Movies - TV
Seth Rogen Developed His Knocked Up Character By Reading With Every Woman Who Auditioned
By JOE ROBERTS
After his supporting part in Judd Apatow’s “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” Seth Rogen took on the starring role in the director’s next project: the romantic comedy “Knocked Up.” The movie succeeded in realistically depicting all kinds of life situations that felt as though the actors were playing themselves, but Rogen worked hard in a unique way to develop his character.
Apatow shared how Rogen found his character during pre-production by reading “with every single woman who came in” for the part, in a process that took “months” and “a hundred different people.” Rogen spent this time developing his Ben Stone, the lovable stoner with a slacker mentality, before Katherine Heigl eventually got the role starring opposite him.
Rogen was a relatively inexperienced actor then, so reading with that many different people was likely a great exercise. As Apatow noted, “It’s different when it’s that first movie and [the actors] really wanna score, and they have so much energy and passion ... when you get to your 40th Harrison Ford movie, he tends not to give you that time. And he shouldn’t.”