Howard Stern Show regular Seth Rogen was on the show this morning to promote his forthcoming R-rated animated raunch-fest Sausage Party, and reliably dropped a few choice anecdotes in the process, with trademark guffaw in tow. Here are five big highlights from the conversation.
1. He was “hurt” by Knocked Up co-star Katherine Heigl's criticisms of the 2007 film but is nevertheless sympathetic to the actress, who discussed her awkward run-in with Rogen during an appearance on the show back in April.
Heigl's critical comments about the Judd Apatow-directed hit — which saw her slamming the film as “sexist,” among other things — made Rogen feel as if his “trust” was “betrayed” by his co-star, whom he says could have voiced her concerns “at any moment” during filming.
“We have a very open process. You have the ability to say anything at any moment,” said Rogen. “'I don't like this scene. I don't like how I'm coming across here.' There's few people I think in all of movies that are more collaborative and open to that type of criticism than [Apatow and I are], honestly.”
Rogen went on to say that he remembered the encounter Heigl described as being “not an unpleasant interaction,” but may have acted strangely due to a sense of confusion over her friendly overtures.
“When [I get criticized], as someone who's an egomaniac, I just get hurt by that. And so I just thought, 'Oh, she must fucking hate me,'” said Rogen. “So what it was, was when I saw her and she was really acting as though everything was fine, and it was very pleasant, honestly what I imagine my reaction was more of surprise, like 'Oh, she doesn't seem to hate me.' And I was probably just confused by what the fuck was happening basically.”
That said, Rogen claims he holds no ill will towards Heigl and would “of course” take her call if she reached out: “I respect the fact that maybe she felt [the Knocked Up controversy] has hurt her career. And I don't want that to have happened to her at all. Because I've said a thousand stupid things, and I really like her.”
Ultimately, Rogen stressed that his experience working with Heigl was a positive one, even if the aftermath was not:
“As we were making the movie, honestly, I was like, 'I would make a dozen movies with her…[We would be] whatever the shitty version of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan is.'”
2. They had to make ridiculously minor cuts to Sausage Party to garner an R rating, including literally shaving the pubic hair off some anthropomorphic pita bread during the film's already-infamous orgy scene.
“One of the funny things is, there is a pita bread and you see his ballsack in the end orgy, and it had hair on it. And [the MPAA] asked we remove the hair from the pita bread's ballsack. So we digitally shaved the pita bread's ballsack and removed the hair from it.”
3. He and Barbra Streisand both had a sense that The Guilt Trip was not working during filming.
“We would talk about how we did not think it was coming together as we had hoped,” said Rogen, who noted he otherwise had “a wonderful time making” the film. “It was one of the best scripts I've ever read, and it just kinda didn't come together in the movie.”
4. They cut the cheese…out of Sausage Party.
“We actually had cheese in there at one point, and we had such a hard time finding its voice we cut him out of the movie,” said Rogen while discussing Sausage Party's cast of food-based characters. “Is it French? Does it sound like Mickey Mouse?'”