Seth Rogen - Biography

Biography:

Seldom has an actor enjoyed a rise as meteoric as that of Seth Rogen. Having started out shakily in a couple of failed TV shows and spent years languishing in Los Angeles, he suddenly took off in 2005 with The 40 Year Old Virgin, quickly following it with a trio of big money-spinners, Knocked Up, Superbad and Pineapple Express, as well as lending his voice to a series of hit animations. Once going nowhere, he was suddenly everywhere, his popularity reaching such a level he'd be asked to write and star in a high-budget version of The Green Hornet. The slacker pot-head from Vancouver was suddenly a star.

Of course, first impressions can be deceptive. So, in Rogen's case, can second, third and fourth. Though he'd often come across as a waster dope-fiend who'd lucked out, whose casual sarcasm and proficiency with appalling language had received an airing at just the right time to catch the public imagination, his rise was far more complex than that, involving a decade of hard work and a deep belief in his own abilities that was forged and encouraged by several significant others.

He was born on the 15th of April, 1982, in Vancouver. He'd have one sibling, older sister Danya. His father was Mark who, throughout most of Seth's childhood, would work for the British Columbia Coalition of People with Disabilities, an organisation set up to raise awareness of issues affecting people with disabilities and giving them free advice about financial benefits and ways of improving their lives. Later, Mark would become an assistant director for the Workmen's Circle, or Arbeter Ring, a national group set up about a hundred years before by Jewish immigrants in New York, intending to foster Jewish identities and promote participation in Jewish education and culture. It would also purposefully pursue social and economic justice for all.

Mark would make a very suitable marriage to Sandy Belogus who he met on a kibbutz in Israel, an alumna of Churchill High School in Vancouver and daughter of Faye Belogus, a major contributor to the town's Jewish community. Sandy was a social worker and, like Mark, politically active, both being what Seth would later describe as "radical Jewish socialists". More than once young Seth would find that his father had been detained by the police for his vociferous participation in street protests. Occasionally dad would even appear on the local news due to his heckling of politicians. This selfless support for the outsider, for the different and the mistreated would mark Seth heavily. His original onscreen success would be entirely based on characters who stood proudly outside the mainstream, who went their own way regardless.

Danya, too, would be influenced, later becoming a social worker like her mother, specialising in Youth Concurrent Disorders (she'd also be a triathlete and, in 2006, would marry Jewish lawyer Max Matas, who'd work in Vancouver's Federal Crown office).

Though they'd encourage their son to go his own way in most respects, Mark and Sandy would be keen to have him come to know Judaism, even if he were to ultimately reject it. Thus he'd be sent to Vancouver's Talmud Torah Elementary School, western Canada's largest Jewish elementary school, based at 998 West 26th Street. Along with 500 others students, young Seth would undertake Jewish studies, as well as art, music and drama. There'd be many field trips, and special guests. From here he'd move on to Point Grey Secondary School, in the Kerrisdale neighbourhood. Featuring a gothic main building erected in 1929, this would boast high academic standards, and also an Improv Club - important, this, as Rogen was already convinced that his career might lie in making people laugh. Aside from an education, these schools also gave him a complex about money. Though his family were well-off they were resolutely middle-class while many of his peers' families were extremely rich.

Something of a smartarse and wisecracker, Rogen was a big comedy fan who idolized Jerry Seinfeld and was blown away by Adam Sandler's 1993 debut album, They're All Gonna Laugh At You, also featuring Sandler's Saturday Night Live colleagues Rob Schneider and David Spade, with SNL writer Conan O'Brien and, prophetically, Judd Apatow. Rogen loved Sandler's off-the-wall persona, mild, unassuming then suddenly inappropriately aggressive. This form of uncalled-for violence would feature in most of Rogen's early films and, as with Sandler, much of his aggression would be linguistic. Further inspired by the films of Kevin Smith, his levels of verbal abuse would reach new heights.

By now, Rogen had convinced his parents that he possessed genuine comic talent. So, when Sandy spotted an ad in the paper for a comedy workshop, she decided to drive him down there. As a radical left-winger she felt it reasonable to give her son's talent a chance to blossom, even at the tender age of 13. She was also not concerned that the workshop would take place at the infamous Lotus Hotel at 455 Abbott Street. Formerly one of the most infamous gay bars in Gastown, the place had now been given a facelift and was home to several popular dance-clubs. The workshop, though, was still taking place at Lick, a lesbian bar on the main floor. Perhaps she felt her son wouldn't cotton on to the club's usual use. If she did, she was right.

The workshop, hosted by a female stand-up who'd once worked on the Leno and Letterman shows, would involve about 100 people all being taught a loose format for writing jokes. At the end of the class, each pupil would have to stand up in front of the others and fire off a gag they'd just written. Seth loved it. Also at the class was a fellow who ran his own comedy night.

