Seth Rogen’s ‘The Studio’ Takes the Emmys

At this year’s Primetime Emmys, Seth Rogen took home four major awards for The Studio https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-studio/umc.cmc.7518algxc4lsoobtsx30dqb52, including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. We sat with Rogen around the show’s release back in the spring to discuss his key influences (6:15), from Robert Altman’s The Player to The Larry Sanders Show (13:25), the evolving state of “show business” (15:36), and a life-changing piece of advice from director and producer Judd Apatow (25:00). On the back-half, we dive into his early years writing comedy in Vancouver (25:57), formative memories making Freaks and Geeks (33:19), and how This Is the End, the meta-comedy from 2013, was a precursor to this latest project (43:18) and solidified his enduring creative partnership with Evan Goldberg (58:30). Watch this episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O9H6marDzI&t=1011s on YouTube. Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected]. Original air date: March 30, 2025 See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:21Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.

• 0:38Sam Fragoso?

  Today, actor, writer, producer Seth Rogen. Rogen came of age in an era of abundance, a Hollywood that made big-budget comedies that did real box office: Forty Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express. For a time, roughly between 2005 and 2014, he represented something of a growing contingent in American life: the self-aware, self-medicated man-child, stunted or stoned enough to still act like a boy, yet just aware enough to know that someday soon, he'll have to become a man. If the aughts turned Rogen into an emblem for arrested development, his next decade

• 1:20Sam Fragoso?

  was one of lifted productivity: the slack-jawed stoner turned prolific producer. Even his pension for pot became a profitable business called Houseplant. When he wasn't working behind the scenes on shows like The Boys and Preacher, he was in front of the camera, becoming a really talented, versatile actor. He played Steve Wozniak in Danny Boyle's biopic of Steve Jobs, a love-lorn uncle in Steven Spielberg's deeply personal film, The Fableman's. Rogen's latest project, however, is the culmination of his experiences with Hollywood at large. The show is called The Studio, and in it, Rogen plays Matt Remick, the newly-appointed head of Continental Studios.

• 2:05Sam Fragoso?

  It's a dream job he's been pursuing his whole life, and has now finally, and rather unexpectedly, landed at his doorstep, for better or worse. Here's a clip from the trailer.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Prestige films and box office hits, those are not mutually exclusive. We can do both and we will do both. Matt, I get it. You want to make great art and make a billion dollars doing it. Well, guess what? That never happens. And you're going to screw everything up trying to make it happen. If it was up to me, we'd be focusing on making the next Rosemary's Baby or Annie Hall or some great film that wasn't directed by a pervert.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Turns out perverts make great movies.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  They really do.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Well, I love, okay? There's zero margin for error on this shot.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  Action, please.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Greta. Yo, I actually want to talk to you about awards season. Just make sure you keep your winter clear.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  Okay, Matt.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Cut!

• 3:01Speaker 01

  This job is just so much harder than I thought it was going to be.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  Matt!

• 3:05Speaker 01

  What up, Matt? Everyone wants something from me and I can't give it to them. If you guys are actually open to doing something different, I have a lot of ideas.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  We love new ideas. Just not too new because we got a pretty tight formula that we got to hit.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  I wouldn't say it's a formula so much as a structure that we 100% know works, so we're going to do it over and over again.

• 3:22Speaker 04

  Fine is not good enough. This is raising us. You want to bring down the studio? Why didn't you shut this party down?

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Why do you keep lying?

• 3:29Speaker 04

  What is wrong with you?

• 3:32Speaker 02

  The job makes you stressed and panicked and miserable. But when it all comes together and you make a good movie,

• 3:42Speaker 02

  it's good forever.

• 3:50Sam Fragoso?

  That was from the new show, The Studio, now available to stream on Apple TV+. In the pantheon of Hollywood playing itself, The Studio sits at the intersection of Robert Altman's The Player and Gary Shanling's The Larry Sanders Show. We talk about both of those influences in today's episode. We also dive into the lived experiences that informed this new show. Rogan's formative years writing comedy in Vancouver, the self-belief required when it wasn't panning out as quickly as he hoped, the challenges of working inside the studio system itself, and how This Is The End, the meta-comedy from 2013, starring all of his friends and more, was a precursor to this latest project, The Studio.

• 4:35Sam Fragoso?

  This was a long time in the making, so I hope you enjoy this conversation with the one and only.

• 4:43Sam Fragoso?

  Seth Rogen.

• 4:45Sam Fragoso?

  Enjoy.

• 5:02Sam Fragoso?

  Seth Rogen.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 5:05Sam Fragoso?

  Welcome to the show.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  I have something in my mouth every time you try to, you try to speak to me.

• 5:10Sam Fragoso?

  I heard you do that as a defense mechanism. Is that true?

• 5:12Speaker 01

  I'm constantly just showing things in my mouth.

• 5:15Sam Fragoso?

  How are you doing?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  I'm doing pretty good. I'm very proud of the show. I love that. It's always easy when you genuinely, you know, like the thing that you are generally talking about as you're promoting a thing and, and people have started to see it. So I know in general, the response is, is good. So that also, this would be a very, I probably wouldn't be here, honestly, if the response was very bad, I would imagine.

• 5:36Sam Fragoso?

  You would have canceled on us?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  I probably would. I probably canceled everything, I would imagine. Yeah.

• 5:40Sam Fragoso?

  No, just cancel Talk Easy.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 5:44Sam Fragoso?

  I heard you want to say that people crave stories because what stories do is organize experiences in ways that help them make sense of them. Did you arrive at this show, the studio, in an attempt to make sense of the last decade you've had in this industry?

• 6:03Speaker 01

  No, I don't think we assumed we would ever make sense of, of any of it. And I think it was fun to make something that was very personal, that like specifically begged us to really analyze our lives and, and, and our-

• 6:17Sam Fragoso?

  The nonsense.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Exactly. And our jobs and, you know, art in general and commerce in general and the relationship between the two. And, and, and so in some ways, yeah, it probably was like a contextualizing experience and something that sometimes you need an excuse to really dive into, into things. And so it was a good excuse to really dive into our jobs and what frustrates us about them and what inspires us about them. And the thing we constantly were asking ourselves was just like, how do we feel about all this? Like that, we felt like that need to come across on the show. And, and it was incumbent on us to have like a pretty specific opinion on, on that, you know? And so it really forced us to sort of develop an opinion or articulate our opinion

• 7:00Speaker 01

  on all this, which is not something that I had necessarily done, you know?

• 7:04Sam Fragoso?

  So now that you have, what does that sound like?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  I'm someone who's been given a great life by this industry and who has been allowed to kind of live their dreams and in general like.

• 7:15Sam Fragoso?

  That will be the title of the podcast by the.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 7:17Sam Fragoso?

  Seth Rogen, decidedly good life.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. It's true. And like, there are things that are very frustrating about our jobs and things that have a lot of conflict and inherently, you know, that is at the core of Hollywood is, is like this conflict between art and commerce. And so that, that's a part of it. But overall, we, we feel like it's an industry that it's hard to be too hard on it when it's given us so much. And so we are, we are lovers of the industry because we've gotten a lot of great things from it, but we are also at times very frustrated by it and very aggravated and stressed out and panicked over the specifics of it, you know?

• 7:53Sam Fragoso?

  I noticed when you say aggravated and stressed out, you keep pointing to me.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. Now I'm pointing, I gesture in general. I gestured outwardly.

• 8:03Sam Fragoso?

  Well, take it personally. You and Evan have not directed a movie since the interview. You've done some TV stuff.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:12Sam Fragoso?

  But I would say this show is about as cinematic of a thing as you guys have ever directed.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:19Sam Fragoso?

  So the frustrations of the last decade, how did you begin to put them into this program?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  I mean, by really kind of drilling down on what we find to be aggravating and frustrating, as I gesture to you more, which is.

• 8:35Sam Fragoso?

  Let's do a power ranking of those things.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  I mean, and there are things that like, I think I'm more at peace with in many ways than my character on the show, but like, there's always an existential crisis in Hollywood because at its core, it is a conflicted industry and it is art and commerce trying to coexist as opposed to like the finance world, which is commerce trying to exist with, with no, no restrictions or limitations to it. You know what I mean? And because of that, different things are winning at different times, basically. And I think it feels like you look back to the seventies and I think would be like art was winning more than, you know what I mean? And, and commerce was following and movies were doing very well, but they were also great movies. And then, you know, things swing in a direction where streamers come into play and studios start to panic a little bit and they start to maybe not

• 9:22Speaker 01

  believe in themselves and much and then they start to. You know, perhaps want to mitigate their risk because they feel like maybe their job is even more unstable because of the seismic thing that's happening below their feet, you know?

