Seth Rogen: "I am the straightest guy in the movie"

When he was shooting his new outrageous apocalyptic comedy, 'This Is The End,' funny man Seth Rogen reveals the studio wasn't scared by the scenes of sex and drugs.

They were more concerned that Rogen and his real-life friends, Hollywood actors Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Danny McBride and Jonah Hill, were all playing themselves in the film.

[First clip for This is the End]

The studio, Sony, took some persuading of the basic idea. "The violence they were OK with, the sexual stuff. Never a note about demon dick," Rogen tells 'The Guardian' newspaper. "It was all about us playing ourselves. They were afraid it would feel like an extended MTV movie award skit, or a 'Funny Or Die' skit, and that it would just add a disingenuous texture to it. They were like, 'It'll make it less realistic', and we were like, 'It's more realistic. We're us. There's no break in reality between the world that you as the viewer are in and the world that we are in.'"

'This Is The End', which he co-wrote, co-produced, co-directed and stars in, took $7.8m on its opening night in the US, and after five days it had taken $32.8m, recouping its entire budget.

In the film the Hollywood actors are holed up at Franco's house, getting high on weed when the apocalypse hits. It's the ultimate stoner freakout movie, with each star sending up aspects of his persona.

"I am the straightest guy in the movie,"  Rogen insists. "I play, like, the glue, the common thread between everyone, trying to make everyone happy."

It's not been an easy ride: At 18 Rogen fired his business manager  and in 2008 he fell out with Harvey Weinstein over the marketing of the Kevin Smith comedy, 'Zack And Miri Make A Porno' – but then "he's a well-documented psychopath. He was using some of Judd (Apatow)'s movies to sell that movie, which was specifically bad because it threatened one of my closest relationships, and I was working with Judd at the time."

Not that Rogen has always taken his own advice. After 'Knocked Up' and 'Superbad' together took almost $300m in the summer of 2007, he found himself able to get almost anything green-lit. The result was 'The Green Hornet', an expensive superhero flick that struggled to make its $130m budget after a costly last-minute 3D conversion.

"The Green Hornet was such a f**king nightmare when we were making it that it would have been a miracle if it turned into something that was in any way even presentable," Rogen says.

He met writing partner Evan Goldberg in barmitzvah classes after their schools merged. Goldberg remembers one barmitzvah in particular out of the 36 they attended that year – for their friend Julia Moranis, the model for the Emma Stone character in 'Superbad' – when "everything clicked. As soon as we realised we weren't going to be kissing any girls that night, we started to hang out."

Their friendships, mishaps and furtive lusts found their way into 'Superbad', which they began writing in their teens. 

If 'Superbad' showed they could write a movie, 'Pineapple Express' showed they could write and produce a movie. 'This Is The End' now demonstrates to the studios that they can write, direct, produce and star in a movie.

It's producing that's hard, they say, in which case the figure to keep an eye on is the $31m for which they made 'This Is The End'.

In 2011, Rogen wed his long-time girlfriend, Lauren Miller, a comedy writer he met while working on 'Da Ali G Show' in the late 1990s. Goldberg's wife worked on 'Bridesmaids'.

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Rogen says of marriage: "I'm sure it affects things to some degree. We don't fight that. Me and Evan are thinking of writing a movie with Judd, actually, about couples who are married and about to get married, so it's nice when something new happens. It gives you more fodder."

Their forthcoming projects include a comedy about a guy who's having a baby but doesn't want to stop partying; an animated film Rogen has been trying to make for years; and 'The Interview', which reunites Rogen with Franco – they play journalists who go to interview Kim Jong-un and get mixed up in a CIA plot to assassinate him.

'This Is The End' is released on Friday 28 June.