Considering Rogen's age to be a selling-point, he offered the lad five minutes at his club. From here he'd get five minutes at another club, then another. The five minutes would become ten, and soon he'd be a regular on the Vancouver circuit, joining around forty other jobbing comedians. He'd also perform at the socialist Jewish summer camp he'd attend at Camp Miriam. This was on Gabriola Island in the Strait of Georgia, a twenty minute ferry ride from the city of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Set in a 20-acre waterfront site, this was a Habonim Dror camp, Habonim Dror being a secular Socialist-Zionist youth movement. Founded in 1929, Habonim was dedicated to youth education and a focus on Israel as the centre of the Jewish world, while Dror, launched fourteen years before, was a group promoting Russian Zionism that had become the frontline resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto. Uniting in 1980, the groups now taught kids Jewish history, as well as educating them in current social issues and social justice. Of course, there'd also be the usual canoeing, arts and crafts, swimming and music. Other graduates of Habonim and Dror would include Golda Meir, Mike Leigh and Rogen's future collaborator Sacha Baron Cohen.

Though he loved movies like Porky's and Bachelor Party and was cracked up by the verbal and physical violence in the work of Adam Sandler and Kevin Smith, Rogen was not a difficult or controversial comedian. His mother was, after all, usually sitting in the audience. At the age of 14, wearing a baggy white suit and glasses, he'd open his set with the line "Hello, I am Seth Rogen and I am a former Playgirl centrefold model", the joke being based on the evident facts that he was too young and chubby. From here he'd move on to mild observational humour concerning his deaf grandparents and his school-friends, video games and Bar Mitzvahs, Habonim counsellors who, he claimed, made him lug heavy rocks about the place. It was lame material but Rogen would exhibit a confidence way beyond his years (and his jokes) and audiences would be far kinder than usual due to his age. Beyond this, some of his material would be reworked for future use. With his Point Grey schoolfriend Evan Goldberg he'd begin writing a film script about their life in and out of class, a real comedy about the real struggles of geeky guys in their pursuit of girls and kicks. This would be the inspiration for Superbad.

Rogen would get gigs at the comedy club Yuk Yuks at the Century Plaza Hotel on Burrard Street, and score four months of engagements in a bar in Whistler, a skiing resort just north of Vancouver. Usually, due to his age, he'd have to leave clubs immediately after his performance. As he grew into his mid-teens, he'd begin to joke about adolescent problems, wondering how to touch girls' breasts, and how to get a drink. He'd get the occasional job as MC.

When his mother was less vigilant he'd spend some time backstage with the older comedians, watching them drink and smoke the occasional joint, laughing at their bluest material. With his age such a novelty they'd all encourage him and he in return would respect them deeply. This was, he thought, the way to live. The money he made - $50, $100 a week - kept him from the ordinarily inevitable McJob. He became ever funkier, collecting comic books and slacking out in a Marilyn Manson teeshirt. He'd not play in a band, though, playing sax in the 8th Grade was as close as he came. Anyway, anyone who was anyone knew comedy was the new rock'n'roll. He'd lose his virginity while drunk at a party. It was far from romantic. As soon as it was over, he later claimed, he was compiling a list of all the people he was going to phone. Outside of school and comedy, he studied karate, becoming a brown belt (he'd often show off martial arts moves in his films), yet still he remained insecure. His puppy fat gave him body issues, he attended the prom with a friend, he was always the funny guy, never the hero, the stud or the victim of bullies.

At 16, Rogen would come second in a citywide comedy competition. His future in stand-up looked bright. Yet already he was looking further afield for work, attending an audition for a TV show. That was unsuccessful, but his second audition was not. This was an open call in Vancouver for a new NBC show, created by Paul Feig and produced by Feig, Jake Kasdan and Judd Apatow. Called Freaks And Geeks and set in William McKinley High School, Michigan, in 1980, this would follow the trials and antics of the two social groups of the title as they attempted to negotiate their difficult paths through their teen years. According to Apatow, he chose Rogen because he was so young and so angry and his character, Ken Miller, was initially intended to be an antagonist for the female lead, played by Linda Cardellini, an amusing, strange friend for her to bounce off. Quickly, though, Apatow and the other writers recognised Rogen's strengths and began to beef up his role. Apatow believed that, though young, Rogen was a kind of Everyman, very funny and possessed of a big heart, even a possible leading man.

In the show Rogen would, naturally, join James Franco, Jason Segel and Busy Philipps in the freaks, with maths prodigy Cardellini flitting between them and her brother John Francis Daley's geeks, including Samm Levine and Martin Starr. Rogen would be impressive as a rebellious teen, not given to rock and roll fashion but nevertheless an outsider, a committed toker convinced of his own superior intellect. He was sarcastic, stubborn and, with that latent anger that Apatow had noticed, he was also up for a fight if challenged. One particularly memorable episode would see Rogan mooning over Jessica Campbell, who'd recently starred alongside Reese Witherspoon in the excellent Election.

Much to the amusement of his buddies, she's a tuba player in the school's marching band. When Rogen spots her in uniform he can't resist a quick jibe: "Hey, Sgt Pepper, where's the rest of the Lonely Hearts Club Band?" For which he receives a hilariously withering "Well, looks like you ate 'em". Thus she wins his heart and soon they're kissing, Campbell stroking the mutton chops of which, up to this point, she has so heartily disapproved. But Freaks and Geeks would never allow a relationship to be so uncomplicated and, in a tremendously charming scene, Campbell reveals she was born a hermaphrodite with, as Rogen puts it, "both a gun and a holster". With Rogen at first attempting to treat it as a joke, then being forced into solemnity, it was a masterclass in tender awkwardness. The writers had had problems nailing this scene so Apatow took Campbell and Rogen into his office and asked them to improvise it. The results were so positive that Apatow begin to wonder if Rogen wasn't a writer (he had, after all, written his own stand-up routines) and Rogen began to ask himself if improv wasn't the way forward. Both would benefit massively from this in the future.