• 9:33Sam Fragoso?

  But even the, the, the age of comedy that you came up in and developed.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:38Sam Fragoso?

  The movies were good and they made a lot of money.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. Like we, we, we participated in it, you know? And so.

• 9:45Sam Fragoso?

  Some would say you even benefited.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  We very much did. We, we benefited a lot from it, you know? And, and so we, we saw firsthand how those specific movies became much harder to make. And not to say we didn't, you know, we made Good Boys and Blockers and things that.

• 9:58Sam Fragoso?

  Which made money.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, which did well and ticked a lot of those boxes, you know? And, and, and for us, I think why, you know, we are not miserable people is we recognize like, oh, if we want to keep putting movies in theaters, like we should make Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and we should make sure we're able to make it in the exact way we want and able to make something that we really creatively are passionate about, but we understand the parameters of the, of, of, of the shifting industry. You know what I mean? And, and we're like, we can do television because that, I think as much as film has contracted in many ways, as far as what people will make, television has expanded in, in many ways, as far as what people will make. And so.

• 10:38Sam Fragoso?

  I think you have a character on the show.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:40Sam Fragoso?

  Who says, oh, I don't go to the movies anymore, but TV, oh my God.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  If you want real, are you go to, you watch television? Yeah.

• 10:47Sam Fragoso?

  Do you feel that way?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  No, I, I go to the movies, but I do think they, I do think they are both very artful and I do understand that a lot of people do feel that way. And a lot of people have kind of given up on movies.

• 10:58Sam Fragoso?

  Post pandemic especially.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Exactly. Which is another joke we make on the show is like, you know, I've been in the movies since Barbenheimer, basically, which is like a thing I think a lot of people. You know, a lot of people feel that way, but then at the same time, movies do great and great movies still do great. And I think that's something that we constantly have to respect and remind ourselves. Like Inside Out two is the biggest movie of the year. Like it's a beautiful film, you know what I mean? And, and these movies can still be very culturally impactful, you know, and, and, and, and not just, you know, things that only film fans love. I think they do still cross over into like the general culture of the world, you know what I mean? And so Deadpool and Wolverine is a perfect example, you know? And so I think a lot of people feel that way. And I think in our darkest moments, we feel as though that is perhaps

• 11:43Speaker 01

  the way things are going, which is no one cares about movies anymore. Movies are dead, but I actually think that people still do.

• 11:49Sam Fragoso?

  We'll get back around to the darkest moments later.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Great.

• 11:54Sam Fragoso?

  We usually have to save that for act three of the podcast.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  I like the racks.

• 11:57Sam Fragoso?

  You know, this show, The Studio, is explicitly set in a post-Barbenheimer world.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Very much so.

• 12:06Sam Fragoso?

  The character you play, Matt Remick, talks about capitalizing on the Barbie phenomenon.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:13Sam Fragoso?

  And in turn, becomes obsessed with turning the Kool-Aid Man into a, I mean, we hope, franchise.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, but a prestigious franchise. It's an organic, it's an organic goal to have, yeah.

• 12:27Sam Fragoso?

  The studio is called Continental.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:29Sam Fragoso?

  And it feels Paramount-like. It's not a streaming service.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  It's supposed to be like a legacy studio, as they call them, yeah.

• 12:37Sam Fragoso?

  And in the name of Paramount, your character Matt is obsessed with the age of Robert Evans.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Yes, very much so.

• 12:43Sam Fragoso?

  Who directed The God, I mean, who produced The Godfather and Chinatown.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:48Sam Fragoso?

  I said directed because a part of him definitely believes he directed.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  He probably, yeah, if you asked him, he helped.

• 12:54Sam Fragoso?

  The show seems to be at the intersection of The Larry Sanders Show, The Player, and a little bit of Veep.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly what it's all for.

• 13:03Sam Fragoso?

  Really?

• 13:04Speaker 01

  So that's great.

• 13:05Sam Fragoso?

  You know what? Interview's done. I think that's it. I think we got it.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. We were first and foremost influenced by The Larry Sanders Show. And that's like me and Evan, who grew up together, and the creator and my co-director and writer. That was on when we were like in high school, and we were obsessed with it in high school. And we would watch it all the time and.

• 13:24Sam Fragoso?

  Even at house parties, I heard you would sneak up.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  We would like be in the parents' bedroom at a house party, watching Larry Sanders Show, as all of our friends were getting drunk in the basement, and, which really speaks to who we are, you know? And so, we loved it. And then when I moved to LA, I kind of, Judd and Pete and Alex were actually, I'd known them since I came out, and they had all worked on The Larry Sanders Show. But also, it was a very human show. Like, it was just about like a sad guy trying not to humiliate himself, which, which I also related to.

• 13:54Speaker 05

  Tell you the truth, I didn't even need to be there for the fucking Saget interview.

• 13:58Speaker 06

  Good show.

• 13:58Speaker 05

  All I said was, "Hi Bob, bye Bob." I could have been working at a Jack in the Box. Oh, don't diminish yourself. Anyone with less talent would have tried to interrupt you. I don't know that that's necessarily true. It just seemed to me, "Oh, Bob." Did I go on too long? Was I rambling or anything? Absolutely not. You were great. Love your work, Bob. Yeah, I love the one where the man gets hit in the nuts with a wiffle ball.

• 14:20Speaker 05

  Anytime. Come back anytime, Bob. Thanks. Sure.

• 14:25Sam Fragoso?

  Is that how you see your character, Matt?

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, he has a tragic job, I think, and I think his personality makes it even more tragic. And we talked a lot about that as we were writing the show, was like, how do we make a character that has like a fundamentally comedic conflict at play, which is, you know, he loves movie stars, but they don't want to talk to him. And he loves directors and he has to break their heart. And he loves movies and he has to make them more. He doesn't have to, but he's constantly making the choice whether or not to, you know, and at his own peril, you know? And so, and The Larry Sanders Show is similar in a lot of ways, where he's so technically like a high-status character, but you always feel really bad for him, you know?

• 15:04Sam Fragoso?

  You said that the job that Matt has, the studio executive or the studio head, is a tragic job.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:10Sam Fragoso?

  And in the process of making this program, you interviewed a bunch of studio executives.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's not a tragic job for all of them.

• 15:19Sam Fragoso?

  Like a Ted Sarandos?

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's not tragic for him. I didn't interview him specifically, but he's someone I've known for a very long time and have talked to a lot about his job over the years. Yeah.

• 15:29Sam Fragoso?

  So who describes it as tragic? And who has a sense of humor about it?

• 15:33Speaker 01

  I think the higher you up you ascend, the less tragic you think it is, basically. And I think the lower on the ladder you are, the more tragic you think it is. And the tragedy probably dissipates as you ascend, you know?

• 15:46Sam Fragoso?

  As you ascend further and further from other people.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. From having to feel the influence of their emotions.

• 15:51Sam Fragoso?

  Something approximating emotion and feeling and human tension.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  You insulate yourself from all that.

• 15:58Sam Fragoso?

  I heard that's what you're trying to do as well these days.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Actively, on a moment-to-moment basis.

• 16:03Sam Fragoso?

  I'm glad you didn't point to me on that.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  But I think, yeah, the ones who actually get to make the choices to what movies get made and which ones don't, they feel very empowered and it's a power they wield. The ones who are constantly right outside that are the ones who have a slight, have a more tragic job. Because not only are they caught between art and commerce in a very direct way every single day, but they're kind of dealt a hand and have to live with it. They don't even get to be the ones that are actually pulling the trigger on which way to go. They're the ones who have to tell the director that they're making their movie dumber and they don't, they don't even want to be the ones doing it. And it wasn't even their idea. They just are like mouthpieces for the people above them. That's very tragic, especially when you love movies, you know?

• 16:47Sam Fragoso?

  In your experience, are most studio executives artists in hiding?

