Hollywood Plays Itself in Seth Rogen’s ‘The Studio’

Actor, writer, director, and producer Seth Rogen came up in an age of abundance—a Hollywood that made big-budget comedies with box office success: The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express. That era recently inspired his new Apple TV+ showThe Studio https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-studio/umc.cmc.7518algxc4lsoobtsx30dqb52. On the heels of the series’ premiere, Rogen joins us to discuss its 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). Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. 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 was one of lifted productivity:

• 1:22Sam Fragoso?

  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

  Restige films and box office hits, those are not mutually exclusive. We can do both and we will do both.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  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.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  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 03

  Turns out perverts make great movies.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  They really do.

• 2:45Speaker 03

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

• 2:49Speaker 02

  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 02

  Cut!

• 3:01Speaker 01

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

• 3:04Speaker 03

  Matt!

• 3:04Speaker 02

  What up, Matt? Everyone wants something from me and I can't give it to them.

• 3:08Speaker 04

  If you guys are actually open to doing something different, I have a lot of ideas.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  We love new ideas.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  It's just not too new because we got a pretty tight formula that we got to hit. 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. Fine is not good enough. This is racist. You want to bring down the studio?

• 3:26Speaker 03

  Why didn't you shut this party down? Why do you keep lying? What is wrong with me?

• 3:32Speaker 03

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

• 3:42Speaker 03

  it's good forever.

• 3:50Sam Fragoso?

  That was from the new show, The Studio, now available to stream on Apple TV+. The first two episodes are already out with new episodes dropping every Wednesday through May 21st. 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 inform 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

• 4:35Sam Fragoso?

  starring all of his friends and more, was a precursor to this latest project, The Studio. This was a long time in the making, so I hope you enjoyed this conversation with the one and only Seth Rogen.

• 4:51Sam Fragoso?

  Enjoy.

• 5:08Sam Fragoso?

  Seth Rogen.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 5:11Sam Fragoso?

  Welcome to the show.

• 5:12Speaker 01

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

• 5:16Sam Fragoso?

  I heard you do that as a defense mechanism.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  I do. I'm constantly just showing things in my mouth.

• 5:21Sam Fragoso?

  How are you doing?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  I'm doing pretty good.

• 5:23Sam Fragoso?

  How do you feel around this time about to put something out into the world?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  I mean, it all depends. It's in some ways, it's already out in the world in that we premiered it South by Southwest.

• 5:34Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  But I either feel really bad or pretty good or somewhere in the middle. And right now, I feel pretty good. So on the grand scale of my spectrum, that's like on the very positive end of the spectrum. And 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.

• 6:07Sam Fragoso?

  You would have canceled on us?

• 6:08Speaker 01

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

• 6:11Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. No, just cancel Talk Easy.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 6:15Sam 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?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  No, I don't think we assumed we would ever make sense 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

• 6:48Sam Fragoso?

  The nonsense.

• 6:49Speaker 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? And we, 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, or, or articulate our opinion on all this, which

• 7:32Speaker 01

  is not something that I had necessarily done, you know?

• 7:35Sam Fragoso?

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

• 7:39Speaker 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

• 7:46Sam Fragoso?

  That will be the title of the podcast by the

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 7:48Sam Fragoso?

  Seth Rogen, decidedly good life.

• 7:49Speaker 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?

• 8:24Sam Fragoso?

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

• 8:29Speaker 01

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

• 8:34Sam Fragoso?

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

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:43Sam Fragoso?

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

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:50Sam Fragoso?

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

• 8:56Speaker 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.

• 9:06Sam Fragoso?

  Let's do a power ranking of those things.

• 9:08Speaker 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 it 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 believe in

• 9:53Speaker 01

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

• 10:04Sam Fragoso?

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

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:09Sam Fragoso?

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

• 10:12Speaker 01

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

• 10:16Sam Fragoso?

  Some would say you even benefited.

• 10:17Speaker 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.