The pilot for Freaks And Geeks would air on the 25th of September, 1999, but the show would quickly run into scheduling problems. Screened with no promotion on Saturday at 8pm, when most of its audience wasn't in front of the telly, it scored poor ratings. NBC consequently got cold feet and screened the next fourteen episodes intermittently over the next seven months, before pulling the plug in July, with three parts of the series left in the can. Time magazine may have described the show as the second best of 1999, behind The Sopranos, but it was over. It was a disaster for all concerned. Rogen had left High School without graduating in order to follow this new career. To support him his mother and father had moved to Los Angeles, Mark now working for the Arbeter Ring of Southern California. Real sacrifices had been made.

Fortunately, Judd Apatow realised the risks the Rogens had taken and, unusually in his business, felt responsible. Rogen could not have stumbled upon a better mentor. Like Rogen a comedy fan and stand-up from an early age, Apatow had worshipped Steve Martin and taken a screenwriting course at USC, at night working as an MC at LA's Improv club. He'd get a flat with Adam Sandler, a comic he met at the Improv, and hung out with Jim Carrey. Unsurprisingly, he soon came to realise that he couldn't match these people in terms of performance and so became a comedy writer and producer, working on a TV series by another young comedian, Ben Stiller. When that was canned, Apatow moved on to join The Larry Sanders Show for its second season, then would produce and rewrite The Cable Guy, starring Carrey, directed by Stiller and featuring Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Leslie Mann (soon to be Apatow's wife).

He'd also work on Sandler's Happy Gilmore wherein lies the classic line "The price is wrong, bitch!" Apatow had real weight in the industry, the power to get things going, and his comedy contacts were fantastic. One evening he'd take Rogen out to dinner with Jin Carrey and Garry Shandling, the four moving on to watch Gladiator at the flicks. Rogen would recall saying not a word all night.

Quickly Apatow would move on to a new TV project, Undeclared, for the Fox network. Most of the creative team from Freaks And Geeks would be involved, as well as actors Jason Segel, Martin Starr and Busy Philipps. Apatow wanted Rogen as his lead but Fox violently opposed this move, even threatening legal action. Thus the show would see Jay Baruchel as the chipper but insecure freshman arriving at the University of North Eastern California and being adopted by his dorm-mates, English charmer Charlie Hunnam and two pot-head, beer-gluggin' slackers, a re-cast Rogen and Timm Sharp. Rogen would be the bumbling and neurotic business major Ron Garner, getting addicted to Internet stock-dealing but also finding time to get drunk and watch You've Got Mail. Across the hall would be impulsive blonde Monica Keena and sexy nutter Carla Gallo, with extra madness added when Baruchel's dad, Loudon Wainwright III, decides to hang with his son when his wife asks for a divorce.

The show would deal with frat house brotherhoods, first love, parental problems and feature many an elaborate prank. It was goofy and cute and occasionally sharp and perceptive. A young Jenna Fischer would appear, as would Amy Poehler. There'd be guest slots for Will Ferrell as a chap illegally writing papers for students, Adam Sandler would appear as himself amidst a gang of star-struck students and Ben Stiller would pop up, too. Episode directors would include Apatow, Jake Kasdan, Greg Mottola and Jon Favreau. A wealth of talent was on display, the New York Times called it the best new comedy on TV, and yet still the show bombed. Though it had a reputation for being teen-friendly, Fox weren't keen on Undeclared and kept moving it around in the schedules. It would launch on the 25th of September, 2001, just a couple of weeks after the attack on the World Trade Centre and only sixteen episodes (including the pilot) would be aired before the show was pulled in March, 2002. Fox did not like the religious content of the planned next episode, God Visits, and so left it unaired. Painfully for Apatow, Undeclared was canned by the same executive who'd pulled the trigger on The Ben Stiller Show. Apatow would also now suffer the humiliation of ABC deciding against taking up his pilot for a new comedy series, North Hollywood.

He'd created this because Jason Segel wasn't quite right for the lead in Undeclared and Apatow considered him a giant talent, here casting him as a struggling actor, sharing a house with comic Kevin Hart and actress Amy Poehler, who's also working as assistant to a depressed and paranoid Judge Reinhold (Apatow had originally wanted Steve Guttenberg to play the bitter has-been). Rogen would appear briefly, and for little reward.

Though Undeclared was a failure in business terms, and Rogen had been denied the lead, it was still a major step forward for him. Wanting a younger voice on his team, Apatow had originally brought the still 18-year-old Rogen in as a writer and kept him on in that role. Rogen would co-write five episodes in all including, to his immense gratification, the one featuring his former hero Adam Sandler. For research, he'd spend time with old friend and writing partner Evan Goldberg, now attending McGill University in Montreal. His only problem would lie in the continual rejection of his more controversial material. Now spreading his wings in terms of R-rated jokes and inventive profanity, he faced a long, wearing and eventually unsuccessful battle to have his hardcore humour included.