• 16:51Speaker 01

  They might say that. I think, I think most studio executives love movies. And I think that's actually like a big misconception is that people think people who work at studios are just like, only care about money. And the truth is, there's like so many other industries you can go into only if you only care about money, you know? So I find that, yeah, most of the studio executives that I interact with genuinely love movies and, and genuinely view themselves as contributive to movies when they're doing their jobs well and subtractive to movies when, when they are forced to compromise. And, and there are people who actually don't care about movies in Hollywood and they're more at like the CEO level, I find. You don't interact with that much and they're not the ones really choosing which movies get made.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  But the people who do choose are responsible, report to those people, you know what I mean? And, and they're scary figures because they are involved in the movie industry, but actually are not movie lovers, you know?

• 17:49Sam Fragoso?

  Tech companies have, including Apple.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:51Sam Fragoso?

  Have gotten into the movie business.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:53Sam Fragoso?

  And I think that has been a fear for many people, which is these are tech people, not film people.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they mostly hire film people to run their divisions, you know?

• 18:01Sam Fragoso?

  So you think that's kind of overblown?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  I do. It's always shifting and moving and everything's always evolving. So like, I think it's always scary when things change. So I get why people are inherently scared of the tech world, especially in general, not one with traditionally the best track record, you know, but what I've found is

• 18:19Sam Fragoso?

  By the way, spoken like someone who was in the Steve Jobs

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. But we've been incredibly creatively empowered by tech companies and we've been incredibly creatively stifled by traditional studios in the past. And so I'd say it's a good combo both.

• 18:34Sam Fragoso?

  I'm curious, like with the industry contracting in the way that it is right now, in the show, there are jokes about DEI initiatives.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:42Sam Fragoso?

  Going out the window, the acceleration of AI, the show is coming off a double labor strike, a historic double labor strike.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:51Sam Fragoso?

  I think the sentiment around studio executives, I would say charitably is not sentimental.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  No, not at all.

• 19:00Sam Fragoso?

  But you and Evan, because the writing is strong and compelling, offer the character of Matt and his colleagues, a degree of empathy. Like you are coming from a place of trying to understand.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:12Sam Fragoso?

  I'm curious, after the past couple of years in Hollywood, did you feel a push to be more critical of the industry?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  No, I'd say that was always something that was interesting to us. If anything, I think over the last few years, we've found optimism that maybe was unexpected, you know?

• 19:31Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. Where did you find that?

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Well, like Barbenheimer is actually a great example is we started writing the show like during COVID, basically. So like when we were writing the show initially, it was like, there was a real sense of like, maybe, maybe this will all go away. And like, maybe we were a part of the last heaves of Hollywood, you know?

• 19:53Sam Fragoso?

  Maybe the interview is our last movie.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Exactly. And, and then. Covid ended and, you know, after the pandemic, as we were writing the show, Barbenheimer happens and, and there's a moment where like, movies are not only incredibly successful, but they occupy culture in a way that I think people thought was never gonna happen ever again, maybe.

• 20:15Sam Fragoso?

  As an actor, did you feel like sort of slighted by the fact that you didn't get the role of Ken or?

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Or Barbie.

• 20:23Sam Fragoso?

  Or Oppenheimer.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Or Oppenheimer, any of them. I was, there was a moment where I was like, am I the only Caucasian actor not in Oppenheimer? Where I was a little, I, yes, I'm like, you got Betty Softy and David Krumwitz, there's not one more Jew around in that. But, uh, it forced us to reimagine our, our entire perspective around Hollywood in, in many ways, which is that it is still possible and, and, and, and you can still do it. And that's almost what's more frustrating at times is that there's this like, you know, golden ring that is still dangling in front of you of like, oh, maybe I can be the person that like saves Hollywood and that, and, and that's like something that I think studio executives genuinely feel and, and it's because it's happened. Like Hollywood is an industry that was markedly affected by singular people, you know what

• 21:09Speaker 01

  I mean? Like George Lucas completely changed the course of the industry. Steven Spielberg completely changed the course of the industry and Robert Evans completely changed the course of the industry. Ted Sarandos completely changed the course of the industry. Like, and a lot of people want to be that person and that was something that we thought that weekend showed us how much that was still possible. And it was a great thing for the character because we were like, oh, my character should be someone who's very inspired and, and who genuinely, delusionally thinks they can be the person to save Hollywood, you know?

• 21:38Sam Fragoso?

  So with all of that optimism.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:42Sam Fragoso?

  All of that belief in self.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:45Sam Fragoso?

  Matt gets the job of studio head.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Instantly sells out.

• 21:48Sam Fragoso?

  And early on in the first episode of the show, once installed in the new position.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:58Sam Fragoso?

  He goes to visit his mentor, played by Catherine O'Hara.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:03Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, why don't we play a clip from that?

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Oh, you poor thing. You have to kill Martin Scorsese's movie.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  I killed one of Warren's movies in 88. They never slept with me again.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  I have the same fear with Marty.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  So, how do you feel in all this?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  You know, I've worked, obviously, a long time to get here. My, you know, my parents are very thrilled, very proud. I think Griffin is, you know, optimistic with the plan.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Matty, not one of those words is about how you feel.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel miserable, honestly. I'm anxious, stressed out, panicking pretty much all the time. I was so much happier two weeks ago when I was just angry and resentful that I didn't have this job. I would give anything to be angry and resentful compared to how I feel right now. You know, I walk past the tour guide every morning, and they say that the office was built as a temple to cinema, but feels much more like a tomb.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Heavy as the head, Matty.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm honored, obviously, to be one of the people that gets to choose, you know, which movies get made and which ones don't. That's huge. And I got into all this because, you know, I love movies, but now I have this fear that my job is to ruin them.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  The job is a meat grinder.

• 23:31Sam Fragoso?

  I got into this job because I love the movies, and now I feel like it's my job to ruin them. That was something that was told to you and Evan in 2000, right?

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were getting notes on a screenplay we were writing that never got made. And yeah, the executive was clearly caught in this exact conflict, where he had kind of, he knew what his bosses were expecting of this script, and he knew the direction that he thought was better for it, and he knew that those two things were at odds, and he was doing the thing that would not get him fired. And he was telling us to change things that he himself didn't believe we should change. And then, yes, he hung his head and said, "I got into this because I love movies, and now it's my job to ruin them." And I think it made us really understand that, yeah, like, a lot of these studio executives do love movies and are genuinely at conflict. And something that was said to me... Very early on, probably by Judd or someone was like, it's, you know, like they call it

• 24:29Speaker 01

  show business for a reason. And those two things have to coexist. And it's not show, show, but it's not business, business. Like it's show business and, and they are the two heads of this, you know?

• 24:40Sam Fragoso?

  That does sound like Judd Apatow.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so these were like the things being instilled with us when we were like early on in our career. And so I think it, it was helpful, but it made us very sympathetic to the people we were dealing with. And as producers and writers, like you interact with studio executives a lot. And so I think the more you understand where they're coming from, the, the better all those interactions are. And we always viewed them as people who wanted generally to do right by us and by, and by the creative world at large. But

• 25:09Sam Fragoso?

  You think in your experience, most of them wanted to do right by you?

• 25:13Speaker 01

  I think on a person to person basis, the executives, yeah, that I interact with, want to be making things better and are constantly having to weigh whether or not that might get them fired.

• 25:26Sam Fragoso?

  The first time you received notes from someone that was paying you was around the age of 13. You're in Vancouver, where you had been hired to write material for a moil.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:36Sam Fragoso?

  Um, which obviously, who hasn't?

• 25:38Speaker 01

  As many comedic writers begin their path.

• 25:41Sam Fragoso?

  And podcasters, that's how it works.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 25:43Sam Fragoso?

  Before podcasting, it's bits for moil.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  You were moil writing.

• 25:46Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, before we get to the punchlines, can you set up this story for us?

• 25:51Speaker 01

  I started doing standup comedy when I was like 13. My mother would drive me to shows and after a show, when I was, yeah, 13 or 14, I was approached by, by a moil. Had the moil explained to me that

• 26:06Sam Fragoso?

  You seem almost embarrassed telling this story.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  I'm still in shock that it's true because it seems crazy. And I'm still amazed that the moil had the instinct of like, I should be funnier up there. Like to me, that's such a funny and a very specifically Jewish thought to have as well, is like, I should put people at ease with humor. But humor is such a risky thing. And if it goes bad, you've done the opposite of put people at ease. You know what I mean?

• 26:31Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think he turned to a kid for help?

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Because I was closer to the Age of the people being circumcised. It's probably because he thought I was cheaper, I would imagine. And I was good enough. Like, I think he weighed economy equality.

• 26:43Sam Fragoso?

