How do you cast a cultural phenomenon like “The Studio“? For creator and star Seth Rogen, it was incredibly easy — until it wasn’t.
Appearing on an FYC panel for the show at the TV Academy’s inaugural Televerse festival alongside co-stars Kathryn Hahn, Chase Sui Wonders, Bryan Cranston, and Dave Franco and executive producer James Weaver, Rogen broke the casting process down into two buckets. He explained that assembling the permanent cast members was a delight, as he simply flipped through his list of dream collaborators and built the best ensemble he possibly could.
“For the main cast, we really had in our heads who we wanted it to be. And in my head I was like, ‘I’m assembling like a jazz band and I’m kind of the drummer and I need everyone to be able to do their roles in the band impeccably,’” Rogen said. “And so I love Kathryn Hahn. And Chase I think was maybe the first person cast on the show. Cranston is someone I’ve been a fan of for years and years and years, and I’ve met him a few times. [Ike] Barinholtz who’s not here, and Catherine [O’Hara]. … It was like ‘This is the dream group of people I could get to work with on a day-to-day basis.’ And people who I felt I could be really funny.”
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He punctuated that sentiment with a blunt truth: “With the cameos, it was much harder, honestly.”
Rogen explained that the show’s episodes are written before he contacts any Hollywood A-listers about playing themselves. He and his writers simply start with funny ideas that they feel reflect truths about the current film industry, before specific names inevitably arise.
“The way we write the show is we’re not like, ‘What’d be a fun role for Martin Scorsese?’ We really construct the stories in a way where we’re focusing on a very singular comedic storyline,” he said. “And then often the cameo is kind of reverse-engineered from the needs of the story comedically. And so, the pilot being a good example, we have this joke that I have to make a Kool-Aid movie and that someone wants to make a Jonestown movie. And I, in my brilliance think, ‘Oh, that’s how I’ll make an elevated Kool-Aid movie is I’ll make it this big expensive Jonestown movie.’”
But while the pilot episode was not written for Scorsese, who eventually signed on and picked up an Emmy nomination for his work, it soon became clear that only one person could believably play the part.
“And the truth is, it needs to be a filmmaker that you believe would want to make a 250 million Jonestown movie,” Rogen said. “And that you believe my character would give that money to, that you believe it’s someone I would bend over backwards to want to work with, someone who doesn’t write their own [scripts], isn’t too much of an author of their own work necessarily, but someone who has a heavy hand in their own work. And truthfully, Scorsese was the only person who fit that bill.”
When the process works, it’s magical. But as he prepares for Season 2, Rogen admitted that it’s not without its tradeoffs.
“We’re in a similar position right now as we’re writing the second season,” he said. “We’re like, we have an episode where if one person says no, we have to throw the entire idea away and write an entirely new episode.”