Still, he would at least enjoy making a big screen debut in Richard Kelly's extraordinary Donnie Darko where Jake Gyllenhaal would play a disturbed High School student, facing up to new love with Jena Malone, facing down school bullies and paedophile teachers, and trying to make sense of both normal life and an ever more bizarre scenario that may require him to travel back through time to sacrifice himself for the sake of others. Also featuring Patrick Swayze, Drew Barrymore and Katharine Ross, the film was strange but wholly compelling, leaving its viewers happily questioning its psychological ins and outs. And Rogen would, along with Alex Greenwald, make a fine bully, spending several scenes in the background in class, bored and menacing, staring blankly, mockingly or threateningly. Bullish, square-headed and short-haired, he'd also step forward to make sport of Malone, his very first words on the Silver Screen being, quite appropriately given what was to come, "I like your boobs". Later he'd make Malone cry in class by insensitively pointing out that her stepfather has stabbed her mother, then he'd be there at the climax, roaring at Gyllenhall's friends to back off while Greenwald gets on with the violence.

Though he'd done well in two TV series and a cult cinema hit, Rogen now received no offers of acting work. Now seeing himself more as a writer, he didn't hit the audition trail particularly hard, preferring to sit around, smoke, drink, kick back and pen comedies with his friends. Still feeling guilty, Judd Apatow had flown Rogen's old school-buddy Evan Goldberg down from Vancouver and the pair set about writing new material, as well as trying to sell the latest version of Superbad.

There'd be no takers, only suggestions that they tone it down to PG-13 so that kids could see it. Knowing that kids would find a way of seeing it anyway, Rogen and Goldberg insisted on keeping it adult and so would not be greenlighted. Instead studios offered them some rewriting work. One script was a teen comedy set in ancient Rome, that would never be made. Apatow, meanwhile, still convinced that Rogen had star potential as a writer and leading man, kept him and Goldberg employed by continually setting them writing tests. First they'd have to write a movie in ten days, then they'd have to come up with a hundred one-page ideas for movies (they'd reach fifty). Once he demanded that they deliver a "weed action comedy" and so inspired them to come up with Pineapple Express. He'd also get them more rewriting work, first on Will Smith's Bad Boys 2. On top of this, Rogen would write a pilot with his former co-star Jason Segel and a pre-School Of Rock Jack Black. Concerning a bunch of guys spending their time smoking, goofing about, playing video games, discussing films and trying to make it in Hollywood - guys very much like Rogen, Segel and Black - it would be turned down by HBO. Rogen was not happy about the rejection, but was livid when HBO then picked up the similarly themed Entourage.

Beyond this, Rogen would take to performing at Apatow's old stomping ground, The Improv, as well as The Comedy Store. The first time he got up he was wretched. Fortunately, he was followed onstage by one of his heroes, Jerry Seinfeld, so everyone instantly forgot how poor Rogen had been.

As said, Rogen was not actively pursuing acting jobs and 2003 would see him make just a sole appearance. This was in an episode of Dawson's Creek, where he'd be reunited with his Freaks And Geeks and Undeclared co-star Busy Philipps. Here Philipps would play the college room-mate of show regular Katie Holmes. With her drinking out of control, she goes on the run to avoid rehab and spends the night with Rogen, a stranger she meets on her way to oblivion. Finally, Holmes and her pal Eddie catch up with them and attempt to drive Philipps to rehab in LA, Rogen tagging along.

Aside from this, all Rogen's work was coming through Judd Apatow. He'd now score his protege a minor role as a cameraman in Will Ferrell's Anchorman - four days work for $300 - thereby introducing him to a host of comics, including Paul Rudd and Steve Carell. Apatow would also score Rogen a writing job on Ferrell's upcoming Kicking And Screaming, and he'd give him a ring to let him know that Sacha Baron Cohen, soon to be Ferrell's co-star in Talledega Nights, was looking for writers for the new season of Da Ali G Show. First shown in Britain on Channel 4 in 2000, this had been taken up by HBO and relaunched in February 2003. Rogen and Evan Goldberg would be hired to help write a six-show run between July and August the next year.

It was not well paid work but it was good experience and would bring them an Emmy nomination. Oddly, or maybe not so oddly given their language and concerns, they would concentrate heavily on Cohen's Bruno character, the gay Austrian fashionista. Rogen would also claim to have contributed ideas to Borat, the huge hit Cohen would enjoy in 2006.

2005 would see Rogen appear briefly in NBC's Early Bird, a comedy pilot put together by Paul Feig, creator of Freaks And Geeks. This would star Timm Sharp, Rogen's beer-buddy in Undeclared, playing a twentysomething living in a retirement community. As with so much of Rogen's early work, it would not be picked up. He did, however, get lucky in love, now meeting Florida girl Lauren Miller. At Florida State University she had written, directed or produced several short films, including the eight-minute Happy Holidays which examined the conflicting emotions of a Jewish student on the day before the Christmas break began. On leaving college she'd immediately find work as assistant to producer Steve Starkey on The Polar Express, and would stick with Starkey for Monster House and Beowulf. Multi-talented and funny, she was also an actress, later appearing briefly in Rogen's Superbad, Observe And Report and, in the final credit sequence, Zack And Miri Make a Porno. So as not to be confused with the executive VP of Paramount Pictures International, she would bill herself as Lauren A Miller.