• 10:29Sam Fragoso?

  Which made money.

• 10:30Speaker 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.

• 11:09Sam Fragoso?

  I think you have a character on the show.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:11Sam Fragoso?

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

• 11:15Speaker 01

  You aren't real, are you? You go to, you watch television? Yeah.

• 11:18Sam Fragoso?

  Do you feel that way?

• 11:20Speaker 01

  No, 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.

• 11:30Sam Fragoso?

  Post pandemic especially.

• 11:31Speaker 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, 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 the way things are going,

• 12:15Speaker 01

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

• 12:21Sam Fragoso?

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

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Great.

• 12:25Sam Fragoso?

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

• 12:28Speaker 01

  I like their acts.

• 12:29Sam Fragoso?

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

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Very much so.

• 12:37Sam Fragoso?

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

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:45Sam Fragoso?

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

• 12:52Speaker 01

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

• 12:58Sam Fragoso?

  The studio is called Continental.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:00Sam Fragoso?

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

• 13:05Speaker 01

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

• 13:08Sam Fragoso?

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

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yes, very much so.

• 13:15Sam Fragoso?

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

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:19Sam Fragoso?

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

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Probably, yeah. If you ask him, he helped.

• 13:25Sam Fragoso?

  The show seems to be at the intersection of The Larry Sanders Show, The Player,

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:30Sam Fragoso?

  and a little bit of Veep.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly what we're looking for.

• 13:34Sam Fragoso?

  Really?

• 13:35Speaker 01

  So that's great.

• 13:36Sam Fragoso?

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

• 13:40Speaker 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.

• 13:55Sam Fragoso?

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

• 13:57Speaker 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, and so we loved it. And then when I moved to LA, I kind of, Judd and, 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.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Tell you the truth, I didn't even need to be there for the fucking sagged interview. Hit you up. 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 seems to me, oh Bob. Did I, did I go on too long? I mean, 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.

• 14:51Sam Fragoso?

  Anytime.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Come back anytime, Bob. Thanks.

• 14:56Sam Fragoso?

  Is that how you see your character, Matt?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, 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. It 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 work. 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 is so technically like a high status character, but you always feel really bad for him, you know?

• 15:36Sam Fragoso?

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

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:42Sam Fragoso?

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

• 15:48Speaker 01

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

• 15:51Sam Fragoso?

  Like a Ted Sarandos.

• 15:52Speaker 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.

• 16:00Sam Fragoso?

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

• 16:04Speaker 01

  I think the 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?

• 16:17Sam Fragoso?

  As you ascend further and further from other people.

• 16:19Speaker 01

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

• 16:22Sam Fragoso?

  Something approximating emotion and feeling and human tension.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  You insulate yourself from all that.

• 16:29Sam Fragoso?

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

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Actively, in a moment to moment basis.

• 16:34Sam Fragoso?

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

• 16:37Speaker 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 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?

• 17:18Sam Fragoso?

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

• 17:22Speaker 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.

• 18:07Speaker 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?

• 18:20Sam Fragoso?

  Tech companies have, including Apple.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:22Sam Fragoso?

  Have gotten into the movie business.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:24Sam Fragoso?

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

• 18:29Speaker 01

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

• 18:32Sam Fragoso?

  So you think that's kind of overblown?

• 18:34Speaker 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 traditionally the best track record, you know? But what I've found is that-

• 18:51Sam Fragoso?

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

• 18:54Speaker 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 of both.

• 19:05Sam Fragoso?

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

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:13Sam Fragoso?

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

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:22Sam Fragoso?

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

• 19:29Speaker 01

  No, not at all.

• 19:32Sam 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.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:43Sam Fragoso?

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

• 19:52Speaker 01

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

• 20:02Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, where did you find that?

• 20:03Speaker 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?

• 20:24Sam Fragoso?

  Maybe the interview is our last movie.

• 20:25Speaker 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.

• 20:46Sam Fragoso?

