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None of that, though, should be taken for signs of maturity.
My mother did express some dismay over that.
Then he laughs his big, booming laugh.
Honestly, I really dont thinkNorth Korea hacked Sony.
Then, months later, when the movie itself finally came out, all this hacking shit happened.
This wasmonthsafter North Korea had probably already seen the movie.
Why would they wait?
And they never did anything like that before and havent done anything like it since.
So things just never quite added up.
The guy Id hired to do my cybersecurity even told me, Theres no way this was a hack.
It had to be a physical act.
The amount of stuff that was stolen would have had to have physical mass to it.
It required plugging shit into other shit.
Did the Sony hack change anything about the way you do business?No.
It literally did not create one hitch as far as work.
The hack happened in November [2014], I started shootingSteve Jobsthat January.
We directed thePreacherpilot that April.
We got intoNeighbors 2a couple months after that.
Like,we had no idea North Korea might be mad!
So whyd you play along?Look, I mean it all was happening in real time.
They [Sony] were not protecting us very well.
They pulled the movie from theaters when I was in a green room about to go onColbert.
No one from Sony came up to me being like, Yo, were doing this.
They totally floated us out on our own.
They just kept saying, Say [The Interview] wasnt meant to be controversial.
Say the controversy was an accident.
And thats what we did!
Just because it was all happening so fast and we didnt know what the fuck was going on.
Just insofar as realizing that there can consequences for taking shots at people.Maybe.
But even if the hack was North Korea, I dont regret doing the movie.
The other regret Idohave is that we could have made the movie itself better.
Creatively we could have done things to help the tone.
Is there truth to that?I do think its true!
James Franco is something I have to ask you about.
Im friends with these people and Im a dude.
All that combined makes me the last person who should be talking about this.
This is not in any way about pandering, but I thinkNeighbors 2had an incredibly progressive message.
I thinkBlockershas an incredibly progressive message.
We hiredKay Cannonto direct it and she did an amazing job.
Like,Superbadwas your attempt to show teens you actually recognized instead of teens as they appeared inAmerican Pie.
OrPineapple Expressput plausible real-life stoners in an action-movie setting.
So what antidotes are you most eager to put onscreen next?
What gaps need filling?Evan [Goldberg]and I talk about this a lot.
Were trying to make the movies that we wish we could be seeing but arent.
And its also the exact punch in of thing thats barely in existence right now.
How isInvinciblegoing to be novel in that way?
We want to participate in genres but also approach them differently than how theyre normally approached.
Does we mean you and Evan?Yeah, sorry, me and Evan.
I make very few autonomous decisions in my career.
On the subject of superhero movies, is there a part of you thats gladThe Green Hornetdidnt land?
We were a little before the superhero curve.
The studio involvement on a project of that size is just not worth the trouble.
Its a lot better to be making the studios least expensive movie.
How close wasNicolas Cage to playingThe Green Hornets villain?Really close.
Oh, man.Yeah, that shit was crazy.
Which wouldve at least been interesting.
So the studio was like, You gotta make the villain a star.
We want you to cast Nicolas Cage.
So we thought,lets talk to him.
Which to us was a little worrisome.
Oy.Yeah, not that there arent white Bahamians, but it seemed perhaps insensitive.
I was like, I cant deal with being face-to-face with Nicolas Cage as hes doing a Bahamian accent.
So what happened?Within 20 minutes of getting to the dinner hes fully doing it.
Was the accent good?It was good!
He was just like, I gotta go.
It was as if I just stood up right now with you and walked out.
Thats how abrupt it was.
But God bless Nicolas Cage.
Im a huge fan.
We make reasonably budgeted movies that, so far, have made those budgets back.
But you know whats funny?
And because ofThe Green Hornetour answer is always no.
Do you really think thats true?
But I do things less by accident than I used to.
It used to be that Id come up with stuff almost just through sheer quantity.
In the past, wed have ideas but werent able to get them across exactly how we wanted.
More and more, we can actually achieve the things we imagine making.
Thats been a shift Im proud of.
Because we were like, This was a big swing, you know?
Youve also said previously that youre aware of how some of the jokes inSuperbadhavent aged that well.
But is it possible to write edgy comedy with an eye on what might age badly?
Theres tons of shit in that movie that back then was edgy and today feels categorically wrong.
Thats just part of comedy.
I venture to understand where the lines in the culture are.
Im not one of these comedians whos like, People are too PC and its ruining comedy.
The man is not cracking down on my jokes.
Are there jokes youve come up with but didnt use because they were too offensive?Probably tons!
Whats one of them?
There would also have to have been another reason.
If the joke was pushing the line and wasalsonot funny enough then we wouldnt use it.
But we have taken jokes out of movies when test audiences just went, Thats too fucked up.
So he got a rat, lifted up its tail and fingered the rats butt.
Then took his rat-butt finger and swooshed it around in Lavashs mouth.
You could tell the test audience would have preferred if we hadnt done that.
So we took it out.
Do you ever wonder about the shelf life of the raunchy stoner-comedian persona?
Its like, its great to be your generationsTommy Chongwhile youre in your 20s and 30s.
But at some point no one but Tommy Chong should be their generations Tommy Chong.
Do you know what I mean?Yeah.