Now things would really start to look up for Rogen professionally, too. While producing Anchorman, Judd Apatow had been impressed by the efforts of Steve Carell, and asked him if he had any ideas for a movie. Carell suggested a character he'd invented for several sketches with the Second City comedy troupe, a man who's reached the age of forty without having sex. Apatow liked it and, together with Carell, wrote a first draft before bringing in his usual group of collaborators, including Rogen who'd be credited as executive producer. Carell would play the lead, a decent man who works in an electronics superstore, cycles everywhere, collects toys and, as it happens, has never had a woman. In itself this was quite sad, even mildly tragic. The 40 Year Old Virgin's comedy lay in Carell's attempts to hide his virginity from the guys at the store, and then their efforts to get him laid when all of them are suffering terrible dysfunctions themselves. These workmates would include Anchorman's Paul Rudd, who's still in love with his ex: Romany Malco, who thinks he's God's gift to women: and Rogen, who has many ways of scoring despite his own insecurity, advising Carell to date drunks and to never say anything to women, only ask questions.

The 40 Year Old Virgin would see Catherine Keener as Carell's love interest, but would mostly be peopled by actors who were, or would be, regulars in the upcoming projects of both Apatow and Rogen.

Rudd and Malco had been spotted due to their work in The Chateau, a mostly improvised piece where they'd play black and white antagonists, both believing they've inherited a mansion in the French countryside (Sylvie Testud would be excellent as a maid). Jenna Fischer had appeared in Undeclared: Lesie Mann was married to Apatow: Jane Lynch, Elizabeth Banks and Jonah Hill would all be used again. A good little team was being built, and a successful way of working. After his experience with Rogen on Undeclared, Apatow now liked to shoot to the script until he felt he had the version he'd planned. Then he'd let the guys go, encouraging improvisation to see if anything better might appear. Much of the comic timing could be added in the editing suite. This was a revelation for Rogen who now felt confident in trying anything, secure in the knowledge that only his best material would be used and even that could be brushed up further. He was also aided by the movie's low budget. Set at $26 million, it was below the $30 million mark that would cause the studio to worry excessively about content. Thus Apatow would be allowed an R certificate, and consequently he could allow his actors to come up with anything, no matter how coarse, crude or foul. Rogen, of course, revelled in this new freedom, getting ever dirtier as he realised how uncomfortable it made the more straight-laced Carell. The well-known "You're gay" sequence would contributed by Rogen. Rather, it would be suggested to Rogen by his second cousin, Oliver Davies, whom Rogen had always credited with supporting him when he felt like giving up and being a huge influence on his comic style.

Breaking the $100 million barrier at the US box office, The 40 Year Old Virgin would launch Apatow and Rogen into a different league. The audience reaction to the scene where dope was smoked through an apple also led Rogen to believe that his "weed action movie" Pineapple Express would probably strike rich. Work would certainly come Rogen's way, much of it voice work. 2006 would see him and Apatow cameo in an episode of Help Me Help You where Ted Danson would play a therapist and best-selling self-help author struggl;ing with a divorce and a young daughter dating a therapist the same age as him. As if Apatow and Rogen carried some kind of TV curse, the show would last only fourteen episodes. After this would come a meatier role in You, Me And Dupree, where Matt Dillon would marry Kate Hudson, daughter of his disapproving property developer boss Michael Douglas. Their perfect life would be turned upside down, though, when Dillon allows his scatty, brilliant but unpredictable and hardly house-trained buddy Owen Wilson to stay for a while. The film's best moments would involve Douglas's aggressive humiliation of Dillon, but Rogen would impress too, playing another friend of Dillon and Wilson, who likes to drink, smoke and be bad, but only as long as he's home before the curfew set by 'er indoors. It would be another hit.

After You, Me And Dupree, Rogen would lend his voice, very briefly, to an episode of the animated American Dad! He'd then do the same in the far more prestigious monster hit Shrek the Third, in his role of ship's captain taking the opportunity to tease the titular green ogre. Also featuring would be Shrek regulars Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy, with Ian McShane as Captain Hook and Rogen's former co-star Amy Poehler as Snow White.

The success of The 40 Year Old Virgin would allow Judd Apatow to follow through on his long-held belief that Rogen was a leading man, the studio letting him promote Rogen to top billing in his next feature, Knocked Up. They would run with this project rather than The Long D, a movie about long-distance relationships where High School sweethearts Dave and Rena would attend college on opposite sides of the country, that Rogen had been trying to sell for some time. The movie would see Rogen playing a character quite close to himself, a Canadian in Los Angeles, getting stoned and shooting the shit with a bunch of mates in a shared house. He'd be quite an inventive pot-head, too, sucking draw into a diver's face-mask amongst other contraptions. In a bar he meets Katherine Heigl, a professional way out of his league (originally this part was to have been played by Anne Hathaway). He likes her, but doesn't follow up till he's pushed into it by his Lothario friend Jason Segel. Both very, very drunk, he and Heigl then proceed to have unprotected sex, Heigl in the morning being extremely embarrassed by the whole affair. However, falling pregnant, she's forced to contact Rogen once more and, though he's hated by her controlling sister Leslie Mann and keeps putting his foot in it with an ever more hormonal Heigl, he gradually grows into the role of responsible dad.