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

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Or Barbie.

• 20:54Sam Fragoso?

  Or Oppenheimer.

• 20:55Speaker 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 Benny Softy and David Crumwaltz, there's not one more Jew in there out of that? But, uh, it forced us to reimagine our, our entire perspective around Hollywood in many ways, which is that it is still possible 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.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  You know what 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?

• 22:10Sam Fragoso?

  So with all of that optimism.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:13Sam Fragoso?

  All of that belief in self.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:15Sam Fragoso?

  Matt gets the job of studio head.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Instantly sells out.

• 22:22Sam Fragoso?

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

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:29Sam Fragoso?

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

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:34Sam Fragoso?

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

• 22:39Speaker 03

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

• 22:44Speaker 03

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

• 22:48Speaker 01

  I have the same fear with Marty.

• 22:51Speaker 03

  So how do you feel in all this?

• 22:55Speaker 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, with the plan.

• 23:06Speaker 03

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

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, uh, 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.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Heavy as a head, Matty.

• 23:38Speaker 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, that's huge. And I got into all this because, you know, I love movies, but now I have this fear that.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  My job is to ruin them.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  The job is a meat grinder.

• 24:02Sam 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?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were, we were getting notes on a screenplay we were writing that never got made. And, 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 it's like that was said to me very early

• 24:56Speaker 01

  on, probably by Judd or someone was like, it's, you know, like they call it 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?

• 25:11Sam Fragoso?

  That does sound like Judd Apatow.

• 25:13Speaker 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.

• 25:40Sam Fragoso?

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

• 25:44Speaker 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.

• 25:57Sam 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.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:07Sam Fragoso?

  Um, which obviously, who hasn't?

• 26:09Speaker 01

  As many comedic writers begin their path.

• 26:12Sam Fragoso?

  And podcasters, that's how it works.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 26:14Sam Fragoso?

  Before podcasting, it's bits for moil.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  You were moil writing.

• 26:17Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, before we get to the punchlines. Can you set up the story for us?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  I started doing stand up 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 a, by a Moil. Had the Moil explain to me that-

• 26:37Sam Fragoso?

  You seem almost embarrassed telling this story.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  I'm still in shock that it's true. Cause it seems crazy and I'm still amazed that the Moil had the instinct of like, I should be funnier up there.

• 26:48Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  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?

• 27:02Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think he turned to a kid for help?

• 27:04Speaker 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.

• 27:15Sam Fragoso?

  They don't call it business, business.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Exactly. He would show business and I was at the cross section and so, yeah, I-

• 27:20Sam Fragoso?

  He offers you $500.

• 27:22Speaker 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. My friends thought for sure I was going to be murdered and molested. Maybe, I don't know in which order, but they thought I was insane for going and hanging out with this Moil 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 Moil's 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.

• 28:03Sam Fragoso?

  So you're at the diner.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  We're at a White Spot, which is a Canadian restaurant chain. Yeah.

• 28:08Sam Fragoso?

  So you show him the jokes?

• 28:09Speaker 01

  I show him the jokes. Yeah.

• 28:10Sam 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.

• 28:14Speaker 01

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

• 28:25Sam Fragoso?

  That's good.

• 28:26Speaker 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 boil 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.

• 28:39Sam Fragoso?

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

• 28:41Speaker 01

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

• 28:45Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, that one's tough.

• 28:46Speaker 01

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

• 28:47Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Now, give me a moment as I oil up the chainsaw. That was, you know, that.

• 28:53Sam Fragoso?

  All right, do one more.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  The only problem with being a 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.

• 29:06Sam Fragoso?

  Hey, no, it's about the destination.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 29:09Sam Fragoso?

  It's about the journey.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 29:11Sam Fragoso?

  So he negotiated with you.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:14Sam Fragoso?

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

• 29:17Speaker 01

  For the jokes I like.

• 29:18Sam Fragoso?

  And you as a teenager.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:20Sam Fragoso?

