Seth Rogen celebrated the world premiere of his Apple TV+ series “The Studio” at SXSW on Friday, March 7. He writes, directs, and executive produces the show, which parodies the inner workings of Hollywood. Rogen portrays fictional studio executive Matt Remick, who is the newly appointed head of the embattled Continental Studios.
“It was directly inspired by all the people we work with and all the years and years we’ve spent making studio films,” he told IndieWire. “We’ve primarily worked within the studio system and so we’ve become close friends with a lot of these people and we’ve seen how hard it is for them. A lot of them genuinely like movies and are real movie people.”
“The fact that they have a job where they’re constantly put in a position where they have to disappoint their idols and ruin things that maybe could be great — it’s very comedic, honestly,” he continued. “That’s really what what we would see over and over again.”
His role shows a very realistic portrayal of the good, the bad, and the ugly of what a studio head has to deal with. As for if it was inspired by any real-life person, Rogen said, “We spent a lot of time making movies at Sony, and so I would say it’s partially inspired by our time at Sony, [with] a lot of our experience when we were younger.”
The series features a huge array of cameos, from the likes of Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard, to more indie folk like “Funny Pages” director Owen Kline and “Past Lives” indie darling Greta Lee. Along with co-creator Evan Goldberg, Rogen wanted to make an effort to spotlight a diverse range of stars to highlight different studio-specific situations.
“For someone like Sarah Polley, for example, we were trying to show that this studio is trying to make awardsy-type movies,” Rogen said. “She just won an Oscar. She’s also known for being very nice and considerate, so this idea that me and her have an incredibly conflict-filled dynamic on the show seemed very funny. She’s also someone I worked with a long time ago and just always thought she was hilarious. I thought it’d be great to see that side of her. People like Parker Finn, it’s like some people were very specific roles, as far as where they fit in in Hollywood and the types of movies they made before.”
“Rogen is doing his usual high-pitched panicked comedy, which still works quite well after all these years, but Kathryn Hahn and Catherine O’Hara bring the house down,” Ben Travers wrote in his review of the show. “The latter thrives during the occasionally labored long takes, leaning on her background in improvisational comedy to listen, react, and take command as needed. As Continental’s previous studio head, Patty, she’s indelibly delicate one minute and equally demented the next.”
“The Studio” premieres March 26 with the first two episodes, followed by one episode every Wednesday through May 21, on Apple TV+. Check out the trailer here.