Rogen would share some effective scenes with Paul Rudd, playing Mann's hen-pecked hubbie, he and Rogen taking off for Vegas and munching magic mushrooms before a performance by Cirque du Soleil. Otherwise the improvised banter would be far weaker than that in The 40 Year Old Virgin. Sitting around jawing with his early cohorts Segel, Martin Starr and Jay Baruchel, as well as Jonah Hill, Rogen delivered the best lines, but these sequences really were rather lame, severely lacking in top-notch material. Even so, the movie would be an even bigger hit for the Apatow/Rogen team, taking almost $150 million at the US box office and costing just $30 million. Great care had been taken to tailor the movie to its American audience. Apatow had even recorded the viewers at test screenings and synched the tapes to the movie, so he could see exactly what made people laugh and where to pause so their laughter didn't drown the next joke. Rogen would learn a lot from this, even coming to enjoy test screenings as they'd tell him which jokes fell flat and thus needed to be replaced.

While shooting Knocked Up, Apatow and Rogen would be working on their next project, auditioning and still writing for Superbad, first penned by Rogen and Evan Goldberg when they were 14. As Rogen and Goldberg were now too old for the leads, this would see Jonah Hill and Michael Cera star as, very reasonably, Seth and Evan, two virginal High School friends who talk constantly about sex (actually Hill was less than two years younger than Rogen). Cera's more sensitive and cerebral while Hill's Seth is angry and outraged, always on the verge or in the middle of another caustic, amusing rant, always foiled in his efforts to score with girls, mostly by his own suicidal failure to stop over-eating. Managing to get invited to a party, they take responsibilty for buying the alcohol, relying on their super-nerdy friend Christopher Mintz-Plasse and his newly forged ID card. When they think he's been busted in the off-licence, they embark on a city-wide odyssey to score either money, booze or both. In fact, Mintz-Plasse has not been busted, he's been taken under the wing of two rogue cops, Rogen and Bill Hader, another Saturday Night Live alumnus who'd appeared in Knocked Up and You, Me And Dupree. Taking him along on their night duty, they reveal themselves to be drunken sci-fi geeks, useless with women, cowardly and inept in their work and a possible adult version of Cera and Hill.

Directed by Greg Mottola, who earlier helmed six episodes of Undeclared, and featuring Martin Starr and Rogen's dad Mark, Superbad would be Rogen's best film yet, breaking the $100 million mark yet again, this time off a budget of just $20 million. With that kind of profit margin Rogen and Apatow were now officially hot property. Rogen would even be asked to host Saturday Night Live, starring his recent co-stars Bill Hader and Amy Poehler, as well as Kristen Wiig, who'd appeared in Knocked Up. He'd also appear on the holiday show Getaway, he and Paul Rudd being celebrity travellers, and there'd be Jay And Seth Versus The Apocalypse, a one-and-a-half minute short intended to create interest in a feature film Rogen wanted to make. Based on a story by Evan Goldberg and Jason Stone, and soundtracked with Randy Newman's You've Got A Friend In Me, this would see Rogen and his Undeclared and Knocked Up co-star Jay Baruchel annoying and ranting at each other in a ruined room after some worldwide catastrophe.

Entering 2008, the now in-demand Rogen would accept a series of minor roles, several of them voice parts. In The Spiderwick Chronicles, twins (both played by Freddie Highmore) and their sister would be taken to a big, dilapidated estate by their soon-to-be-divorced mother Mary Louise Parker. Here, via a hidden dumb waiter and a secret study, Highmore would discover an alternate world of goblins, trolls and griffins where a demonic ogre, played by Nick Nolte, plans an attack on our world.

Only the kids can save us, with a little help from Rogen's Hogsqueal, a pointy-headed pig-like hobgoblin with an insatiable appetite for birds (feathered birds, just for a change) who's certainly not to be trusted. After this would come the animated Horton Hears A Who!, starring Rogen's former dinner companion Jim Carrey, and featuring Steve Carell, Jonah Hill and Amy Poehler. Based on the Dr Seuss classic, Carrey would play the elephant who's persecuted for his belief that a speck of dust is another world, Rogen playing his blue mouse friend who can't just take his word for it. It would be another giant hit for Rogen, as would his next outing, Kung Fu Panda, another animation where his old writing partner Jack Black would play the bear of the title, a sad sap who's chosen to rescue the valley from a rampaging snow leopard voiced by Rogen's Shrek co-star Ian McShane. Along with Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and David Cross, Rogen would play one of the five heroes trained by Dustin Hoffman's sage to do this kind of work. He'd be Mantis, a super-quick insect warrior let down by his impatience, who also performs acupuncture on Black and accidentally stops his heart.