  They don't call it business, business.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's show business. And I was at the cross section. And so, yeah, I.

• 26:49Sam Fragoso?

  He offers you $500.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, no, he says he'll pay me like $50 a joke. So I gotta write like 50 jokes and maybe I'm only getting paid for 10 of them. And I write all these moil jokes. Um, my friends thought for sure I was going to be murdered and molested. Maybe, I don't know in which one, but they thought I was insane for going and hanging out with this boy who would pick me up from school in his like Ferrari, like the most like kid alluring car you could possibly imagine. And I remember my friends just watching me get in this boils car being like, we're never gonna see you again. But no, to the contrary, he, he just offered me some less than I would have hoped for the jokes that I had written.

• 27:31Sam Fragoso?

  So you're at the diner.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  We're at a white spot, which is a Canadian restaurant chain. Yeah.

• 27:37Sam Fragoso?

  So you show him the jokes.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  I show him the jokes. Yeah.

• 27:39Sam Fragoso?

  And he, he likes a few of them. I have, I have some of them here if you want to read them for the audience.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Sure. This was a joke where, yes, he would gesture to the kid he's circumcised and say, he's gonna be the coolest dude in preschool. How many kids his age can say they survived a knife fight?

• 27:54Sam Fragoso?

  That's good.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  This is a very Canadian specific joke. I used to work in Winnipeg, but I had to move to Vancouver. You see, there's not a lot of work for a boy who shivers uncontrollably. That's like a very, that's speaking to your base audience, which is Canadians who know it's cold in Winnipeg.

• 28:08Sam Fragoso?

  Actually, you know, we actually have a nice base in Canada.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  There you go. Good. Give it up for our musical act, The Slice Curls.

• 28:13Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, that one's tough.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  That was not a great, that was a timely one.

• 28:16Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Now give me a moment as I oil up the chainsaw.

• 28:22Sam Fragoso?

  All right, do one more.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  The only problem with your boil is you get used to the ceremony. Last night I found myself going through a half hour service before I cut a carrot for my salad. It's a little, it's a little sweaty. It's a long walk, but maybe he got there.

• 28:35Sam Fragoso?

  Hey, no, it's about the destination. No, no, it's about the journey.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 28:40Sam Fragoso?

  So he negotiated with you.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:43Sam Fragoso?

  Saying, I'm only gonna pay for some of these.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  For the jokes I like.

• 28:47Sam Fragoso?

  And you as a teenager.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:49Sam Fragoso?

  Say what?

• 28:50Speaker 01

  I think I said you gotta pay me for all of them.

• 28:51Sam Fragoso?

  As a T, like, I read that story in your book.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:54Sam Fragoso?

  I guess I was struck by the gumption of you as a teenager going, I'm gonna negotiate with this grown man.

• 29:03Sam Fragoso?

  Who is trying to cheat me out of some money?

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:07Sam Fragoso?

  Like you held your ground.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  I did. I really wanted money. I was only doing it for money. I knew this was not like a career longevity play. I wasn't gonna be writing oil jokes for the rest of my life. So I couldn't extract what I needed from him in that moment. Yeah. And I saw, I don't, don't pick a kid up in a fucking Ferrari and then cheap out on paying him for his jokes, for God's sakes. Like, come on.

• 29:28Sam Fragoso?

  Did he make you split the bill at the diner?

• 29:30Speaker 01

  No, I walked out of there. I was like, I'm not even gonna wait for this bill. I'm going home.

• 29:35Sam Fragoso?

  So in that period, you and Evan are buddies.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:40Sam Fragoso?

  You guys watched American Pie.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  It was some other high school movie.

• 29:44Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:44Sam Fragoso?

  But it just didn't feel like your high school.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:47Sam Fragoso?

  And you two thought, we could write this.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were like, let's try to write a movie based on our experience in high school, basically.

• 29:54Sam Fragoso?

  Every teenager says that.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Do they?

• 29:57Sam Fragoso?

  Every teenager's like, oh, we can, this movie sucks. We could do a better thing.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  We actually did it.

• 30:02Sam Fragoso?

  You actually did it?

• 30:05Sam Fragoso?

  Where did the confidence come from to do it?

• 30:07Speaker 01

  No, it was, it was sort of like a mixture of confidence and like delusion and like, I was doing stand up at the time. And I was doing stand up with adults who made their living doing stand up and, and I would start to tell jokes that were like some of the things that became like scenes in Superbad, basically, you know? About wanting to hook up with girls and trying to buy beer and stuff like that. And I saw that like, it was really landing and that people really seemed to be like connecting with our like, very lived in version of what it was like to be in high school. And so like, there was like encouraging things, I guess, where we were like, sort of led to believe like this, people like this, like I, maybe this could work. And we also were big fans of like independent film. And, and at that time was really when like,

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Clerks and Rushmore and, and we loved like very cheap movies. And so we were like, worse comes to worse. Like we could just make this. Like we should write a movie that's set like on the street and in houses and places that are easily accessible. And, and if no one else wants to make it, then, then we'll just make it. We weren't writing like some alien epic. Like we were writing something that was like very obtainable, we thought. We were wrong. It took a very long time to get the movie made, but that was really like our thought process. We might as well try, you know?

• 31:22Sam Fragoso?

  Well, when you land the, the, the part on Freaks and Geeks.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:25Sam Fragoso?

  You go to Los Angeles and Judd becomes a, I don't know, a kind of mentor to you. Would he let you into the room to, to listen to the notes process?

• 31:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, he would let me like listen in on the calls. And that was actually another one of the like building blocks for the show was something I always remembered is he was like, what you have to remember is all these people are like a 10 out of 10 panic all the time. And they feel rightfully so that anything they say or do in any moment might end their entire careers, basically.

• 31:56Sam Fragoso?

  But you were 16 in that room hearing grownups.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  They did sound like grownups.

• 32:03Sam Fragoso?

  And they never did.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Exactly. And he started when he was very young. So I think the fact that I was young, he, he, he really didn't view me as like a novelty. He saw that I was really dedicated to this and really wanted to do it. And, and so he, yeah, was like outwardly instructive and, and, and went out of his way to sort of mentor me and usher me through the specifics of, of how the industry works, you know? And yeah, I, I would write scenes for Freaks and Geeks and try to get them on the show. I would pitch episode ideas like, and I, and I had already written Superbad. I was still working on it, but like there was a draft of it. So I think he also saw that like I had completed a screenplay.

• 32:41Sam Fragoso?

  That you and Evan are serious.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. It wasn't like a joke to us. I'm like, we, we really wanted to do this.

• 32:47Sam Fragoso?

  All right. So you, you, you moved to Los Angeles and then you drop out of high school.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 32:52Sam Fragoso?

  Before you do that, there is an excerpt from a high school yearbook that I wanted you to read.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Oh no.

• 33:00Sam Fragoso?

  Have you at about 16, 17?

• 33:03Speaker 01

  This is legitimately embarrassing.

• 33:05Sam Fragoso?

  Giddy.

• 33:08Sam Fragoso?

  This is the most red you've been in this whole interview.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  It's actually embarrassing.

• 33:13Sam Fragoso?

  You wrote a book called Yearbook.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:16Sam Fragoso?

  Which is getting a lot of promo here today, but this quote is not actually in this book.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Oh no, I did not put that quote in that book.

• 33:26Sam Fragoso?

  So here you are.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 33:28Sam Fragoso?

  Age sixteen, seventeen, something like that.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  I wrote, ever since I started earning more than my own teachers, everything fell into perspective. I'm somebody who grew up with no money, which was also a part of my, I had a real chip on my shoulder. I'm accepting of the fact that I have a very, I very may well never have another job. And in time, they have to burn this very yearbook to keep warm. However, right now, if feeling good or a train, I'd be the engineer.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  I was probably very high when I wrote that.

• 34:00Sam Fragoso?

  Why does that make you so embarrassed?

• 34:05Sam Fragoso?

  You were a kid that like believed in themselves, though.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Yes, I was a kid who believed in themselves. No, it's I'd say the swipe at my teacher's salaries is probably the thing I would, that movie I would rework. Would I to write that again today? But, uh, but.

• 34:19Sam Fragoso?

  Definitely tough for them.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  It is. Yeah, it's, it's embarrassing in some ways, but I, I stand by it in others.

• 34:26Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, and that's, that's kind of the point of Talk Easy is we want to make sure you stand by.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  The humiliating things I've done.

