, oh, this
could cause some sort of backlash. Maybe
when I was younger, I felt like I was brave
by saying that stuff. But no, now I would
never describe myself as brave in any way.
We see how Ben’s reluctant to address grief
for losses in his life and hesitant around
other people who are religious and comfort-
able expressing their own spirituality. Are
those qualities you share with him?
Mortality and sadness are things I deal with
very poorly in general. My wife, Lauren,
watched her mother die slowly of
Alzheimer’s over the course of a decade. I
would not have been able to function.
Growing up, I went to Jewish schools. I
went to Jewish summer camps. Do I believe
in any aspect of Judaism specifically? Not
really. But one of the things that Judaism
does is it forces you to confront death and
grief in a very tangible way, in a way that is
shocking sometimes to non-Jewish people
who go to Jewish funerals and find them-
selves physically helping to bury the per-
son. There’s a lot of things that happen
when a death occurs, and that religious in-
frastructure puts you to work. It’s very
helpful in moving on. That’s something that
Ben did not have. And was rejecting and
was running from — how religion really
forces you to delve into those things.
You’ve been criticized, as both an actor and
a producer, for making movies that are
immature and aren’t concerned with real
feelings. Was that something you were
trying to address in this movie?
It feels like a note we play from time to time.
When we’re writing and developing our
films, it becomes a modulation: How deep
into this are we getting and how much are
we pulling back and letting the comedy pre-
vail? With this one, weirdly, the thing that I
was referencing in my head the most was
Pixar films. Because they take premises
that often are not based in reality, in any
way, shape or form, and they dive so deep
into their saddest elements. “Up” is com-
pletely insane as a plot for a film. But it
makes you cry hysterically several times.
Why did we think a movie about a guy fall-
ing in a pickle vat for 100 years might be
able to pack a real, emotional punch? It was
because of Pixar films. They do it.
Does it feel like a risk to release “An Ameri-
can Pickle” on HBO Max and not a more
established streaming service like Netflix?
My deepest fear with Netflix is that I am one
of 800,000 squares on your screen. When
you’re a movie on Netflix, what you’re
mostly competing with is other Netflix mov-
ies. There are no other HBO Max movies.
[Laughs] HBO Max has just launched and
we are the first [original] film they are re-
leasing. We’re not competing for their atten-
tion. We’re not competing for their re-
sources. They seem very intent on people
being aware of our film. Beyond that, no one
knows how many people watched anything
anyway.How do you gauge whether “An American
Pickle” is a success?
Honestly, all I care about is our movies be-
ing liked and viewed as generally good. Be-
cause that’s the only thing I’ve seen over
the years that has led to us working consis-
tently. We’ve made successful movies.
We’ve made giant failures. I think the rea-
son we keep being allowed to make films is
we make more good ones than bad ones.
There are things you can blame on the stu-
dio, and that’s something I’m always more
than happy to do. But what’s harder to
blame on the studio is when we just made a
bad movie. Sometimes we make movies and
it’s like, yeesh, no one liked this. And then
five years later, you’re like, oh, no, people
liked that movie. Time is a good test.Out of the Pickle Vat, Into the Fire
Seth Rogen contemplates how
our ancestors would view us.
By DAVE ITZKOFFTop, Seth Rogen, whose
new movie is “An
American Pickle,” which
is based on a short story
by Simon Rich and
directed by Brandon
Trost. Right, Rogen
playing two roles the
film, which reminds him
of his relationship with
his grandfather: “We did
not vibe on a lot of
things.” Rogen says he
sees the movie as a take
on deeper ideas about
resilience, fortitude,
death and spirituality.
MICHAEL SCHMELLING FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESHOPPER STONE/HBO MAX