Seth Rogen stars as a newly hired studio head whose dream job becomes his greatest nightmare in Hollywood satire The Studio
As the creators of comedies like Superbad, Pineapple Express and This Is the End, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have never been afraid of mining personal interests for laughs. With The Studio, however, the territory is so familiar it’s almost reality TV. “We’re commenting and making something about the exact thing we’re going through right now,” says Goldberg. “I don’t want to use the phrase ‘writes itself,’ but the ideas don’t stop flowing. And reality is as funny as fiction when it comes to this show.”
Though the series mines the experiences of a near-lifetime in the film industry, the concept of the 10-episode series came about fast. “From conception to creation, it’s probably the quickest turnaround we’ve ever had,” says Goldberg. “We’ve always talked about doing something about Hollywood, in some capacity like this, but the realization that Seth is old enough to play a studio head is essentially what triggered the entire idea to come together.”
Another impetus for The Studio was figuring out a project that they could actually film in the city of Los Angeles. “We just love making films in L.A. It’s been a long time,” says Goldberg, a Vancouverite before heading to California. “We talked about how Hollywood is obviously a very L.A. story. Once we had that on the table, the ideas for episodes just started flowing at a rate that is crazy.”
While there was no shortage of ideas, there was a potential hitch to executing them in a way that would make a show about a film studio feel authentic. “Each idea that we have, generally speaking, requires a cameo and the cameos are very specific,” says Goldberg. “Like Martin Scorsese; if he wasn’t the cameo in the pilot, we would’ve had to reconceive the entire concept. So that was the trickiest, most exciting and most difficult part to accomplish.”
The series has an abundance of famous faces: Charlize Theron, Zac Efron, Anthony Mackie, Olivia Wilde, Dave Franco and Zoë Kravitz, to name a few. “Seth and Evan got on Zoom with these people and talked them through what the spirit of the show is and what the intention was,” says executive producer James Weaver. “I remember hearing that Olivia had started talking about what a great time she had doing it and it started to get out into the community that this was a fun show to be a part of.”
A standout moment comes from actor-director Ron Howard, who arrived on set ready to subvert his golden boy image. “He got an acting coach to make sure that his blades were sharp and he was ready to rock,” says Goldberg. “He was very concerned about bringing the thunder and delivering the best performance he could and being as funny and grounded as possible. He would send us script thoughts and joke pitches. Ron was highly engaged and really gave it 120 per cent.”
While the action on screen is perpetually chaotic, the tone of the series is pure love for an industry to which Rogen and Goldberg have given two decades of their lives. “The spirit of the show is having our heart in the right place and being not cynical or down on the industry,” says Goldberg. “We all feel like we’re getting a chance to live our dream. Sure, it’s hard and there are choices and challenges to deal with, but we wanted to make sure that we got across that making movies and making television is pretty rad.”
Amid people whose job it is to monetize the films made by the studio, the spokesman for the love of the craft is studio head Matt Remick, played by Rogen. “He’s as passionate about making films as any human could be,” says Goldberg. “He loves what he does, but he at times is forced to ruin the very thing he loves and break the hearts of his heroes. Tragedy often makes great comedy and he’s in this fortunate yet tragic scenario where his greatest dream come true is also his worst nightmare.”
As the show tackles the inner workings of studio filmmaking, the creators were keenly aware that not every show about the industry hits. To them, however, The Studio is not niche. “This isn’t the tagline we slap on the show, but it is a workplace comedy,” says Goldberg. “It is akin to The Office. It is about a bunch of people working together. You like some of them, you don’t like some of them. You have the person above everyone that everyone hates and people vying for each other’s jobs. Everyone knows what it’s like to have responsibility. Everyone knows what it’s like to be afraid you’re going to mess up and get in trouble at work. So, even though it is this very Hollywood story, it is also a very simple story about people who work together.”
The Studio, streaming Wednesday, April 16 on Apple TV+