• 34:32Sam Fragoso?

  I don't know what they told you about this show.

• 34:36Sam Fragoso?

  I actually found, I found that, one, to be funny and two, kind of incredible in the way that when you're young and making stuff, in some ways, you're more bold.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. I was much more confident when I was younger, like I had never failed, you know? Um, I failed in some ways, but like I, I, I think I took quality for granted, you know? I was very lucky in that, like, a lot of the first things I did just turned out well. And that doesn't always happen, you know?

• 35:09Sam Fragoso?

  But, you know, even amid that, Freaks and Geeks is fantastic.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:12Sam Fragoso?

  But it was canceled.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  It was canceled. I think that's where some of the more critical parts of our view of networks and studios and things like that comes from is my first foray into it, yes, was, you know, great work and everyone loved it. And then it was, you know, very well received. And then the head of the network just like didn't get it. And so they, and so he didn't support it and they kind of set it up to fail. And a lot of these things are self fulfilling prophecies in a lot of ways, you know? And so, yeah, I also saw very quickly, like, how bad a bad executive can be, you know?

• 35:45Sam Fragoso?

  Did you find that demoralizing at the time? Or, or, or was it in some strange way liberating to know it's out of your control?

• 35:54Speaker 01

  I think it gave me like a chip on my shoulder that motivated me and probably wanted me to prove people wrong and probably gave me like an animosity that fueled me, you know? And I was a lot angrier back then at the industry in general because I wasn't successful. And so I-

• 36:11Sam Fragoso?

  What did Seth's with a lot of animosity look like?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  I was like smoking weed on Jason Segel's cows, just kind of whining about everything and complaining I wasn't getting sent on the additions he was getting sent on and getting sent the scripts he was getting sent to. I was working so hard writing Superbad and Pineapple Express and I thought they were these great screenplays. And meanwhile, I was like struggling to get auditions for things that I thought were so much worse than the stuff that I was writing, you know? And yeah, it was a lot of, it was a lot of that. You were getting an earful of that if you were hanging out with me in 2003.

• 36:44Sam Fragoso?

  But that feeling of going, God, I'm working so hard at something and people just don't seem to give a shit.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I still see it a lot. I know a lot of people who live with that on a day to day basis, you know?

• 36:57Sam Fragoso?

  How did you hold on?

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Because there's no option to even quit if you're a movie person, I think.

• 37:03Sam Fragoso?

  It was too late.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  It's too late. Like-

• 37:06Sam Fragoso?

  You already had the thing in the yearbook.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. How do you come back from that? And everyone's like that here. Or not everyone, but I'd say like the grand majority of people are dedicated to trying. And I think they understand that if they get old and never made anything, that they will look back and know they tried and not know that they gave up. And I think that that is a more comforting thought to many people, myself included.

• 37:33Sam Fragoso?

  After the break, more from Seth Rogen.

• 37:42Sam Fragoso?

  I think a lot of us are going to spend the next few weeks looking for gifts online. And while I like finding something thoughtful for the people in my life, the process can get a little ridiculous. You've got a dozen tabs open, you're comparing prices, you're trying to remember which store had that one thing you saw that has a deal, and you flagged it, and you saved it, and now you can't find it. Anyway, that's what I like about Shop. Shop brings all kinds of stores together in one place, so you can search for what you're looking for across different brands, while discovering new ones along the way, plus tracking all your orders without jumping in between websites. And just in time for the holidays, they're celebrating the all-new shop.com with a pretty extraordinary giveaway. 1,000 shoppers will win $1,000 in Shop Cash.

• 38:28Sam Fragoso?

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• 38:59Sam Fragoso?

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• 39:42Sam Fragoso?

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• 40:27Sam Fragoso?

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• 41:01Sam Fragoso?

  You said recently, I think movies are a good indicator of the culture. In that period of your early movies, The Forty Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Knocked Up, if you're thinking about movies as a cultural indicator, what do you think those signified?

• 41:17Speaker 01

  I think it signified like, in some ways, like a discomfort with how outwardly masculine a lot of, or in a way misogynistic, a lot of movie narratives were becoming, you know what I mean? And I think growing up with those things and how sexualized they were and how comfortable everyone was with how sexualized they were. And I think as awkward guys who weren't that cool, we felt a lot of discomfort with that stuff. And we loved American Pie when it came out. But I think Superbad in many ways is like. The exact opposite of that movie, you know what I mean? Even though they're kind of about the same thing at face value. I think our attitude towards it is completely based on fear.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Whereas their attitude towards it is completely based on desire, you know? Um, and, and, and it's the same thing with Four Year Old Virgin. Like it's about a guy who's like afraid to have sex. And that is not who would have been the protagonist in it. You know, we grew up with like 10, like, you know, it's really, it's like all about all horny people. It's like their movies were like the, the theme is horny.

• 42:19Sam Fragoso?

  And they're weirdly confident about it.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Yes, they're very confident about it. And that was just not how we felt. And I think those movies really were like explorations and, and kind of coming away from those types of narratives, you know?

• 42:32Sam Fragoso?

  You didn't feel confident?

• 42:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 42:39Sam Fragoso?

  Did the movies doing well help you with being confident?

• 42:44Speaker 01

  I don't think so. I mean, I think with work in it is one thing like, but I don't know if it helped my moment to moment confidence, you know? And I've had moments where my career is going great and my personal confidence is not that high. And I've had moments where my career is not going that well and my personal confidence is pretty good. So I think there isn't as much of a correlation, I guess. But for sure, when stuff is coming out, I feel more vulnerable and, and if the stuff is received well, I'm definitely happier than I am if it's not, you know?

• 43:11Sam Fragoso?

  I, I'm thinking about like leading into this is the end.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:16Sam Fragoso?

  Which is the first movie you and Evan directed.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 43:20Sam Fragoso?

  I rewatched it the other week and I was thinking like, oh, this is a kind of precursor to the studio in some way.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  For sure. Yeah, definitely.

• 43:27Sam Fragoso?

  Where are you at on that movie? Like, how do you think about it now?

• 43:31Speaker 01

  I'm so proud of it. I think it's so funny. I'm, I'm amazed we pulled it off. It's one of those things I look at it and I'm like, it's such a crazy idea that the fact that we.

• 43:41Sam Fragoso?

  Definitely Larry Sanders inspired.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  For sure. And, and, and it's something me and Evan had joked about for a long time because we also are like, we're fans of like genre. Like we grew up loving horror movies and monster movies and, and, and very violent movies and, you know? And so the fact that we were able to really combine. Our love for like, you know, meta commentary and kind of blurring the line between real and not real with like an incredibly crazy genre play while also kind of being about religion and morality and friendship. You know, it's something that I'm very proud of and I think it's, and I'm so, it was so much fun to do. And, and it was a group of people that we had all come up together. And I think there was a sense as we were doing it, honestly, where we were like,

• 44:27Speaker 01

  this is maybe the last time we'll ever get to do something like this. And so we should really enjoy it and try to make it great, you know?

• 44:34Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean by that?

• 44:35Speaker 01

  It just, we could already feel like we were also kind of going in different directions and kind of developing our own careers. And there was some sense of just like the odds that this happens again are, are small, you know?

• 44:46Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. Is that how it played out in, in the aftermath? I mean, friendship wise and creatively?

• 44:51Speaker 01

  No, I was, I still work with some of those people and they still come around and.

• 44:56Sam Fragoso?

  But it felt like an end of an era of some kind.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  A little bit. It felt like the end of this like raucous R rated comedy era that we kind of had been part of ushering in the previous decade, basically, you know? And I could just see like Jonah was about to go be in Wolf of Wall Street and McBride was doing his own shows, you know what I mean? And it did just feel like, yeah, we were kind of going in our different directions. Everyone was just getting a little older and kind of developing new interests and.

• 45:23Sam Fragoso?

  People are having kids.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so it did feel like maybe like a good, a good bookend to, to, to what we'd been doing together in some ways. Yeah.

• 45:31Sam Fragoso?

  It's amazing that you have a document of the end of, of the end of something.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:37Sam Fragoso?

  Like both your movie, but also in some ways a snapshot of where you all were at.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it was a very personal thing. And, and we thought a lot about that movie as we were writing this show, you know, like Superbad felt like a definitive work of our teen years and Pineapple Express felt like a definitive work of our twenties when we're just spending a lot of time sitting around smoking weed and, and not really maximizing our potential. And this is the.

