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Seth Rogen, Anna Faris & Jody Hill are Seriously Funny
Seth Rogen, Anna Faris and Jody Hill are the future of Hollywood. Try and tell them that, though, and they’ll laugh in your face. Yet it’s true. Few work harder than these three. Few are smarter, or as willing to take risks. Few are as free from the poison of ego, or as willing to get as dirty as they do in the development, production and ultimately the performances of their films.
Their approach to creating is more provincial than Hollywood, probably the product of a regional “bubble,” each reflecting his or her own rich, often absurdly hilarious life experiences and an intensely personal point of view. Moviemaking for these three is a partisan effort, more akin to French Resistance fighters planning to blow up a bridge. It’s a collaborative effort rooted in shared histories and an unerring sense of what makes them laugh. But trust is the biggest component.
Rogen, Faris and Hill each surround themselves with loyal friends/collaborators—people who will be all too happy to tell them when they’re out of line or off-base. They’re living the dream, blurring the line between work and life, working with their friends and getting paid handsomely to do it.
Together, they have combined their formidable talents and wildly idiosyncratic approaches to cinema to create Observe and Report. As comedies go, Observe and Report has more in common with the darker elements of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver than anything else.
That’s not to say it’s not funny, because it is. It’s funny in the same way the Son of Sam or salmonella are funny. It’s complex, like loving and hating someone at the same time. You may feel like a sociopath for laughing, but laugh you will. Or you’ll just hate it. Either way, it’s all part of their grand plan.
They are the future of moviemaking because, when the cinematic apocalypse comes and all the studio heads, suits and celeb sycophants are playing Marco Polo in the Lake of Fire, Rogen, Faris and Hill will be making movies that will cause the swimmers to laugh while they reflect upon their own sins.
Twenty-seven-year-old Rogen is easily the most famous and recognizable of the Observe and Report crew. A former second-place finisher in the Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest, Rogen was plucked out of almost total obscurity by Judd Apatow to star in the short-lived (but much beloved) television series “Freaks and Geeks.” Since then, Rogen has come to star in a string of successful and critically acclaimed films, starting out in supporting roles in such films as Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko and Apatow’s directorial debut, The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
When Apatow cast him in the lead of 2007’s Knocked Up, Rogen became a star in his own right. He starred in David Gordon Green’s weed-action comedy Pineapple Express (with fellow “Freaks and Geeks” alum James Franco). His bear-like physique perfectly complemented his everyman pornographer role in Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno and does again in Observe and Report, where he plays Ronnie, a disaffected and delusional mall cop.
But Rogen’s true genius may be his skills as a writer, having begun with episodes of “Undeclared” (another Apatow creation which he also starred in) and “Da Ali G Show” (for which he was nominated for an Emmy). He and his writing partner, Evan Goldberg, moved into features with the gleefully foul (and semi-autobiographical) Superbad, the aforementioned Pineapple Express and the forthcoming The Green Hornet, which Michel Gondry will direct. Apart from Goldberg, Rogen also wrote Drillbit Taylor. In addition, Rogen has begun producing, first as a co-producer on The 40-Year-Old Virgin, then as an executive producer on Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express, this summer’s Funny People and The Green Hornet. This is a man who can seemingly do it all.
Anna Faris truly personifies the “Anything you can do, I can do better” spirit of Irving Berlin’s duet from Annie Get Your Gun. A stunningly talented comedienne who is equal parts Goldie Hawn, Imogene Coca and Audrey Meadows, Faris has starred in the Scary Movie franchise and supported in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation and Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain. She really broke out as the out-of-work Playboy bunny in last year’s The House Bunny, a surprise box office hit which she also executive produced.
It was the experience of producing The House Bunny that sparked Faris’ quest to take control and show up the boys at their own game by developing and producing her own material. In fact, the 32-year-old Baltimore native may easily be the toughest of this bunch, as she is definitely her own woman with a laser-like vision and drive that belies the ditzy, stoned characters she’s become known for—including her role as Brandi, the makeup counter princess in Observe and Report. Though smart, charming and funny, Faris is definitely not a woman who suffers fools gladly.
The one with the briefest IMDb entry is Jody Hill, the consummate director. A native of Concord, North Carolina (home to the Hill-approved Troutman’s Bar-B-Q Pit), Hill exploded like a delayed-fuse hand grenade with The Foot Fist Way, the no-budget cult hit he shot with fellow University of North Carolina School of the Arts alums Danny McBride and Ben Best.
Shot in just 19 days and financed with credit cards, the film gained some traction on the festival circuit (including a screening at Sundance) before making its way to Will Ferrell and Adam McKay via a bootleg copy. The film became the first feature released under McKay and Ferrell’s Gary Sanchez Productions shingle. Since then, the love shown to Hill and The Foot Fist Way has been nothing short of orgasmic, with the director quickly developing a cult following for his brand of dark, absurdist humor.
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This story was published in the Spring 2009 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
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