Seth Rogen (TW/FB: @SETHROGEN) is an actor, writer, producer, and director. Evan Goldberg (TW: @EVANDGOLDBERG) is a Canadian director, screenwriter, and producer. They’ve collaborated on films such as Superbad (which they first conceived of as teenagers), Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, The Green Hornet, This Is the End, Funny People, Neighbors, and Sausage Party. They have also written for Da Ali G Show and The Simpsons.
Spirit animal: Seth = sloth; Evan = bonobo
I visited the production of Neighbors 2 in Atlanta to observe Seth, Evan, and their team in action. One day, I sat in on a writers’ room brainstorm. The script was put up on a huge screen, one person manning the keyboard. Everyone started throwing out ideas, which were typed in at hyperspeed. Evan and others said “fuck” or “fucking” at least once a sentence, and it all went on the screen. I asked afterward, “Doesn’t it take a lot of time to polish the script?” to which Evan responded with a smile: “You can always de-fuck the script later.” The important thing was to brainstorm freely and not self-edit. That came afterward.
Superbad worked because Seth and Evan wrote about exactly what they were experiencing at the time. Evan explains, “At the time, all we knew was that we really wanted to get laid, we weren’t getting laid, and we weren’t supercool.” It pays to write what you know.
Seth started doing standup when he was 13 years old. He adds: “That’s something that came from standup comedy. There’s a comic named Darryl Lenox who still performs, who is great. I remember he saw me perform…. I would try to mimic other comedians like Steven Wright or Seinfeld, like, ‘What’s the deal with Krazy Glue?’ and he said: ‘Dude, you’re the only person here who could talk about trying to get a hand job for the first time…. Talk about that!’”
EVAN: “I would say the biggest thing we learned from [Judd] is ‘Don’t keep stuff to yourself.’ You’re surrounded by smart people. Bring them in. Get other people’s opinions. Share it with them. And most importantly, emotion is what matters. It’s an emotional journey….”
SETH: “… I remember one time we were filming a scene in Knocked Up and improvising, or maybe it was even 40-Year-Old Virgin, and the direction he screamed at us—because he screams direction from another room a lot, which is hilarious—was, ‘Less semen, more emotion!’ I think that is actually a good note to apply across the board.”
TIM: “You also mentioned that every character has to have a wound of some kind.”
EVAN: “That’s a big Judd-ism.”
TF: Judd recommended they read The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri (Evan: “If you’re a writer, 60% of it is useless and 40% of it is gold.”), which Judd said was Woody Allen’s favorite writing book.
Evan and Seth are both serious marijuana connoisseurs, and they use different strains for different purposes. For writing and other creative sessions, Evan considers “Jack Herer” to be a good working weed. It’s described by Leafly online as “a sativa-dominant cannabis strain that provides the perfect pairing of cerebral elevation and full-body relief.”
• Any parting thoughts or advice?
EVAN: “In the end, Superbad was a success, but make no mistake, for 10 years it was a failure. And the first five drafts, if you read them, you’d [think,] ‘This is the worst thing I’ve ever read in my life.’”
SETH: “People told us over and over again, ‘I don’t think anyone’s going to make this movie,’ and it didn’t even occur to us to listen to them. It wasn’t even a conversation of ‘Should we stop?’ We literally didn’t even have that conversation. It was just like, ‘Fuck those people. Let’s go to the next one.’”
EVAN: “To picture Stephen King writing his first book and then being like: ‘Man, I’m stumped. I’m gonna go be something else.’ You just keep going.”
SETH: “Blind belief in yourself.”
Life is a full-contact sport, especially on the Internet. If you’re going to step into the arena, bloody noses and a lot of scrapes are par for the course.
The sharp elbows and body checks can take many forms. Here is one of the first Amazon reviews I ever received for The 4-Hour Workweek, while I was still a wee lad finding his Bambi legs on the web:
“This book is mistitled. The subtitle should be ‘Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, Join the New Rich, and Become the World’s Biggest Jerk.’ Don’t buy it. He’ll probably use your money to set a Guinness Book record for the most kittens strangled in one minute.”