Rogen's last three releases of an absurdly busy year would all be live action. First there'd be Judd Apatow's Step Brothers, directed by and starring Anchorman's Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. Here Ferrell and John C Reilly would play fortysomething child-men still living with their parents, Ferrell with Mary Steenburgen and Reilly with Richard Jenkins. When Steenburgen and Jenkins become an item, marry and decide to take off on an extended cruise, the two grown boys are required to dress smart and find jobs and a place to live. One job interview at a sports goods store would see them questioned by Rogen, who likes their ill-fitting tuxedos, mistaking their weirdness for advanced humour. A monster fart by Reilly, though, has him realise his mistake and he dismisses them without a further thought.

After this would come another cameo, or rather several cameos, in Kyle Newman's Fanboys. Set in 1994, this would see a group of Star Wars fanatics plot to drive to George Lucas's ranch and steal a pre-release copy of The Phantom Menace, purely so they can see it before anyone else. Playing the kids would be Chistopher Marquette and Sam Huntingdon, plus Rogen's regular co-star Jay Baruchel and Dan Fogler, who'd also added his voice to Horton Hears A Who! and Kung Fu Panda. Rogen would appear as a buck-toothed Trekkie, a Trekkie dressed as a monster and as a Las Vegas pimp. Actually filmed in 2006, Fanboys might have been timely on its intended release in 2007, fitting in well with the likes of Knocked Up and Superbad. However, the Weinstein brothers had no confidence in it and would give it only a limited release - and that in February, 2009.

Far more important as far as Rogen was concerned was Pineapple Express.

Written as a test to impress Judd Apatow, this was the "weed action movie" he'd threatened and would see Rogen as a smart stoner who makes his living by conning his way into people's confidence and serving papers on them. When he's staking out his next victim, drug dealer Gary Cole, he sees Cole and cop Rosie Perez shoot a rival dealer in the head. Rogen freaks out and flees to the home of his small-time dealer James Franco (his main man in Freaks And Geeks, then a Golden Globe winner for his portrayal of James Dean). Knowing they'll be tracked down by the killers, they go on the run, moving into a series of stoned and usually violent set-pieces. They'd be terrified at night in the woods, undergo a extended fight with grass Danny McBride and finally take on Cole in an abandoned underground government laboratory, now used to grow all manner of blow. Rogen would be straighter than Franco, more together, exasperated by his friend and far more proficient in the scraps where his karate would come into play. Originally the Franco part had been written by Rogen for Rogen, but Franco found himself more attracted to the dopier role. McBride was cast because Rogen and his friends had loved The Foot Fist Way where McBride had played a fascistic tae kwon do teacher, his vile attitudes striking against all the ethics of the martial arts. They'd invited McBride and director Jody Hill to the set of Knocked Up and would be told about their film school friend David Gordon Green and how funny he was before he moved on to such sombre fare as All The Real Girls. Consequently Green would be given the job of directing Pineapple Express. Hill would gain his reward a little later.

Rogen has been forced to fight with Sony over the budget of Pineapple Express. He'd refused to take out any of the dope material, or the violence, and so was forced to compromise on the stunts. Several action scenes were thus cut out of the script, including a scuba battle, and the costs kept down to $26 million. Once again the proceeds would be impressive, the film taking $87 million in America. Rogen had even managed to squeeze in a reference to his granny, one of the minor characters being named Faye Belogus.

Rogen's final release of 2008 would see him working with another of his early heroes, Kevin Smith. Smith had seen and loved The 40 Year Old Virgin and had written a part especially for Rogen, one of the leads in his latest, Zack And Miri Make A Porno. Here Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, another star of The 40 Year Old Virgin, would share a flat but, falling on hard times, they're unable to pay the rent or heating bills. At a High School reunion, where Banks fawns over former quarterback Brandon Routh and Rogen meets his gay porn star boyfriend Justin Long, they have an idea to make a porn film of their own, taking advantage of Banks' popularity on the Internet when she's secretly photographed in her large panties.

Bringing in dominatrix Traci Lords and ditsy Katie Morgan (both real-life porn queens), ingenu Ricky Mabe and Smith regular Jason Mewes who can summon an erection at will, they go about making a Star Wars homage, Star Whores but, having sex on camera, they realise they have deeper feelings for each other and, in a burst of confusion and jealousy, leave the project before filming is wrapped. The movie would be charming in places, with Rogen and Banks playing well off each other, goading and teasing, but it would be undermined occasionally by its language. Swearing, as we all know, can be hugely amusing and dramatically effective. Used to this extent, though, it smacked of laziness and even moronism. Nevertheless, the film did turn a minor profit.

Amazingly, Rogen would see more of his work released in 2008. This was Drillbit Taylor, starring his You, Me and Dupree colleague Owen Wilson. Based on a story by John Hughes, this has been in production for some time and had been yet another of the jobs Judd Apatow had pushed Rogen's way after Undeclared sank. Rogen, along with his friend Kris Brown, wrote it in 2004 and stayed true to Hughes' vision of a couple of nerdy High School kids hiring a bodyguard. Also featuring would be former Rogen co-stars Danny McBride and Leslie Mann. It would be one of Rogen's very few financial failures.