  Say what?

• 29:21Speaker 01

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

• 29:23Sam Fragoso?

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

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:25Sam Fragoso?

  I guess I was struck by the gumption of you as a teenager going, I'm gonna negotiate with this grown man who is trying to cheat me out of some money.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:38Sam Fragoso?

  Like you held your ground.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  I did. I really wanted money. I was only doing it for money.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  I knew this was not like a career longevity play. I wasn't gonna be writing boil 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.

• 29:59Sam Fragoso?

  Did he make you split the bill at the diner?

• 30:01Speaker 01

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

• 30:06Sam Fragoso?

  So in that period, you and Evan are buddies.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 30:11Sam Fragoso?

  You guys watched American Pie.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  It was some other high school movie.

• 30:15Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:16Sam Fragoso?

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

• 30:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:18Sam Fragoso?

  And you two thought, we could write this.

• 30:21Speaker 01

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

• 30:25Sam Fragoso?

  Every teenager says that.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Do they?

• 30:28Sam Fragoso?

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

• 30:32Speaker 01

  We actually did it.

• 30:33Sam Fragoso?

  You actually did it.

• 30:36Sam Fragoso?

  Where did the confidence come from to do it?

• 30:39Speaker 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.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  And and at that time was really when like 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?

• 31:53Sam Fragoso?

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

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:56Sam Fragoso?

  You go to Los Angeles and Judd becomes a kind of mentor to you. Would he let you into the room to to listen to the notes process?

• 32:06Speaker 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.

• 32:27Sam Fragoso?

  But you were 16 in that room hearing grownups.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  They didn't sound like grownups.

• 32:34Sam Fragoso?

  And they never did.

• 32:35Speaker 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.

• 33:12Sam Fragoso?

  That you and Evan are serious.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't like a joke to us. They're like, we, we really wanted to do this.

• 33:18Sam Fragoso?

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

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 33:23Sam Fragoso?

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

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 33:31Sam Fragoso?

  Have you at about sixteen, seventeen?

• 33:34Speaker 01

  This is legitimately embarrassing.

• 33:36Sam Fragoso?

  Did it?

• 33:39Sam Fragoso?

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

• 33:41Speaker 01

  It's actually embarrassing.

• 33:44Sam Fragoso?

  You wrote a book called Yearbook.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:47Sam Fragoso?

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

• 33:52Speaker 01

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

• 33:58Sam Fragoso?

  So here you are.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 33:59Sam Fragoso?

  Age sixteen, seventeen, something like that.

• 34:02Speaker 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.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  I was probably very high when I wrote that.

• 34:32Sam Fragoso?

  Why does that make you so embar-

• 34:36Sam Fragoso?

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

• 34:38Speaker 01

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

• 34:50Sam Fragoso?

  Definitely tough for them.

• 34:51Speaker 01

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

• 34:57Sam Fragoso?

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

• 35:01Speaker 01

  The humiliating things I've done.

• 35:03Sam Fragoso?

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

• 35:07Sam 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.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. I was much more confident when I was younger. Like, I had never failed, you know? 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?

• 35:40Sam Fragoso?

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

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:44Sam Fragoso?

  But it was canceled.

• 35:44Speaker 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 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?

• 36:17Sam Fragoso?

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

• 36:25Speaker 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-

• 36:42Sam Fragoso?

  What, what did Seth with a lot of animosity look like?

• 36:45Speaker 01

  I was like smoking weed on Jason Segel's couch, just kind of whining about everything and complaining I wasn't getting sent on the auditions he was getting sent on and getting sent the scripts he was getting sent and that. 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 a new full of that if you were hanging out with me in 2003.

• 37:15Sam Fragoso?

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

• 37:23Speaker 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?

• 37:28Sam Fragoso?

  How did you hold on?

• 37:30Speaker 01

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

• 37:34Sam Fragoso?

  It was too late.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  It's too late. Like.

