Latest news with #Rogen
Indian Express
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
When Tom Cruise tried to recruit ‘weak-minded' Seth Rogen into Scientology: ‘Thank God Judd Apatow was there or…'
Actor Seth Rogen is turning heads and taking names with his new series The Studio, where the narrative attempts to pull back the curtain on Hollywood and what all goes on behind the big screen. Like the nature of the show, Rogen has always been outspoken about his experiences as a part of the film industry and about his relationships with his co-stars, whether good or sour. Being the comedic genius he is, Rogen was once called by none other than Tom Cruise to help him make a comedy film. However, things quickly turned away from the main motive of the meeting and somehow transitioned into Cruise talking about religion and how the 'big pharma' companies were plotting against him. Maybe Cruise had some Ethan Hunt flashbacks, a character who often finds himself being hunted, misunderstood or both. As according to Rogen, Cruise seemed all set to recruit him and actor Judd Apatow into the Scientology camp. 'I am a huge Tom Cruise fan, and I watch all his movies. We had a long meeting with him, and a couple of hours into it, the Scientology stuff comes up and how weird he has looked in the press lately. He tells us, 'If you just let me tell you what it was really about and give me 20 minutes, you would say no f***** way.' Rogen added that he and Apatow looked at each other confused and weren't really ready for converting to a new religion right then. ALSO READ: Tom Cruise shrugs off father's day question after daughter Suri dropped his name following a decade of of estrangement He said, 'Cruise started explaining to us how the pharmaceutical industry was trying to sabotage him and make him look bad in front of everyone. Cruise said, 'They're scrambling, and they're doing everything they can to discredit me so I won't hurt sales anymore'.' The 'making me look bad in the press' thing which Cruise is referring to is a collection of several instances where the actor condemned the use of antidepressants and, of course, his infamous lunge on Oprah Winfrey's sofa in 2006. When Rogen asked him about the Oprah show, Cruise said that the media edited the video to make it look worse and then compared his situation to Louis Farrakhan. For context, Louis was the head of the Nation of Islam and had made several anti-Semitic comments, including comparing the Jews to cockroaches. Rogen admitted that 'of all the strange sentences I've heard in my life, Tom Cruise name-dropping Louis Farrakhan is top three.' Rogen, who described himself as 'generally weak-willed, weak-minded person', said he was thankful the director was with him. He added: 'Thank god Judd was like, 'Eh, I think we're good. Let's just talk about movies and stuff.'' Cruise is one of Scientology's most famous followers and earlier described the religion as 'beautiful'. He was introduced to the organisation by his first wife Mimi Rogers in 1986 and has followed it since. Along with The Studio, Rogen will also be appearing in the upcoming film Good Fortune, with Aziz Ansari and Keanu Reeves. The movie marks Aziz's directorial debut.
The Hindu
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Seth Rogen's The Studio and its ambitious usage of the ‘oner'
In a promotional behind-the-scenes interview conducted on the sets of the Apple TV+ comedy series The Studio (co-developed by and starring Seth Rogen), actress Kathryn Hahn says, 'Seth (Rogen) and Evan (Goldberg) had this really ambitious plan to shoot most of the show as 'oners', y'know, one-shots, long uninterrupted takes with no cuts. As an actor, it makes everything more challenging but also more beautiful because with every scene you feel like you're in a play.' Rogen plays the lead character Matt Remick, a perpetually hassled studio head. He is genuinely in love with the movies but tries to balance that impulse with the bottom line-driven demands of his corporate paymasters. The show has been universally acclaimed not only for its satire but also, as Hahn points out, the ambitious usage of 'oners'. Essentially, Rogen and Co. have expanded the scope of the Aaron Sorkin-esque 'walk-and-talk' sequences popularised by 2000s TV mainstays such as The West Wing, Scrubs and Boston Legal (all 'workplace stories' like The Studio). The walk-and-talk typically takes place in a narrow corridor (at the hospital, law firm, etc.) and focuses on the lead characters. As they walk towards the camera, other characters flit in and out of the frame. The Studio executes the same idea, only the camera isn't right in the leads' faces, like it would be in a classic 'walk-and-talk' 20 years ago. The camera is equally interested in showing us the world around Matt and whoever he is talking to in a scene, weaving and bobbing in and out of the characters' immediate vicinity. After all, a movie set is a more colourful workplace than a hospital or a law firm or, well, the White House. The Studio's oners utilise this rather well, all the way through the show's 10 episodes. The second episode, in fact, is called 'The Oner', and follows Matt as he attempts to help Sarah Polley (playing herself) shoot a oner for her (fictional) film in the show. In the here and now The oner has, historically speaking, been a point of prestige for filmmakers and actors, a show of strength that underlines the technical skills of everybody involved. Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) is considered one of the first major films to deploy the oner. In those days, a single reel of film was only capable of carrying around 20 minutes of footage. Four reels, four oners — Hitchcock used lighting and editing tricks to make it look like the film consisted of four long takes. The story follows two friends who kill a mutual acquaintance and then host a dinner party with the corpse hidden in the house. The oners elevate the sense of tension the audience feels, watching two murderers trying to get away with it, while the corpse rests right under their noses. Orson Welles' A Touch of Evil (1958) famously begins with a oner, where we see an unidentified man placing a bomb inside a car. Martin Scorsese takes the audience on a oner-trip through the Copacabana nightclub in his mob classic Goodfellas (1990) (Scorsese, incidentally, plays a tragicomic version of himself in the first episode of The Studio). Robert Altman, John Woo, Alfonso Cuaron et al — in every era, major filmmakers have used the oner to emphasise the 'here and now' nature of specific scenes, or just as a showcase for technical virtuosity. The last decade of oners, however, has been inspired by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Birdman (2014) — the film has been shot and edited in such a way that all of it looks like one big oner, a 110-minute shot if you will. Leading up to 'Adolescence' Other than The Studio, there have been two TV shows this decade that have used the oner in inventive, formally ambitious ways. The first is the Marvel TV show Daredevil (2015), where the first season features several hand-to-hand combat scenes shot as oners. The pick of the lot is a hallway fight scene where Daredevil/ Matt Murdoch rescues a kidnapped child after fighting his way through a corridor jampacked with goons — the lighting is inspired from a famous scene in Park Chan-wook's Oldboy (2003), where the protagonist beats up a corridor full of goons with a hammer. The second TV innovator in this context is the recent, excellent British miniseries Adolescence, about a 13-year-old boy arrested following the murder of a girl from his school. Each of the four episodes of Adolescence is shot like a oner — no editing tricks this time, just a single uninterrupted take. There's a 12 Angry Men-like unreliable narrator edge to the drama in Adolescence, and at their best, the long takes amplify the audience's unease. I love the first and second episodes' usage of the one-shot but also feel that by the time the fourth episode winds down, the novelty value of the device wanes. Oners are great when done expertly, but because of the technical task at hand, creators run the risk of focusing too much on shot-mechanics and too little on the narrative. Thankfully, The Studio understands this only too well and takes care not to use its signature device indiscriminately, or without a clear purpose. The writer and journalist is working on his first book of non-fiction.
Indian Express
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Will Aryan Khan's show The Ba***ds of Bollywood be to India what Seth Rogen's The Studio is to Hollywood?
The eighth episode of The Studio, Seth Rogen's Hollywood workplace drama on Apple TV+, revolves around his character of Continental Studios head Matt Remick desperately trying Zoe Kravitiz (playing herself) to thank him in her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes. Of course, that doesn't happen, but when Remick comes across Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos in the washroom and congratulates him for being thanked in every acceptance speech, the latter nonchalantly tells him that's a contractual obligation. Rogen revealed that when he pitched this episode to Apple TV, executives wanted Apple CEO Tim Cook in place of Sarandos. But Rogen stuck to his vision and got Sarandos onboard. To have the head of a rival studio do a cameo in your flagship show, and also to have him make fun of himself, is something The Studio team would've achieved with the same do-or-die efficiency the cast exhibits throughout the show. Based on a growing Hollywood studio's inner workings — conflicts, chaos, accomplishments, setbacks — The Studio has already been renewed for season 2. Watching it unfold weekly often begs the question, especially in the minds of those who work inside or on the periphery of the Hindi film industry — if a Bollywood studio would ever commission such a self-critical satire. 'With the current state the film industry and the streamers are in right now, do you really think so? Had they been so perceptive, we wouldn't have hit rock bottom,' says a screenwriter, whose show around the same lines is stuck in the pipeline of a leading streaming platform. 'I'm ready to change names or even try to get the NOCs, but the platform is not even admitting if that's the issue,' they add. The said show, the writer admits, is a no-holds-barred hitjob on the studio system in India, how major global players like Walt Disney Studios and Fox Star Studios wrapped up operations in the country, and how the corporates have streamlined the business, but killed the good ol' joy of making movies. 