• 46:02Sam Fragoso?

  This is the complaining on Jason Segel's couch.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Exactly. And, and this is the end felt like a very definitive representation of our thirties as far as. We were becoming much more successful and famous and our friend groups were going in different directions, people's priorities were shifting and, and we were really outwardly exploring like what, what could be a definitive look at, at our forties and, and this idea was also born of that like thought process.

• 46:27Sam Fragoso?

  So in writing the studio, it does feel like a spiritual sequel, I guess, to this is the end, or at least there's some lineage between the two.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  For sure. Yeah. And I think it just speaks to like our taste and, and, and creative sensibilities. Like we just like things where that blur the line between the real world and the fictional world, you know?

• 46:49Sam Fragoso?

  After this is the end, you make the interview.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:52Sam Fragoso?

  And you had this quote where you said, "It was something that for sure, we felt like we burned our hands on the stove. I don't think it's a coincidence that we haven't directed a film since."

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably. We've tried.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  And we've had opportunities to as well.

• 47:08Sam Fragoso?

  But that film, you know, you told Dave Chang this, this thing on his Netflix show that I thought was so good, where you're like, oh, in talking about the notes process as we have throughout, you're like, that one could have used.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  Could have used more scrutiny.

• 47:23Sam Fragoso?

  Do you feel, do you still feel that way?

• 47:25Speaker 01

  I mean, it is funny that I think it was one of the easiest paths we've had to production because we were kind of coming off this string of hits and, you know.

• 47:35Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think you need that friction?

• 47:37Speaker 01

  No, but I think we, something we say a lot is friction makes fire. And that has been a joke that we had ever said amongst each other, but it's, it's actually true in some ways when it comes to the creative process. I do think sometimes a longer path to production helps because someone second guesses everything at some point or another and, and often that, that helps things. I don't know if, if we had waited longer, got more notes, if

• 48:01Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  that movie wouldn't have started at war. But, but it's a fun thing to hypothesize.

• 48:06Sam Fragoso?

  That fallout was especially insane.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  It was a lot. But I, I think the show also wouldn't have happened without that happening because it granted us access to this like whole upper level of studio bureaucracy that we would have never been exposed to otherwise.

• 48:23Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  You know, we were all of a sudden with like the CEOs of the company, not the people who are running the day to day of the studio, you know? And, and those are the people who are scary and those are the people who actually don't care about movies and just care about money, you know? And, and those are the people that we've found to be. Terrifying.

• 48:40Sam Fragoso?

  Did you interview Michael Linton for this show?

• 48:42Speaker 01

  I wish. I don't know if we're on speech terms.

• 48:45Sam Fragoso?

  I have a feeling you may not be, and only for one reason, which is you do compare him to the devil in your book.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  I do, yes. Several times.

• 48:53Sam Fragoso?

  People famously don't love that.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  It's like that joke in Crimes and Misdemeanors where Woody Allen's like, you'd think no one had ever been compared to Mussolini before.

• 49:05Sam Fragoso?

  Speaking of crimes and misdemeanors, the Sony hacks of it all.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:10Sam Fragoso?

  Let's call it a segue.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  It's a good one.

• 49:13Sam Fragoso?

  Were you more upset about the circus around it? Or the fact that in the middle of the circus, people still went out of their way to talk about how they didn't like the movie?

• 49:22Speaker 01

  That was far more offensive to me, for sure. From an ego standpoint, 100%.

• 49:27Sam Fragoso?

  Like Nick Kroll going to your charity event and saying, quote, "Your failure to wrangle James Franco's performance gave the whole movie tonal problems."

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's a scathing indictment of the film itself. And he's right. That's the worst part. I know he's right.

• 49:48Sam Fragoso?

  On the other side of that, emotionally, that first quote of like, we were kind of gun shy after that.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:57Sam Fragoso?

  I sense like emotionally and ego wise, you were a little wounded. You're a little like, oh God.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 50:03Sam Fragoso?

  We tried really hard to make something and.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  And no one liked it. And some people really didn't like it. And actually, I'm amazed and grateful at how many people actually come up to me in heaven telling us how much they love the movie, which is very lovely. And I think since its release, it has sort of found more fans, you know?

• 50:21Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, you pointed to me again.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Exactly. You're one of them, kind of. So I think, kind of. You said you kind of liked it.

• 50:28Sam Fragoso?

  It's not my favorite.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's not mine either.

• 50:31Sam Fragoso?

  You've made better things, but I do like it. I do.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  There's funny parts. But I think, I think the combination of things were a bummer, that it was so much in the spotlight and it was not being viewed as our best work. And I think that.

• 50:45Sam Fragoso?

  And people were reading some of your emails.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Exactly. That I was honestly, I was much. Less embarrassed about that than the fact that like people were just like outwardly shitting on the quality of it, you know? Like truthfully, that's really mostly what I care about is I just want the work to be good and and and to be able to stand by it, you know? And and so I honestly, the thing that was the most wounding was that it was like the butt of the joke, you know?

• 51:10Sam Fragoso?

  The year before you made this is the end and you thought this is kind of the end of an era.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:15Sam Fragoso?

  And then the next year you made the interview and it was like, no, this is definitely.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  This is the end of an era. No, this is the end.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Honestly, and one of the most frustrating things is like the interview was gonna do well. Even before any of that stuff, it was tracking to be one of our more successful movies. And that was also a hit movie is a thing that is like, you could make movies your whole life and never have a movie be successful. And so that was also something that was like stripped from us in a way that at the time was very hurtful and damaging was like, we were gonna have a hit movie. And that's also a good revenge when people don't think the movie's good is at least it makes money sometimes. And you're able to rub that in their faces, but we we weren't given that opportunity.

• 52:02Sam Fragoso?

  But at least you got to come on this podcast 10 years later.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  You know what? And gesture towards you freely.

• 52:09Sam Fragoso?

  So how do you? How do you? How do you and Evan find your way back to confidence and, you know, not feeling wounded and ready to write again?

• 52:18Speaker 01

  I mean, we'd been writing the whole time also, you know, we, we just didn't have an idea until the show that felt like it was the thing we should really try to put all of ourselves behind.

• 52:31Sam Fragoso?

  Right. For you to star in.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And and one of the things we ask ourselves when we're gonna direct something is like, you know, we're very fortunate that we have access to a lot of great directors for our work. And we're like, are we the only people who could direct this thing? And that was really, that was really clear on this is the end is we were like, no one will do this unless we're directing it. And that became a similar thing with the studio where it was like, we felt that like in order to actually. Do what we wanted. We had to be the ones to direct it. You know, like, we were gonna direct the pilot for the boys, but we were asking ourselves that question. We were like, are we the only people who could direct this? And we were friends with Dan Trachtenberg, who's a great director. And we were like, honestly, he could probably do it better than us.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  And if he is willing to do it, then we'll step away and he should do it. And if he isn't willing to do it, then we will do it.

• 53:22Sam Fragoso?

  I want to talk about writing for a second. You and Evan start writing at thirteen.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:29Sam Fragoso?

  And the two of you worked very much in real time. In Superbad, it wasn't remember when that happened. It was this just happened today.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:39Sam Fragoso?

  We're putting this in the movie. And a lot of the work that you two made and were part of came out of that. I mean, your friend Will Reiser and his story turned into fifty fifty.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:52Sam Fragoso?

  For the memoir, Yearbook, you interviewed old classmates and spoke to them about the experience. For the studio, you're interviewing studio heads, you're, you know, talking to executives. It's very lived in.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:05Sam Fragoso?

  I think for most people, as they get older, their world does get smaller. And the majority of your time now is spent working on projects, writing, producing, house plant, your company, all of this. When your world gets smaller like that, is it harder to write about lived experiences? Are there just less of them?

• 54:23Speaker 01

  I think it's what we're aiming for, but it's not the only thing we pull from, you know? And we, like Ninja Turtles is not based on our lived experience, you know what I mean?

• 54:31Sam Fragoso?

  That would have been incredible if it came out and you're like, this is our most personal project today.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  And it is very personal in many ways, but it isn't based on us explicitly, you know what I mean? But we developed the boys, Preacher, all these shit. Like, they were not very based on our personal experience. They were just things we loved and things that we knew we would be fans of if they were out in the world. So there are two categories of thing to me and Evan, which is like the highly personal thing. And the thing that as movie lovers or TV lovers, we would just be thrilled if someone else made that. And, and, and we would get to watch it. So why not be the ones who are, who are making it?