• 37:37Sam Fragoso?

  You already had the thing in the yearbook.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Exactly. How do you come back from that? I, 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, and not know that they gave up. And I think that that is a more comforting thought to many people, myself included.

• 38:04Sam Fragoso?

  After the break, more from Seth Rogen.

• 38:11Sam Fragoso?

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• 39:45Sam 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?

• 40:01Speaker 01

  I think it's signified, 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,

• 40:42Speaker 01

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

• 41:03Sam Fragoso?

  And they're weirdly confident about it.

• 41:04Speaker 01

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

• 41:16Sam Fragoso?

  You didn't feel confident?

• 41:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 41:23Sam Fragoso?

  Did the movies doing well help you with being confident?

• 41:28Speaker 01

  I don't think so. I mean, I think with work, 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's going great and my personal confidence is not that high. And I've had moments where my career's 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 if the stuff is received well, I'm definitely happier than I am if it's not, you know?

• 41:55Sam Fragoso?

  I'm thinking about like leading into This Is The End, which is the first movie you and Evan directed.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 42:04Sam 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.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  For sure. Yeah, definitely.

• 42:11Sam Fragoso?

  Where are you at on that movie? How do you think about it now?

• 42:15Speaker 01

  I'm so proud of it. I think it's so funny. 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.

• 42:25Sam Fragoso?

  Definitely Larry Sanders inspired.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  For sure. 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,

• 43:11Speaker 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?

• 43:18Sam Fragoso?

  What do you mean by that?

• 43:19Speaker 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?

• 43:30Sam Fragoso?

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

• 43:35Speaker 01

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

• 43:40Sam Fragoso?

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

• 43:41Speaker 01

  It did 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

• 44:07Sam Fragoso?

  People are having kids.

• 44:08Speaker 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.

• 44:15Sam Fragoso?

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

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:21Sam Fragoso?

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

• 44:26Speaker 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 not really maximizing our potential. And this is the

• 44:45Sam Fragoso?

  This is the complaining on Jason Segel's couch.

• 44:48Speaker 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.

• 45:11Sam 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.

• 45:19Speaker 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?

• 45:33Sam Fragoso?

  After this is the end, you make the interview.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:36Sam 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."

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably. We've tried.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  And we've had opportunities to as well.

• 45:52Sam 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

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Could have used more scrutiny.

• 46:07Sam Fragoso?

  Do you feel, do you still feel that way?

• 46:09Speaker 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.

• 46:19Sam Fragoso?

  Do you think you need that friction?

• 46:21Speaker 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 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 of.

• 46:45Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 46:46Speaker 01

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

• 46:50Sam Fragoso?

  That fallout was especially insane.

• 46:54Speaker 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.

• 47:06Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 47:07Speaker 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 found to be terrified.

• 47:24Sam Fragoso?

  Did you interview Michael Linton for this show?

• 47:26Speaker 01

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

• 47:29Sam Fragoso?

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

• 47:34Speaker 01

  I do, yes, several times.

• 47:37Sam Fragoso?

  People famously don't love that.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  It's like, 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.

• 47:49Sam Fragoso?

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

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:54Sam Fragoso?

  Let's call it a segue.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  It's a good one.

• 47:57Sam 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?

• 48:06Speaker 01

  That was far more offensive to me for sure. From an ego standpoint, a hundred percent.

• 48:11Sam 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."

• 48:19Speaker 01

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

• 48:32Sam Fragoso?

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

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:41Sam Fragoso?

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

• 48:46Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 48:47Sam Fragoso?

  We tried really hard to make something and.

• 48:49Speaker 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?

• 49:05Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, you pointed to me again.

• 49:06Speaker 01

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

• 49:12Sam Fragoso?

  It's not my favorite.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's not mine either.

• 49:15Sam Fragoso?

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

• 49:18Speaker 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.

• 49:29Sam Fragoso?

  And people were reading some of your emails.

