The pilot episode of “The Studio” has perhaps its greatest cameo by a real-life Hollywood personality — none other than the auteur filmmaker himself, Martin Scorsese. In the extended guest appearance, the director is brought on to be the director for a “Kool-Aid” movie… although his version (a supposed passion project for the man behind “Raging Bull”) will actually be the story of Jim Jones’ notorious Jonestown massacre. He ends up getting fired, which offends Scorsese and every other major star in town, and at the end of the episode Seth Rogen and Ike Barinholtz’s studio mogul characters get kicked out of an exclusive Charlize Theron-hosted party.
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Throwing Scorsese into a role that requires him to poke fun at his own persona, though, was a gamble — at least emotionally — for Rogen, who also co-wrote and co-directed the episode.
“It’s very weird,” Rogen told Variety. “The fact that he seemed very happy about it was very touching to me.” It was really not until the Emmy nominations came out, though, and Scorsese received his first ever nod (in the Guest Actor in a Comedy Series category), that Rogen could really breath a sigh of relief. “I think deep down I was very afraid that he just regretted doing the show and then to see how happy he was about the nomination, and I was texting with his daughter [Francesca Scorsese] who was saying he was thrilled and he was very happy about it, so I feel great about it.”
The Oscar-winning “Departed” filmmaker was far from the only celebrity cameo. In addition to the Apple TV+ series’ starry cast — including Catherine O’Hara, Kathryn Hahn, and Chase Sui Wonders — Zoe Kravitz, Ron Howard, Dave Franco, Zac Efron, Greta Lee, Olivia Wilde, Adam Scott, and Aaron Sorkin, among many others, all appeared as spoofs of themselves. All of them, too, had to perform in the show’s long, long takes.
“It was insane,” Rogen told IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast in May. “Usually there were three to four famous people per shot. So the odds of someone bothering us were pretty high the whole time. And every single spot that we shot had a restriction timing-wise.”
As for who he’d like to see join “The Studio” in the future, Rogen told IndieWire in March about the top man on his wish list. “David Fincher. I think of people who have a very specific thing they’re associated with. Someone like Fincher would be funny. He’s doing 400,000 takes of an insert shot,” Rogen said.
Rogen himself is a busy, busy man these days. Beyond “The Studio” — which also brought him a bevy of Emmy noms — he’s got “Good Fortune” set for release in October, a couple other features readying for 2026, and he’s working on reboots of the classic cartoon “Darkwing Duck.” But though Rogen’s got plenty going on, he literally doesn’t lose sleep.
“I slept eight hours last night,” Rogen said to Variety. “I do like to work and I like to shoot. I especially love being on set. I do tend to make a lot of things and, and always have. I’ve always kind of been proud of having a lot of output.”