Rogen's first picture of 2009 would be far more impressive. This was Observe And Report, written and directed by Jody Hill of The Foot Fist Way. Here Rogen would play his darkest character yet, a mall cop who lives with and cares for his drunken mother and runs a security team including Korean twins and Latino ne'er do well Michael Pena. He also fancies the pants off Anna Faris, an airheaded slapper on the cosmetics counter, and is loved in turn by Collette Wolfe, a temporary cripple behind the burger bar. Unable to communicate properly with either of them, he resorts to macho military posturing. As a flasher begins to terrorize the mall, and Faris in particular, Rogen swears to catch him and is annoyed by the appearance of cop Ray Liotta. Indeed, he's jealous as his own bi-polarity prevents him from joining the police, his dream job. Liotta tires of Rogen's attentions and stitches him up, Rogen goes on a hilarious binge of drug-taking. violence and thievery with Pena and it all comes to an ending of actually quite shocking heaviness. Removed from the wise-cracking stoner character he'd so often played, Rogen was excellent as the disturbed guard, seeking to be useful, desperately bolstering his own confidence, skilfully battering a gang of ruffians, suffering his mother's weakness and appearing to rape a paralytically drunk Faris. It doesn't sound funny, in fact it wasn't always funny. But its combination of hardcore comedy and drama was well thought-out and brilliantly presented. Again it would turn a small profit.

Far more successful financially would be Rogen's next animation, Monsters Vs Aliens, also featuring Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler. Here, on her wedding day, Reese Witherspoon's Susan Murphy would be mutated by a meteorite and grow to fifty feet tall. Grabbed by the feds, she'd be imprisoned in a secret facility where monsters such as Hugh Laurie's Dr Cockroach and Rogen's translucent, single-eyed, brainless blue blob were held. When Earth's invaded by an all-powerful robot, the government must release the monsters to take it out. Rogen would be named BOB, for Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate and was the result of a diabolical experiment involving a tomato and a dessert topping. He'd also steal pretty much every scene he was in, leading to an additional 13-minute short based on his character, BOB's Big Break. Furthermore, there'd be a Halloween special, entitled Monsters Versus Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space. Rogen would also reappear on Saturday Night Live, this time delivering a spoof of The Fast and The Furious titled The Fast and The Bi-Curious. Plus there'd be a self-deprecating appearance on Family Guy when Peter Griffin, needing money, goes in for gene therapy experiments and is injected with a Seth Rogen gene which, apparently, gives a person the appearance of being funny without actually being funny.

Rogen's final cinematic release of 2009 would be Funny People, a reunion with director Judd Apatow, as well as Leslie Mann and Jonah Hill. It would also be a chance to co-star with his first comedy hero, Adam Sandler. The movie would see Sandler as a superstar comic, famous, adored, but utterly isolated with no real love in his life. When he's told he has not long to live, he decides to help out ambitious young funnyman Rogen, gives him support slots, buys his jokes and eventually confides in him. On top of this he meets old flame Mann, now married to over-physical Aussie Eric Bana, and comes to learn what he's lost and what he still might gain. It was a fine performance from Sandler, like his efforts in Punch Drunk Love, and Rogen would match him. Now slimmed-down and calmer, he was clearly now an actor, playing a comedian, and not a comedian playing an actor playing a comedian. He'd end the year with the rare privilege of, along with Evan Goldberg, writing an episode of The Simpsons where Comic Book Guy would write a movie and Homer would be cast as the superhero Everyman, of course having trouble with the required diet and exercise. Rogen himself would voice the celebrity fitness coach charged with getting Homer into shape. There'd be more kudos when he was asked to spoof the famous Vanity Fair cover featuring designer Tom Ford with a naked Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley. Shot, as they had been, by Annie Leibovitz, Rogen would appear in a pink skin-suit alongside Jonah Hill and Jason Segel, with a be-suited Paul Rudd appearing to sniff Rogen's hair.

2010 would bring Paul, written by Nick Frost and Simon Pegg and directed by Superbad's Greg Mottola. Here Frost and Pegg would play comic book geeks returning from Comic-Con and befriending an alien near Area 51, Rogen providing the voice and mannerisms from the CGI-generated creature. Also featuring would be Sigourney Weaver plus former Rogen co-stars Jane Lynch and Kristen Wiig. Rogen would then face his biggest test yet in The Green Hornet, which had originally been a 1930s radio show then, as a TV series in the Sixties, had introduced Bruce Lee to the world. Now he and Evan Goldberg, who'd first bonded over comic characters such as this, were to script a full-blown action feature, a $70 million blockbuster, with superstar Cameron Diaz onboard. And Rogen himself would be Britt Reid, the newspaper magnate and clandestine crime-fighter.

Having burst onto the scene amidst the team Judd Apatow assembled for The 40 Year Old Virgin, Seth Rogen has now stepped out on his own, first on safe ground in the comedy genre, then into The Green Hornet. Unable to continue falling back on his vast stock of jokes about High School, dope, beer and sex, he is now forced to test himself as an actor under the brightest spotlight. Given the man's resourcefulness thus far, it seems he's sure to make a go of it.

Dominic Wills