• 49:30Speaker 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 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?

• 49:54Sam Fragoso?

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

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:59Sam Fragoso?

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

• 50:03Speaker 01

  This is the end of an era. No, this is the end. 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 weren't given that opportunity.

• 50:46Sam Fragoso?

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

• 50:49Speaker 01

  You know what? And gesture towards you freely.

• 50:53Sam Fragoso?

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

• 51:01Speaker 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.

• 51:15Sam Fragoso?

  Right, for you to star in.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, 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.

• 52:00Speaker 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.

• 52:06Sam Fragoso?

  I want to talk about writing for a second. You and Evan start writing at 13.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:13Sam 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.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:23Sam 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 50/50.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:35Sam 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 talking to executives. It's very lived in.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:49Sam 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?

• 53:07Speaker 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?

• 53:15Sam Fragoso?

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

• 53:19Speaker 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?

• 53:50Sam 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.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and 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?

• 54:55Speaker 01

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

• 55:00Sam Fragoso?

  When you testified before Congress.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:03Sam Fragoso?

  You called yourself a self-medicated man-child.

• 55:08Speaker 01

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

• 55:10Sam Fragoso?

  They got laughs.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:12Sam Fragoso?

  Getting, getting laughs in that building.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Try it again. You know, you do, you can.

• 55:18Sam Fragoso?

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

• 55:22Speaker 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 is 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, 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?

• 56:07Sam Fragoso?

  Bringing us back to this new show.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Another segue.

• 56:12Sam 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.

• 56:29Speaker 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.

• 56:49Sam Fragoso?

  And you're saying your poker face is good?

• 56:50Speaker 01

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

• 56:55Speaker 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.

• 57:05Sam Fragoso?

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

• 57:10Speaker 01

  Great.

• 57:11Sam 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.

• 57:24Speaker 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, um, 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

• 58:04Speaker 01

  am like incredibly bent out of shape about. 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.

• 58:19Sam Fragoso?

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

• 58:22Speaker 01

  In general?

• 58:25Sam Fragoso?

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

• 58:31Speaker 01

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

• 58:38Sam Fragoso?

  You think the doomerism stuff about Hollywood is overblown?

• 58:40Speaker 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 going to do well again. And then one comes out and does well and everyone's like, never mind, they, 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 TVs 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 got to call it Ninja Turtles. Okay, we'll call it Ninja Turtles. Like, that to us isn't like, it's fine.

• 59:24Speaker 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 coming. We saw, you know, superhero movies weren't a thing. Now they're a thing. You know, people in the early sixties 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.

• 1:00:01Sam Fragoso?

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

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Sam Fragoso?

  Where you and Evan felt like, oh, boy.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Is this over?

• 1:00:09Sam Fragoso?

  Is this over?

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Sam Fragoso?

  Your company would do a virtual film club.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:14Sam Fragoso?

  And one of the films you all watched was Itumama Tambien.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:00:20Sam Fragoso?

  And you somehow, speaking of wrangling.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:24Sam Fragoso?

  Got Alfonso Cuarón to come on the Zoom.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:00:27Sam Fragoso?

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

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:34Sam Fragoso?

  Do you remember that, that back and forth?

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

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

• 1:00:45Sam Fragoso?

  Children of men and the, and the tracking shots.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  And, and the tracking shot. And, and each moment 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, uh,

• 1:00:59Sam Fragoso?

  Chiba.

• 1:00:59Speaker 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 capturing comedy, especially. And and hearing him say that was was really exciting and and it's one of our favorite movies.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  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

• 1:02:07Sam Fragoso?

  The hits.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  You know, all the hits.

• 1:02:09Sam Fragoso?

  You you brought in Adam Newport-Bera.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:12Sam Fragoso?

  The cinematographer to do that.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Sam Fragoso?

  Very talented.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  He's great, great guy. Yes, unbelievable dude.

• 1:02:17Sam Fragoso?