Ah, welcome to town, kid. Want a tissue?
That was 2007. Over the last decade, I’ve collected a handful of rules and quotes that help me keep my sanity and reputation largely intact. Here they are:
Even if your objective is to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, you only need to find, cultivate, and thrill your first 1,000 diehard true fans (here). These people become your strongest marketing force, and the rest takes care of itself. The millions or billions who don’t get it don’t matter. Focus on the few who do. They are your Archimedes lever.
Particularly as you build an audience, this 10% can turn into a big number. Mentally prepare yourself before publishing anything. “Oh, I have 1,000 readers now. That means that 100 are going to respond like assholes. Not because I’m bad, not because they’re bad, but because that’s how the math works.” If you anticipate it, it will throw you off less. On top of that, I assume that 1% of my fans are completely batshit crazy, just like the general population, which helps me handle the far scarier stuff. If you (wrongly) assume that everyone is going to respond with smiles and high-fives, you are going to get slapped, you’ll respond impulsively, and you’ll triple the damage. And you are not exempt from Crazy Town just because you cover non-offensive material. Here is a real, verbatim comment left on my blog: “You are showing a grave example of the white horseman to our children. Shame on you. You’re an evil one who has gained the world and lost your soul.” He proceeded to threaten to deliver me on Judgment Day. It became a real FBI-worthy threat! This was not in response to my post about clubbing baby seals. I don’t have one. It was in response to a blog post I wrote to help raise funds for high-need public school class-rooms in the U.S. (through donorschoose.org) that lack sufficient funding for books, pens, pencils, etc.
Anticipate, don’t react.
Here are my three primary responses to online criticism:
I’m not going to cover option number three, but the first two are worth explaining.
The reason that you would want to starve 90% of oxygen is because doing otherwise gives your haters extra Google juice. In other words, if you reply publicly—worst-case scenario, you put something on another site with high page rank and link to the critic—all you’re going to do is gift them powerful inbound links, increase traffic, and ensure the persistence and prominence of the piece. In some cases, I’ve had to bite my tongue for months at a time to wait for something (infuriating BS that I could easily refute) to drop off the front page or even the second page of Google results. It’s very, very hard to stay silent, and it’s very, very important to have that self-control. Rewatch the “Hoooold! Hooooooold!” scene from Braveheart.
But what about pouring gasoline on 8% of the negative? Why would anyone ever do that? First off, we must realize that not all critics are “haters.” Let’s look at a real-world example. Eric Karjaluoto wrote a post called “Is Tim Ferriss Acting Like an Asshole?” in response to a spec design competition I held, which had caused a firestorm. I don’t agree with all of his arguments, but he did have some well-thought-through points that I felt contributed to a more interesting discussion. So I promoted his piece. For me, doing this 8% to 10% of the time accomplishes two things: It shows that I’m open to criticism, and it shows that I don’t take myself too seriously. Both of these things tend to decrease the number of real haters who come out of the woodwork.
There are times to apologize when you truly screw up or speak too soon, but more often than not, acknowledgment is all that’s required.
Some version of “I see you” will diffuse at least 80% of people who appear to be haters or would-be haters. They’ll even sometimes do an about-face and become your strongest proponents. Just present the facts or wish them luck, and let them come to their own conclusions. I often use something along the lines of, “Thanks for the feedback. I’m always trying to improve. In the meantime, I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
Cato of ancient Rome, who Seneca believed to be the perfect Stoic, practiced Epictetus’s maxim by wearing darker robes than was customary and by wearing no tunic. He expected to be ridiculed and he was. He did this to train himself to only be ashamed of those things that are truly worth being ashamed of. To do anything remotely interesting, you need to train yourself to handle—or even enjoy—criticism. I regularly and deliberately “embarrass” myself for superficial reasons, much like Cato. This an example of “fear-rehearsing” (here).
During a tough period several years ago, Nassim Taleb of The Black Swan fame sent me the following aphorism, which was perfect timing and perfectly put:
“Robustness is when you care more about the few who like your work than the multitude who hates it (artists); fragility is when you care more about the few who hate your work than the multitude who loves it (politicians).”
Choose to be robust.