'At the end of the day, my show is a plea in favour of the movies. But of course, the studios don't get it,' says the writer. It's not like the Hindi film industry hasn't taken potshots at itself ever. Farah Khan's 2007 reincarnation saga Om Shanti Om and Zoya Akhtar's 2009 directorial debut Luck By Chance attempted the same too. 'Om Shanti Om was a blockbuster more because of the reincarnation storyline. The film industry setting was incidental,' said an industry insider. 'Shah Rukh Khan made more fun of his own character more than the industry itself, just like he did in Fan (2016), though in a different vein. And Farah's barbs were sharper and more direct in the first half, which was about the yesteryear film industry, instead of the contemporary setup,' added the insider. 'Farah and Shah Rukh had the muscle to bring together 31 stars for the 'Deewangi Deewangi' song. But that's what that film is remembered for — the celeb spotting, instead of some of the celebrities cracking jokes on themselves. Do we remember the witty and juicy Filmfare Awards segment more than the song?' The insider also pointed out, 'As a matter of fact, Farah shot that segment in true Studio-fashion: putting up a camera outside the actual awards.' Both Farah and Zoya, cousins and daughters of a film producer and screenwriters, respectively, grew up on the sidelines of the film industry. They both saw their families struggle financially, which gives them a fair vantage point to criticize the industry as much as love it. But unlike Farah's film that packed in more themes, Zoya's love letter to the Bollywood outsider didn't find as many takers. 'Don't get me wrong. It's a much-loved film! But as a junior artist told Seth Rogen on the sets of The Studio, 'I hope this is not a very expensive inside joke.' That's what Luck By Chance was: an inside joke that a few would appreciate, but many would struggle to decode the narrative winks. Hrithik Roshan, Rishi Kapoor, and Dimple Kapadia are all on point in the film, but ultimately, the film is from the point of view of the outsider,' said an assistant director who's worked with Zoya closely in the past. Moreover, Luck By Chance depicts the whims and quirks of the film industry insiders through a lens of love, instead of a magnifying glass that has more scrutiny. Konkona Sen Sharma's character remains a TV actor for years while Farhan Akhtar's rises the ranks because he blends in. The film presents both paths, instead of cornering the film industry to reflect and change itself. Both Om Shanti Om and Luck By Chance were written at a time when the studio system hadn't entirely found a stronghold on the Hindi film industry. Madhur Bhandarkar, who'd already explored a part of the world with Page 3 in 2005, promised to expose the industry with Heroine (2012), starring Kareena Kapoor. 'Like all Bhandarkar films, Heroine also sensationalized the events and characters. It's not that they weren't true. The origins were. But they were exaggerated for gratuitous effect. Whereas in The Studio, it's not the events or the characters, but the situation that's heightened. That places people we know in circumstances we fear, instead of dumping characters far removed from reality in situations of the same nature,' underlined a former film critic, now an industry insider. Just last year, there were two shows — Showtime on Disney+ Hotstar and Industry on Amazon MiniTV — that offered a ringside view of the contemporary film industry. Produced by Karan Johar, once alleged as 'the flagbearer of nepotism,' Showtime was as pulpy as that punchline, but eventually drowned in its own excesses. Whereas Industry, created by Navjot Gulati, has its moments, but is yet again a 2024 Aaram Nagar counterpart of Luck By Chance. 'Showtime and Industry are fun to watch, but they don't have the bite of Entourage or The Studio. For god's sake, The Studio made Martin Scorsese weep on camera because he was removed from a film! Will a Sanjay Leela Bhansali do that cameo here,' said an insider. To even come close, one needs a fresh directorial voice who hits that sweet spot between being an insider and operating on the margins. And a strong studio to back it up: You need corporate muscle and tremendous goodwill to combat potential lawsuits and Reddit threads. So, is Aryan Khan's directorial debut The Ba***ds of Bollywood that show? Backed by Shah Rukh's Red Chillies Entertainment, the show hasn't revealed any of its cards, including the cast or the plot. But everyone, from Karan Johar to Ted Sarandos, have sung laurels about the show. 'It's a fiercely guarded show. I can't say whether it on the lines of The Studio, but the word out there is Aryan has the right distance to be objective and the apt position to be an observer,' says a former employee of Netflix India. Right distance after his infamous arrest in 2021? 'No, even before that, unlike his father, Aryan's ambition wasn't to be a movie star. He always wanted to be a filmmaker. If Shah Rukh Khan's son can have and assert that clarity from such a young age, you definitely have to give him that he's objective,' the source adds. Also Read — The Studio review: Seth Rogen's scathing showbiz satire can take Apple to the next level; it's a Ted Lasso-level triumph Whether The Ba***ds of Bollywood turns out to be to Bollywood what The Studio is to Hollywood is left to be seen, but the screenwriter (whose show is stuck) is hopeful Aryan's show will empower other studios to greenlight scripts like theirs. 'I'm all for good stories. As long as we want to empower them,' they say, adding, 'Bollywood isn't really known for poking fun at anything, whether it's politics or businesses, but the least it can do is make fun of itself. Maybe that's the story it needs to get out of this creative crisis.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Keanu Reeves Is a Guardian Angel to Seth Rogen in Aziz Ansari's ‘Good Fortune' Teaser