  Did you find making comedy in that framework challenging?

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  Yes, but in a great way.

• 1:02:24Sam Fragoso?

  Not a ton of coverage.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

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

• 1:02:36Sam Fragoso?

  The show should come with Dramamine, but that's

• 1:02:38Speaker 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, and, you know, things that found the characters, things that came from, you know, narratively set the scenes in different ways, you know. Um, 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 is the timing of things, you know. Um, 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 done 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, this is impressive.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  It's impressive that these people are able to do that. And I like the idea of showcasing the comedic abilities of 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 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.

• 1:03:52Sam Fragoso?

  Where the timing would be.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, or just, or just like, would it be better if we just, exactly. You did it.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  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, wherever I lack confidence, Evan makes up for it, which is, I think, a good part of our dynamic.

• 1:04:17Sam Fragoso?

  It's that dynamic I want to end with.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:19Sam Fragoso?

  Because we have to go.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  Great.

• 1:04:20Sam Fragoso?

  This is my last question.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 1:04:22Sam Fragoso?

  In that decade between the interview and the studio.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:26Sam Fragoso?

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

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:04:32Sam Fragoso?

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

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:42Sam Fragoso?

  And I was just wondering if you had thought, the first film you two wrote, Superbad, feels kind of like a more crass, younger version or prequel to E2 Mama Tom Yen.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, in some ways, for sure.

• 1:04:56Sam Fragoso?

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

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:01Sam Fragoso?

  Evan and Seth in the mall.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:04Sam Fragoso?

  On the escalator going in opposite directions.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:05:08Speaker 05

  So Seth.

• 1:05:11Speaker 05

  So do you want to come buy me cover up or something? I mean, you kind of owe me.

• 1:05:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, definitely. I would love to do that.

• 1:05:23Speaker 05

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

• 1:05:29Speaker 05

  You drove, Evan drove me here, though, so. Well, so, well, I mean, I have my dad's car, so I could just give you a lift and then Evan could take Becca home. If that works. I don't know if it's in your route. Is he fine with me? Fine, yeah. Maybe we can get some food.

• 1:05:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'd like that.

• 1:05:51Speaker 05

  So I guess I'll call you. Yeah. Give me a 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? Hi, guys. See you, Jules? Yeah, it's funny.

• 1:06:10Speaker 05

  Where do you wanna go to eat?

• 1:06:14Speaker 05

  So can you honestly help me figure out what kind of cover to get?

• 1:06:27Sam Fragoso?

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

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:36Sam Fragoso?

  What does that look like after nearly thirty years?

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  It is our thirty 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 the other one is, you know? And neither of us feels that though less work needs to go into a thing in order for it to be great. Like, we're very aligned as to what

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  we feel is necessary in order to make something work in the way that we want it to, and we're also, our taste is essentially the same, and 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 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, 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?

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

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

• 1:08:18Sam Fragoso?

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

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, great, thanks.

• 1:08:23Sam 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.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

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

• 1:08:34Sam Fragoso?

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

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

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

• 1:08:44Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, Seth Rogen, thank you for the time.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:09:18Sam Fragoso?

  And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave us five stars on Spotify, leave us a review on Apple. If you wanna go above and beyond, you can share the program on social media and tag us at Talk Easy Pod. I wanna 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 Plus. 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,

• 1:09:59Sam Fragoso?

  listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. 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 Shanoi.

• 1:10:41Sam Fragoso?

  Photographs today by Julius Chu, with additional research from Callie Conley. 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 a Chinese slate. Until then, stay safe, and so long.

• 1:11:09Speaker 06

  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.

• 1:11:17Speaker 05

  We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.

• 1:11:20Speaker 06

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

• 1:11:23Speaker 05

  There were 32,000 pounds of them.

• 1:11:25Speaker 06

  32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

• 1:11:29Speaker 05

  That's it.

• 1:11:30Speaker 06

  Correct. 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.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  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,

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  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.