I dont think its gotten sad for me yet but its close!
Like, Im 35 now and the movie we just made is about a 35-year-old.
Youre talking about the romantic comedy what was it?Lipschitz?[Laughs.]Goldenfarts.
Flarsky!Yeah, the movie soon-to-be-called-something-other-than-Flarsky that name is going to change.
But that movie is a step in a more adult direction.
Its definitely an R-rated movie but its drawing humor from new areas.
Our sensibility is evolving.
It just may be that its happening glacially.
Well see how progressive people have gotten regarding my attractiveness over the last ten years.
Did you find those criticisms offensive?I got what people meant.
What I was shocked by was that people didnt seem to understand that we didnt invent that dynamic.
Did those people not seeWhen Harry Met Sally?
Every movie I watched growing up was like that.
Every Woody Allen movie.
All the Bill Murray movies.
I was surprised that people were acting like it was this new thing inKnocked Up.
I personally wasnt offended.
Its a real consciousness-expanding drug, so maybe its had pretty deep effects.
For fun or insight?Shrooms are a very insightful drug very introspective.
So yeah, Ive made some real-life decisions as a result.
Can you say what the job was?No.
When I was young I found that a lot of people I knew were trudging through the workday.
A two-birds, one-stone situation.Exactly.
If Im stoned Ill happily work all day long.
Do you ever write sober?Probably just by nature of time passing every once in a while.
High or sober, what are the funniest things youve seen lately?The Good PlaceI really like.
Its totally insane and interesting.Big Mouthis emotionally resonant, its hilarious, its outrageous.
I couldnt enjoy it more.Rick and Mortyis super smart and funny.
I rarely like to use the phrase next-level shit butNathan for YouandFinding Franceswas next-level shit.
I watched it three times.
I honestly thinkNathan for Youis the most brilliant thing on television.
We were on the improv team together and he would do his thing.
You knew he understood what he was doing, too, because he used it to make audiences laugh.
It wasnt like he was just a weirdo.
When I sawNathan for You, I was like, Oh yeah, Nathans found the perfect vehicle.
My best guess is that is he very conservative politically?
And I was like, I honestly dont know what the fuck youre talking about.
Like a Buster Keaton movie.
Why?Im sick of fucking watching people talk.
And our comedy has grown very reliant on dialogue.
How far along are you?Weve been working on the concept for two-and-a-half or three years.
WithThis Is the End, for years we couldnt think of what would happen in the third act.
If hes an actor, I could be an actor.
Judd [Apatow].
Hes like family at this point.
With all the good and bad of a family relationship.
And Sacha Baron Cohen gives me a lot of advice.
During the wholeThe Interviewpredicament he was by far the most helpful person advice-wise.
Whatd he tell you?To not say anything.
Everyone was calling me and saying, Youve gotta talk to this person.
Youve gotta do an interview with these guys.
Youve gotta do a press conference with these people.
Sacha was the only one who said, Do you want more attention?
Then shut the fuck up.
That was good advice.
We didnt do any press.
We just kept working and didnt bring any more attention to ourselves than we had to.
Where has Sacha Baron Cohen been lately?
I literally cant talk about it.
Thats awfully enigmatic.Youll understand why.
Are you ever curious aboutgoing back to stand-up?
But I am curious about doing it again.
I just dont know if my ego could handle not being good at it.
When I watch great stand-ups, I know I am not as good as they are.
Thats why I stopped.
But then I started writing screenplays and realized I could do that really well and that I justgotit more.
But maybe Id try it again.
Whatd he say?The delivery is not good.
You seem nervous up there.
Youre not taking your time.
Your jokes are structured badly.
It was all the reasons someone isnt good at stand-up comedy!
I really get curious about doing it again but its just not my skill set.
Its like Kanye: Just make great music, man.
Actually, no, Im wrong.
Kanye should do everything.
He should not put himself in any corner.
What about dramatic acting?
He must lord those Oscar nominations over you.Oh, yes!
Big Jewish dudes used to be the most masculine thing there was.
Elliott Gould could play a hard-boiled detective!
Whenever I talk to filmmakers, Im fascinated by how much of a crapshoot moviemaking is.
Nobody ever seems to know if something is going to turn out well.
I saw that movie as being more dramatic almost like anAlexander Paynetype movie than how it wound up.
But for there to be a disconnect between the perspectives of the people making a movie is not weird.
I would just shamelessly extract stories from her: Did you meet Elvis?
And yeah, she knew Elvis.
She was saying she wanted to cast Elvis in what was it?
A Star Is Born, I think.Yeah, yeah.
And people thought Elvis was too dangerous or something.
She had amazing stories about almost everybody.
Pierre Trudeau, she had fling with him.
She went on a road trip with Marlon Brando.
That was a good story.
Her and Brando went on a road trip across America, staying at shitty motels and stuff.
Yeah, and she and, I think, Elliott Gould got high with Peter Sellers.
Maybe Julie Andrews was involved?
[Streisand] said, All I remember is laughing uncontrollably the entire time.
People still ask me if I smoke.
It seems like a given that youre getting high with everyone.At this point, it should be.
This interview has been condensed and edited from two conversations.
Photograph by Koury Angelo/Netflix.Annotations by Matt Stieb.
