Seth Rogen is dishing on some of the real-life inspirations behind The Studio, including Steve Asbell and a Golden Globes moment.
During a recent appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the star, co-creator and director of Apple TV+’s new Hollywood satire opened up about the show and his character Matt Remick.
“In the show, I run a Hollywood movie studio that exists in today’s version,” Rogen explained. “And in the show, the major conflict is one I’m sure you’re familiar with is that of like, art versus commerce. And my character loves movies and is a huge movie fan, but as the head of a studio often has to make choices that make movies worse. And he loves directors and he loves movie stars, but he’s constantly having to disappoint them by giving them notes they don’t want to hear or by just, in general, ruining their passion.
He added, “He doesn’t want to get fired, and that conflict I think is at the heart of show business.”
That’s when Stephen Colbert circled back to the Platonic actor’s comment about his character saying he got into the movie business because he loves them but that his job is to ruin them. The host proceeded to ask, “Is it true that you once had a Hollywood executive say that to you?”
“Very much so!” Rogen responded. “Me and my partner Evan [Goldberg] were in a meeting early in our career, we were rewriting a movie, and the executive said exactly that. He was giving us notes. We wanted to make it very R-rated and edgy, and he was telling us we couldn’t, and even though he thought it was funny, he hung his head and said exactly that: ‘I got into this because I love movies and now it’s my job to ruin them.”
As for who that executive was, he later confirmed it was Steve Asbell, the current president of 20th Century Studios.
“He’s great. He’s a lovely guy, but he’s very conflicted about what he has to do,” the Neighbors star added with a laugh.
Colbert also asked if any other “producers or studio people” watching the series have called him up to say, “I know that’s me.”
“Yes, I’ve been yelled at three times in the last week,” a laughing Rogen replied. “Some of them are pleased, some of them are not pleased, I will say.”
He went on to recall a previous Golden Globes incident that inspired one of the episodes in The Studio. “There’s an episode in particular about the Golden Globes and the whole thing is my character just wants desperately to be thanked in the Golden Globe speech, which is very important to Hollywood executives,” he said. “Years ago, we made a film that won a Golden Globe and at the afterparty, we saw one of the executives crying, and we assumed they were crying because we won and they were happy. We went over and we’re like, ‘We won! Is that why you’re crying?’ And they said, ‘No, they forgot to thank me during the speech.’”
Rogen continued, “Then we made a whole episode about that, and the person who it’s based on knows that we made a whole episode about it and, in no uncertain terms, yelled at me very recently.”
On the other end, the This Is the End actor also noted that some people have reached out to him thinking they’re being depicted in the series but actually aren’t.
“People have projected themselves onto these characters in a way that is not accurate,” Rogen explained. “Conversely, I had a call from a studio executive who said, ‘It was so real and it was so truthful to my story, I couldn’t stop crying when I was watching it.’ And I didn’t have the heart to tell him, but I was like, ‘It’s not based on you at all, man.’”
The Studio, which is filled with a star-studded cast and cameos, drops new episodes on Apple TV+ every Wednesday, with the first two episodes currently streaming.