• 55:06Sam Fragoso?

  Does weed help with the writing? I ask that because in this book. You have this line, unfortunately, as well designed as people are, we just aren't completely cut out for this world we live in. We need shoes, sunblock, exercise, toilet paper and weed. I'm not quite cut out for this world, but weed makes it okay.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it's not a feeling that I hold a lot of stigma towards, you know what I mean? And I think people are very selective as to like what what they stigmatize, you know? And and the idea that we're not cut out for this world is commonly accepted, as is evidenced by the many accoutrements we need to get by in the day to day world. You know what I mean? Yeah, like, I think people are very weird about their brains as well. That's like something I've found in general is people are uncomfortable with mental health and talking about that kind of thing and accepting that maybe your brain could use some help as your feet or eyes or hands can when it's cold, you know? And and to me, that just isn't a thing I'm uncomfortable with, I guess. Yeah, and it's a thing that I just fully recognize in myself, you know?

• 56:11Speaker 01

  And and a thing I stopped really thinking a lot about 20 years ago.

• 56:16Sam Fragoso?

  When you testified before Congress.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:19Sam Fragoso?

  You called yourself a self medicated man child.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  You know, I'm going for laughs, but yeah.

• 56:26Sam Fragoso?

  They got laughs.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:28Sam Fragoso?

  Getting getting laughs in that building.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  Try to get, you know, you do, you can.

• 56:34Sam Fragoso?

  Have you found weed to be the best medicine for your brain?

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and sometimes no weed is the best medicine for my brain. Like, if I'm, I actually find weed does the exact opposite of a lot of people think. It's like, if I'm anxious, weed does not help. Like weed makes me more anxious if I'm very anxious. And I actually smoke much more weed when I'm just kind of happy and relaxed than I do if I'm stressed out about something, you know? But for me, it's, for whatever reason, just always something I've enjoyed and gravitated towards, and I never find it muted my emotions or anything like that, you know? I wish it would at times, but it does not. I just stopped thinking about it eventually, just as one stops being critical of themselves for not having feet that don't need cushioning beneath them, you know?

• 57:23Sam Fragoso?

  Bringing us back to this new show.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Another segue.

• 57:29Sam Fragoso?

  In the show, Matt has a lot of anxieties that are very on the surface and, and, and big. When you say you wish we'd muted some of those, what is that for you? Like, it's not on the surface the way it is for Matt and your character.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  No, I hide it much better. I'm a much better actor than Matt is. And that was a very specific trait that I wanted to reflect is, is I've worked with a lot of executives over the years who have bad poker faces and who you see every ounce of anguish, you know, oozing through their pores and, and it doesn't even look like they're trying to hide it.

• 58:05Sam Fragoso?

  And you're saying your poker face is good?

• 58:06Speaker 01

  I'm much better at, at suppressing and concealing my emotions.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  But it's still, it's still a pain in the ass sometimes. Yeah, I'm getting older, my body is doing weird things, you know? I think all that is, it's a lot to shoulder at times.

• 58:21Sam Fragoso?

  Speaking of things changing, the film industry is going through it. We, we talked about it in the beginning. I want to bring us back to the show.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Great.

• 58:27Sam Fragoso?

  What does it say about the industry that you two, that you and Evan have made a TV show on Apple about the love of movies instead of a movie about the love of movies?

• 58:40Speaker 01

  We could have made a movie about it. It would not have been as well resourced as the show. It would not have been as well supported as the show. And honestly, we conceived of it as a TV show, you know? But I think it does speak to how things shift and they ebb and they flow. And right now you have TV, these streaming services are trying to build up their libraries and build up their programming and lure people to their services. And as a result, they're taking a lot of big risks and they are, they're making a lot of things that are things that major studios wouldn't take the same bets on in this moment. And that is reflective of the industry. But to me, again, in, in real life, it's not a thing that I am like incredibly bent out of shape about.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  It's a thing that we acknowledge and, and we, we play into it, but it's not lost on us. Like we understand how ironic that is. And, but at the same time, it was the best way to tell the story that we wanted to tell.

• 59:35Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think you're not incredibly bent out of shape?

• 59:38Speaker 01

  In general?

• 59:41Sam Fragoso?

  In particular about that because you had a pretty good swing at it. I mean, you guys got to make those movies.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Yes, for sure. And and I don't think it's gonna stop. You know what I mean? Like, I genuinely don't.

• 59:54Sam Fragoso?

  You think the dumerism stuff about Hollywood is overblown?

• 59:56Speaker 01

  I totally do. And I think one movie changes the whole climate of the industry. And people are like, this kind of movie is never gonna do well again. And then one comes out, it does well, and everyone's like, never mind, they will. Things shift and it's a very fluid industry. And I think some people are always trying to define it. But it's a hard thing to define. And that's something that I think me and Evan are sort of try to be at peace with, rather than trying to wrangle, you know? And that, I think, is what leads to us being like, oh, we have this idea. Seems like TV is where they'll let us do this. Okay, we'll make it into a TV show. Oh, we want to make this kind of movie. We gotta call it Ninja Turtles. Okay, we'll call it Ninja Turtles. Like, that to us isn't like, it's fine.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  And some people hate that. And then they really rage against it. But but we we don't, you know? I've I've seen so many trends come. We saw, you know, superhero movies weren't a thing. Now they're a thing. You know, people in the early 60s were like, Westerns, like, it's not a Western. No one wants to see it. And now it's not like that anymore, you know? We've just seen that these things come and go. And and and I do think there will be movies like the ones we made that come out and capture the attention of the culture again. I just think today is not that day, but in three months, it could happen.

• 1:01:17Sam Fragoso?

  In 2020, when pessimism was at an all time high.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:22Sam Fragoso?

  Were you and Evan felt like, oh, boy.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Is this over?

• 1:01:25Sam Fragoso?

  Is this over?

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:26Sam Fragoso?

  Your company would do a virtual film club?

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Sam Fragoso?

  And one of the films you all watched was Itu Mama Tambien.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:36Sam Fragoso?

  And you somehow, speaking of wrangling.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:40Sam Fragoso?

  Got Alfonso Cuaron to come on the Zoom.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:43Sam Fragoso?

  And talk about his experience with the movie and his experience with the industry at large.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:50Sam Fragoso?

  Do you remember that, that back and forth?

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Very much so. I mean, it was amazing. And actually, it was very inspirational as to how we shot the show in a lot of ways.

• 1:02:01Sam Fragoso?

  Children of Men and the, and the tracking shots.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  And, and the tracking shot and, and Itu Mama Tambien has a lot of tracking shots and a lot of the scenes are actually singular takes, you know? Yeah. And I remember he was saying that him and his cinematographer.

• 1:02:15Sam Fragoso?

  Chiba.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  They, they had made a lot of films together and they were like, let's just kind of throw everything out the window and, and kind of just do this as though we were doing whatever the fuck we wanted, basically, and not subscribe to the formalities of filmmaking and what we know is, you know, the rudimentary way to make a movie and the list of things you check off as you're putting a scene together. How would we do this? We just knew nothing about making movies and we were just kind of capturing it, you know? And that's something that was very inspirational to me and Evan and, and we came up in a very specific way of, of capturing comedy especially. And, and hearing him say that was, was really exciting and, and, and it's one of our favorite movies.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  And, and so this idea of like, let's try something similar, both in its ethos and, and in its literal sense in, you know, what if we kind of just shot this in a way that was completely different how we'd ever done anything? And was really kind of throwing all the rules we understood out the window. And also the idea of doing long singular takes, we felt really added to like the, the narrative of the show, which was like one of panic and stress and uneasiness and.

• 1:03:23Sam Fragoso?

  The hits.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  You know, all the hits.

• 1:03:25Sam Fragoso?

  You, you brought in Adam Newport-Bera.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:28Sam Fragoso?

  The cinematographer to do that.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:30Sam Fragoso?

  Very talented.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  He's great. Great guy. Yes. Unbelievable dude.

• 1:03:33Sam Fragoso?

  Did you find making comedy in that? Framework challenging?

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Yes, but in a great way.

• 1:03:40Sam Fragoso?

  Not a ton of coverage.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  No coverage ever. Like, I mean, it was literally as we were pointing at the camera, whoever was talking, basically. And also trying to recreate cinematic moments within that, you know?

• 1:03:52Sam Fragoso?

