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Peter Clausen: What's your opinion on the movie's German title?

Seth Rogen: What is it? "Beim ersten Mal"?

Peter Clausen: Well, it translates as "The First Time"

Seth Rogen: The First Time?

Peter Clausen: Yeah. I am not really sure what it means. Maybe they thought it was a sequel to The 40 Year Old Virgin.

Seth Rogen: Yeah, exactly. That's confusing.

Peter Clausen: Before Knocked Up you made two brilliant TV-shows, called Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared. Sadly both series were cancelled before the end of their respective first series/season. Does your current movie success sometimes feel vindicating?

Seth Rogen: It makes me feel like we are at least not crazy. Which is what happens to your brain when you make something you feel is good, but it's universally rejected. You literally start thinking that you might be insane, and that what you think is good isn't actually good, and that you have no concept of what actual quality entertainment is. So it's very validating, and at least we are not crazy.

Peter Clausen: Do you think there are people at Fox and NBC going "Damn, we could have had all these people..."

Seth Rogen: Well, you know, it's funny. Just yesterday I realized that if we had continued doing Freaks & Geeks, our contracts would have just run out. They would have owned us until now. Which is pretty funny considering Jason Segel is now starring in his own movie, and Linda Cardellini and James Franco... they could have owned all our asses.

Peter Clausen: But they let you all go. Their fault.

Seth Rogen: Exactly. Although NBC bought Universal, so I guess it's all come full circle.

Peter Clausen: So, did you take anything valuable out of the cancellations of Undeclared and Freaks & Geeks?

Seth Rogen: Well, I didn't take anything valuable out of the actual cancellations, but when I look back at those shows I still think they are just as good as anything we have ever done. If not better. We always try to go back to Freaks & Geeks in a weird way. When we watch it, we always say "That's the best thing we ever did".

Peter Clausen: You have also done a lot of screenwriting. Do you prefer to work behind the camera or in front of it?

Seth Rogen: I like them both. I see them both as the same job. It's all just kind of making movies and TV shows. I like doing both at the same time. That's the most gratifying thing. For Knocked Up I am a producer, so I have a lot of creative say but I am also an actor so I am there performing the whole day. I think those jobs go well together.

Peter Clausen: And is it important to you to appear in material you have written yourself?

Seth Rogen: No. I wrote this movie Drillbit Taylor, and I am not in it at all. I just like writing, I have no problem not being in it.

Peter Clausen: And do you approach a role differently when you know you can improvise like you did in Knocked Up?

Seth Rogen: Yeah, maybe a little bit. The day at work is entirely different when you know that anything can be said at any moment, and you have to be on your toes all day. But it's a lot more fun and a lot more exciting than doing the same thing over and over all day. You get to explore the scene's potential.

Peter Clausen: Knocked Up is refreshingly free of romantic comedy staples. Was that intentional?

Seth Rogen: Yeah. When we approach these things we just want to make them original and different and try to stay away from your classic movie story. Everything has been done before, and we'd be crazy to think this is the first movie like this, but we just hope that if we do it as honestly as we can from our own experiences it just might be different.

Peter Clausen: Do you think there is a reason why most filmmakers rely on cliches, instead of making such honest movies?

Seth Rogen: You know, I think the way movies are made just doesn't lend itself to original creativity all the time. A hundred different people write them and rewrite them and the original creative vision gets lost. And suddenly nobody is really behind the idea anymore. Neither the people who wrote it, nor the ones who directed or starred in it like it anymore. We just take the exact opposite approach, and think "At least we'll like it". Maybe nobody else will, but we'll be really proud of it. And that's been working for us, which is nice. And I think that's key - make something you know you will really like. There's a lot of movies out there where you feel that nobody really thought it was a good idea. They just thought someone else might think it was one.

Peter Clausen: Although on the Undeclared commentaries your cast mates said that you were really fond of You've got Mail...

Seth Rogen: I DO like You've got mail, but of course it's fluff (laughs).

Peter Clausen: Is it important for a comedy to be naturalistic?

Seth Rogen: Well, I think if you are going for realism it's important, but that being said I love movies like Anchorman and there is no realism in it whatsoever. So, it depends on what you are going for. If you aim to make a realistic kind of movie then obviously it lends itself to that. But I don't think a movie has to be realistic to be funny.

Peter Clausen: And do you intend to branch out into other kinds of filmmaking?

Seth Rogen: Yeah, absolutely. The Coen Brothers for example are guys I really look up to, and they can move flawlessly from one genre to another, and it doesn't really seem like much of a stretch in any direction. And that's something I would love to do.

Peter Clausen: You also count the big eighties comedians like Harold Ramis and Dan Ackroyd among your influences, correct?

Seth Rogen: Yeah, definitely.

Peter Clausen: So, would you like to follow in their footsteps and someday make films like Ghostbusters?

Seth Rogen: Yeah, I'd love to. I definitely have a sensibility towards the epic. Because that's what I grew up watching and enjoying. But right now I feel more comfortably to make relatively cheap comedies, so even if we fail we don't lose anyone too much money.

Peter Clausen: So you are working your way up?

Seth Rogen: Exactly. Through massive failure (laughs)!

Peter Clausen: And will your Green Hornet movie go into that direction?

Seth Rogen: Yeah, we are going to go into a more pure action direction with that. We made this film Pineapple Express which is coming out next year, and that's kind of an action comedy. And that was our experiment to see if we could do action, and I think we pulled it off pretty good.

Peter Clausen: So, are movies like Hot Fuzz a template for your future?

Seth Rogen: Oh, that's a movie I love. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a template, but I love movies that are genre-bending. Movies that can't easily be classified as action, horror or crime. And that's what's great about Hot Fuzz. I am great friends with Edgar Wright, and I immensely look up to that guy, because of how he can combine all those things that you wouldn't think could be combined. It helps me, because it shows that it's possible!

Peter Clausen: Thank you very much for this interview.

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Text Copyright Peter Clausen 2007
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