Aziz Ansari finally has fortune on his side: The writer/director's long-awaited 'Good Fortune' is almost here after strike delays. 'Good Fortune' stars Keanu Reeves as Seth Rogen's guardian angel (yeah, the casting is almost too good to be true), with Ansari also co-starring in addition to helming the feature. 'Good Fortune' was first announced in April 2023; the project is being billed as Ansari's directorial debut after his 'Being Mortal' production fell in limbo as of April 2022 amid actor Bill Murray's sexual misconduct allegations on the set of the Searchlight Pictures film. (Murray later claimed the investigation stemmed from a miscommunication.) Rogen was also attached to star in 'Being Mortal,' in addition to leading 'Good Fortune.' Of course, with 'The Studio' Season 2 already in the works, who knows if Rogen will still have time to be 'Mortal' as well. More from IndieWire You May Never Get to See Cannes' Most Provocative and 'Dangerous' Movie Aronofsky and Soderbergh Collaborator Eddie Alcazar Debuts Surreal Animated Pilot Inspired by '90s Golden Age of Cartoons - Watch the Trailer The official synopsis for 'Good Fortune' reads: 'A well-meaning but rather inept angel named Gabriel (Reeves) meddles in the lives of a struggling gig worker (Ansari) and a wealthy venture capitalist (Rogen).' Ansari also produces along with Anthony Katagas and Alan Yang; Aniz Adam Ansari, Jonathan McCoy, Christopher Woodrow, and Connor DiGregorio executive produce. The film is a Lionsgate feature in association with Media Capital Technologies, and is a Garam Fiilms / Keep Your Head / Yang Pictures production. In addition to starring alongside Rogen in 'Good Fortune,' Reeves is teaming up with another 'Superbad' alum, Jonah Hill, for Apple film 'Outcome.' Hill will direct and produce the film about a damaged Hollywood star (Reeves) who must dive into the dark depths of his past to confront his demons and make amends after he is extorted with a mysterious video clip. He also will appear in 'Ballerina' and the untitled fifth 'John Wick' film. Rogen, meanwhile, is among the voice cast for Andy Serkis' 'Animal Farm' movie alongside Steve Buscemi, Glenn Close, and Kieran Culkin. He additionally will star in Kristen Stewart's stoner comedy 'The Wrong Girls.' Lionsgate will premiere 'Good Fortune' in theaters October 17. Check out the teaser below. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie The 55 Best LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Seth Rogen spotted in Kennebunkport, Maine restaurant over Memorial Day weekend
KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine — You can add Hollywood actor and director Seth Rogen to the list of celebrities who have traveled to Kennebunkport to enjoy the restaurants and shops the community has to offer. Rogen, 43, dined at Mabel's Lobster Claw on Ocean Avenue over the holiday weekend, according to a recent Instagram post by the restaurant. 'We had a special visitor at Mabel's Lobster Claw yesterday,' the restaurant wrote, alongside a photo showing Rogen and three others. 'Thank you for joining us, Seth Rogen — we hope you enjoyed your meal and your time in Kennebunkport!' The owner of Mabel's Lobster Claw could not be reached for comment. Known for his laugh and for a comedic style, Rogen first appeared on the scene as Ken Miller, a sarcastic and disaffected teenager on 'Freaks and Geeks,' a dramedy on television at the turn of the century. Since then, he has had box office successes on film, from such comedies as 'Knocked Up' and 'Neighbors' to such acclaimed dramas as 'Steve Jobs' and 'The Fabelmans,' directed by Steven Spielberg. Currently, Rogen is getting noticed for directing and starring in 'The Studio,' a comedic look at Hollywood whose debut season is now streaming on Apple TV+. More: Seth Rogen says this is the key to the A-list cameos in 'The Studio' Other celebrities known to visit Kennebunkport include Taylor Swift, who dined at Alisson's Restaurant while shooting a music video more than a dozen years ago, and two-time Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn, who once stopped at Coastal Jewelers in Dock Square, according to the owners of both local businesses. Last June, singer Lady Gaga visited an ice cream parlor in York while attending her sister's local wedding. In August, boxing champion Mike Tyson stopped by a cannabis shop in Eliot. Also, last September, Academy Award-winning actor Matt Damon visited a juice bar in Kittery. And then there was one celebrity last summer who had a prolonged stay in southern Maine: award-winning actress Kathleen Turner, who had a role in 'A Little Night Music' at the Ogunquit Playhouse in July and early August. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Seth Rogen spotted in Kennebunkport, Maine restaurant