  The show should come with Dramamine, but that's.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. In a theater, it's a lot. But yeah, like, we also wanted there to be wide shots, beautiful shots, tracking shots, you know, things that found the characters, things that came from, you know, narratively set the scenes in different ways, you know? But yeah, the comedy, especially as hard as comedy, I'm sure, as you know, is like all about timing. And the thing you probably manipulate the most in the editing room is the timing of things, you know? And I think that these singular takes are also kind of a shorthand for showcases in ability in some ways. Like, if there's a fight scene, that's an all in one take, like, what you take away from it is not only like the narrative desired impact, but you're like, wow,

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  this is impressive. It's impressive that these people are able to do that. And I like the idea of showcasing the comedic abilities of the people on the show in that way, in a way where they, in the moment, were forced to create the rhythms that you are used to seeing as the finished product of a comedy. And I had a deep fear for the first few weeks of shooting that I knew the scripts were good and people were really responding to them and they were really funny scripts. And my fear was that we made the stylistic choice that was undercutting the comedy rather than bolstering it.

• 1:05:08Sam Fragoso?

  Where the timing would be.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, or just, or just like, would it be better if we just, exactly. You did it. Would it be better if we just shot it normal is what I kept kind of saying to Evan. It's like, should we just be shooting this normal? And he was like, no, crazy, insane. Evan has, for wherever I lack confidence, Evan makes up for it, which is, I think, a good part of our dynamic.

• 1:05:33Sam Fragoso?

  It's that dynamic I want to end with.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:35Sam Fragoso?

  Because we have to go.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  Great.

• 1:05:36Sam Fragoso?

  This is my last question.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 1:05:38Sam Fragoso?

  In that decade between the interview and the studio.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:42Sam Fragoso?

  Where you two were making other things, but certainly not your project.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:05:48Sam Fragoso?

  And it was in part Quaran who helped you find your way back to making something with that youthful spirit.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Sam Fragoso?

  And I was just wondering if you had thought, the first film you two wrote, Superbad. It feels kinda like a more crass, younger version or prequel to E2Mama Tom Yen.

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, in some ways, for sure.

• 1:06:12Sam Fragoso?

  And I'm thinking about the parallel final scenes. Them in the diner.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:17Sam Fragoso?

  Evan and Seth in the mall.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:20Sam Fragoso?

  On the escalator going in opposite directions.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:06:24Speaker 07

  So Seth.

• 1:06:27Speaker 07

  So do you wanna come buy me cover up or something? I mean, you kinda owe me.

• 1:06:35Speaker 08

  Yeah, definitely. I would love to do that.

• 1:06:39Speaker 08

  I had such bad acne last year that I pretty much became like an expert on the stuff.

• 1:06:45Speaker 08

  You drove, Evan drove me here, though, so.

• 1:06:47Speaker 07

  Well, I mean, I have my dad's car, so I could just give you a lift and then Evan could take Becca home. Okay. If that works. I don't know if it's in your route. Can we find a place?

• 1:06:59Speaker 08

  Fine, yeah. Maybe we can get some food.

• 1:07:03Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'd like that.

• 1:07:07Speaker 08

  So I guess I'll call you. Yeah, let me call. Yeah, you have my number. I have your information, so, uh, put her there. Perfect. Good, uh, all right then. Okay. Okay, guys. Becca?

• 1:07:20Speaker 07

  Hi, guys. Hi, you guys. See you, Jules.

• 1:07:23Speaker 08

  Yeah, it's funny.

• 1:07:26Speaker 07

  Where do you wanna go to eat?

• 1:07:30Speaker 07

  So can you honestly help me figure out what kinda cover ups to get? I mean, I don't know.

• 1:07:44Sam Fragoso?

  I guess my last question is, you and Evan, your brains like have formed around working together.

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:52Sam Fragoso?

  What does that look like after nearly 30 years?

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  It is our 30 year anniversary this year. We keep saying we should throw a party or something like that. It honestly probably looks shockingly similar to how it always looked. Like, I think we've gotten much better at it, honestly, over the years. We worked out some kinks. I think when we were younger, we would have. More issues with one another's kind of working habits and styles at times. We have a very similar work ethic and I think that has been very helpful to us. Is that like neither of us is the lazy one or neither of us is the one who isn't as passionate about the thing as as the other one is, you know? And neither of us feels that the less work needs to go into a thing in order for it to be great, like we're very aligned as to what we feel is necessary in order to make something work in the way that we want it to.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  And we're also, our taste is essentially the same. And I, I know we picture the stuff the same as we're talking about it, which is also like a rare thing as we are talking about the tone of the scenes and the, and the episodes and the jokes, like I just know we're picturing literally the exact same thing. So that's also very helpful, you know? And, but it's not lost on us. Like we both feel very fortunate and grateful that we have a dynamic that's lasted so long that we still enjoy hanging out with each other. We went, you know, we like, we go to dinner, we see each other socially still, we go on trips together, you know? Like we, we still actually like hanging out together, which is also not always how this goes, you know what I mean? So we don't take it for granted. We know a lot of teams who have been together like as long as we have that have broken up over the years.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  And so we, we see that it can happen and, and we're happy it hasn't happened to us.

• 1:09:34Sam Fragoso?

  I'm, I'm so glad it hasn't happened to you too.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, great, thanks.

• 1:09:39Sam Fragoso?

  And at the risk of getting too sentimental, I just wanna thank you for shaping in good ways and, and negative ways, uh, some of my childhood.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  No problem, my pleasure. And I'm sorry.

• 1:09:50Sam Fragoso?

  And most importantly, um, I hope it's not a decade in between the next thing.

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  Me too, that'd be great, that'd be lovely.

• 1:10:00Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, Seth Rogen, thank you for the time.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:10:16Sam Fragoso?

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• 1:11:00Sam Fragoso?

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• 1:11:42Sam Fragoso?

  And that's our show.

• 1:11:44Sam Fragoso?

  If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave us five stars on Spotify, leave us a review on Apple. If you want to go above and beyond, you can share the program on social media and tag us at Talk Easy Pod. I want to give a special thanks this week to the teams at IDPR and Apple, and of course, our guest Seth Rogen. His excellent new series, The Studio, is now available to stream on Apple TV+. New episodes air every Wednesday. For more talks, I'd recommend my conversations with Judd Apatow, Natasha Lyonne, and Jesse Eisenberg. To hear those and more Lemonada podcasts, listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.

• 1:12:27Sam Fragoso?

  You can also subscribe to Lemonada Premium for bonus content. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or head to lemonadapremium.com. If you want to purchase one of our mugs, they come in cream or navy. You can do so at talkeasypod.com/shop. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janix Bravo. Today's talk was edited by Adam Jamal and Ariel Gardner and mixed by Andrew Vastola. It was taped out of Operation Podcast in Los Angeles, California. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Chris Shennoy. Photographs today by Julius Chu, with additional research from Callie Conley.

• 1:13:09Sam Fragoso?

  This episode was made in partnership with the good people at Lemonada Media, and I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next week with Jenny Slate. Until then, stay safe and so long.

• 1:13:32Speaker 09

  I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together.

• 1:13:40Speaker 04

  We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.

• 1:13:44Speaker 09

  I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there?

• 1:13:46Speaker 04

  There were 32,000 pounds of them.

• 1:13:49Speaker 09

  32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

• 1:13:53Speaker 04

  That's it.

• 1:13:55Speaker 09

  Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast What It's Like to Be.

• 1:14:03Speaker 06

  History gets written, then rewritten, sometimes by scholars correcting the record, sometimes by committees deciding what a generation of kids will and won't learn. The version that makes it into the textbook isn't always the only story. It's the one that won out. That's the kind of thing Ground News was built for. It shows you how outlets across the spectrum tell the same story, side by side, so you can spot the shading for yourself. Ground News gives each outlet a factuality rating, so you know how much weight to give the source, and shows you who owns it, so you know what's behind it. The Nobel Peace Center called it "an excellent way to stay informed,

• 1:14:45Speaker 06

  avoid echo chambers, and expand your worldview." So go to groundnews.com/rz. That's G-R-O-U-N-D-N-E-W-S dot com slash R-C for 40% off unlimited access vantage plan. Get it yourself or gift it to someone who'd rather know than not. Use my link, groundnews.com/rz, so you get the discount and they know I sent you. If you're a fan of learning all sides of history, then Ground News is for you. One more time, groundnews.com/rz.