How Seth Rogen’s “single biggest influence” shaped his approach to comedy
It might be easy to presume that comedians and comedy writers are just a constant buzz of new material and perpetual inspiration.
But that’s obviously not necessarily the case. Even those comedians who are great at improv and on-the-spot quips need to draw from somewhere. And sometimes, inevitably, the well runs dry. So, where do they go to refill?
For Seth Rogen, a comedy actor whose career has jumped from success to success for nearly three decades, he has a very simple answer that doubles as a very pertinent piece of advice for any artist. “Get out of my head! Honestly, I just need to depart,” he told RSNG, “I need to absorb myself in something else entirely.”
Anyone who has attempted to sustain a creative practice for any length of time will understand the absolute truth of this statement. Sometimes, staring at the blank page and willing your psyche to pluck something out of the air is just as detrimental as procrastinating. In fact, occasionally, proactive procrastination is just the ticket to your next great idea.
So what’s the material Rogen turns to when he’s in need of a break? You might expect something obscure or niche from the actor, or even a classic stoner movie, given his love of the bud. But no, when this state comes knocking, it’s something much more quintessential and classic, “The Simpsons. Now that has been a show that’s been a staple of my life, kinetically, for the last 20 years.”
Really, it’s a show that’s been a staple in the lives of most people at some time or another. Still going strong 36 years after its debut, it’s one of the most ubiquitous and universal shows in the history of television. And that’s precisely why Rogen finds it such a great source of inspiration, “[It] has probably been the single biggest comedic influence that I have had just because it has been in my life for so long. And things like that become a reset button.”
Sometimes there are those shows, films, or pieces of art that we see for the first time and they truly shake us up to the very core of our being, rewriting our brain chemistry like a chemical reaction and inspiring us to create something entirely fresh and inspired. Then, other times, it feels like anything brilliant and new we see simply highlights our own inability to create. In some cases, new is overrated. You just need to return to a staple and let your brain work its own magic, treading those familiar grooves.
As Rogen puts it, “It’s like some sort of osmosis… I can sit here trying to be funny for an hour and fail. But if I put a comedy on, then gradually my whole mind reconfigures itself into being sharp and alert to funny stuff.”
Mary Oliver famously said: “You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves.” And clearly letting the soft animal of his body love The Simpsons has worked well for him over the years, considering he’s managed to sustain his career for several decades and hasn’t yet fallen prey to the kind of bogus roles that many comedy actors do.
His recent turn as a director, producer and writer on The Studio is proof that he still has that passion burning inside him.
