Pals talk about controversial ‘The Interview’

LOS ANGELES—The creative duo behind “The Interview,” the year’s most controversial film in Hollywood—Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg—have been friends since they were 12. From their first meeting in bar mitzvah class in their hometown, Vancouver, Canada, Seth and Evan have maintained their “bro”-therhood, even as they both moved to Hollywood. Who knew that the pair behind several comedies about man-children would spark a global controversy, provoke a regime to make retaliatory threats against the United States and cause a mysterious hacking that’s rocking a studio and Hollywood itself?

And all because of a comedy, directed and written by Seth and Evan, about a celebrity talk show host, Dave Skylark (James Franco) and his producer Aaron Rapaport (Seth), who are recruited by the CIA into an assassination mission when the duo land a rare, exclusive interview with North Korean despot Kim Jong-un (Randall Park).

Seth and Evan have the easy camaraderie of dudes who have been “bros” for a long time—they even took karate lessons together when they were growing up. So their banter, punctuated by Seth’s distinctive “huh-huh-huh” laughter, is tongue-in-cheek—keep that in mind as you read the interview excerpts below.

Note too that this interview took place last month, before the controversy over “The Interview” became an even bigger international incident and leaked e-mails from the Sony Pictures hacking incident impacted big players in Hollywood.

You should be condemned to the North Korean justice system.

Seth (S): That’s probably true, yeah. Luckily, I don’t have any plans to go to North Korea any time in the near future. If I were planning on going, that would now be canceled.

Looking back, when North Korea learned that Sony was making this film and they issued threats, what would you have said to that government?

“Sorry, we are going to do it anyway,” is what I guess I would say (laughs). They say that crazy rhetoric is the name of their game over there. We make fun of that in the movie itself. We honestly weren’t surprised when they came out and said stuff because again, it’s what we are making fun of. It was the first time they said that about the movie but it was not the first time they said stuff like that about America in general.

How much did you research about North Korea and what did you learn?

S: We did a lot of reading as much as we could about Kim

Jong-un and Korea itself. We honestly thought it would be disrespectful to not try to be as educated (on the matter). A lot of the stuff in the movie and the things about Kim Jong-un himself were based on what we read—the myths about him, that he doesn’t urinate or defecate, that he talks to dolphins, about Pyongyang, the grocery stores and the illusion that there is food when there isn’t.

That at first he was this untested leader who had been living in his father’s shadow and that the father skipped over the brothers to make him the guy who would succeed him. If anything, we had to filter stuff out that was too crazy to believe. Because there’s so much stuff that’s so crazy about what they are taught and what they are led to believe. We really wanted to show what a cult of personality it is out there.

How did the idea for this movie start?

S: It started with the idea that journalists have access to people who are very elusive and hard to come face to face with. Barbara Walters, Mike Wallace, all these people, have interviewed people who the American government would want to kill if they could. It was like, what if a journalist was approached to kill one of these people? Meanwhile, we were just very fascinated with North Korea and what was happening.

Did you write the movie before Dennis Rodman went to North Korea? It was art imitating life.

S: It was actually life imitating art. We wrote the movie before Dennis Rodman went to North Korea. The original script had Kim Jong-il in it. That’s how old the idea is. Then he died. We rewrote it for Kim Jong-un. If anything, we were a little worried that like, is this credible at all? Would you believe this would happen?

Then Dennis Rodman went there. We were like, “Holy s**t, this is exactly what we wrote and it’s happening.” Even to the point that Kim Jong-un liked Dennis. It was bizarre but in a lot of ways, that added credibility to something we thought wasn’t believable.

Which leader do you want to meet?

Barack Obama, why not? I met him one time, very briefly. It was great. He knew who I was so it just fed my ego. That’s why I would want to meet him again because anything that makes me feel better as a person is high priority to me.

What about the real Kim Jong-un?

I would not meet Kim Jong-un (laughs). Maybe if there were no threats in being killed by him, then yes, why not? I would love to show him the movie.

Do you think you’d make a good spy?

S: No, I would make a terrible spy. I am not a good liar (laughs).

(Evan Goldberg joins Seth.)

Evan (E): Now, it’s time to get serious (Seth laughs).

You can send a copy of the movie and a letter to Kim Jong-un.

E: He has to pay like everyone else.

S: That’s 14 bucks that we are not missing on (laughs).

This film will probably make its way to Kim Jong-un, in one way or another. What would you tell him?

S: “I hope you like it.” (Laughs.)

E: “I genuinely hope you like it for some reason.”

S: It would be interesting. It is weird but there was a moment when we were making this movie—we were like, he will probably see this movie, if he hasn’t seen it already. Who knows?

E: Like what did they think when the “South Park” guys did Kim Jong-un.

S: Yeah, we have no idea.

Without giving anything away, can you talk about Eminem? How did you approach him to make a cameo? He ran away with the joke in the movie.

S: He’s the most reasonable human ever when you talk to him. Strangely reasonable almost. We pitched him the joke. He said it was funny. He came up with a lot of the lines. He wrote the rap that Dave (James Franco’s character) came up with. He improvised a lot. We were like, I can’t believe he’s doing this (laughs).

E: Like he was the star of a movie. He knows what’s going on (on the set). He’s a lot more with it (about filmmaking) than your average musician.

S: We worked with musicians in the past. As charismatic and lovely as they are, some musicians don’t know how movies are made. Eminem, who was in “8 Mile,” knows exactly how movies are made. He was very technically aware of the process.

Was there a time when you wished you could take something back because you could hurt someone?

S: No, honestly. I can’t think of a situation where I look back and really regret something that we have done or think it was truly in bad taste, or truly offensive to anyone purposefully. I am sure there are tons of people who have been offended by everything we have ever done.

But I think generally our work is pretty well-received by the public. Every once in a while, we will get dragged into something. But I personally didn’t think it’s that valid, generally speaking. Most people don’t seem to, either.

(E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com. Follow him at https://twitter.com/nepalesruben.)