Seth Rogen Talks Real-Life Inspiration Behind ‘The Studio’s Charity Gala Episode: “Ego Is A Very Powerful Thing In Hollywood” – Deadline
2025-04-23T18:40:00Z
Seth Rogen said The Studio’s sixth episode drew from his own hurt ego, with the episode pushing his character’s likability in a room full of doctors.
Don’t let The Studio‘s Matt Remick interact with any of the doctors on The Pitt.
In last night’s episode of the Apple TV+ dramedy skewering Hollywood, the bumbling but well-intentioned Continental Studios executive attends a charity gala with his girlfriend (ahem, not for long), a pediatric oncologist (played by Rebecca Hall). As he finds himself out of his depth and off balance — metaphorically and quite literally — the event teeters into a display of full-blown chaos and second-hand embarrassment, given Matt’s (co-creator and executive producer Seth Rogen) determination to equate his work to that of saving children’s lives.
Speaking to Deadline in an interview, the multihyphenate said he drew from his own experiences of hurt ego, with the episode pushing his character’s likability so much so that he was even losing the support of his camera operator.
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“We just learned, I think when we [longtime producing partner and friend Evan Goldberg and I] made Superbad was just like, the more you see someone get sh-t on, the more terrible behavior they can get away with,” he explained. “The fact that someone spits on Jonah [Hill’s character], makes it so he could say, like, 20 minutes of terrible sh-t, and you kind of sympathize with him. So the fact that nobody likes me and no one hangs around me, I think, allows my character to push the comedy further, and my character’s likability was a real active topic of discussion as we were shooting the show. There’d be times even the camera guy would come up to me and be like, ‘You’re losing me a little here.’”
Goldberg told Deadline that the script had to be altered to toe the line of propriety, ensuring the doctors at the gala were more derisive of Matt and his work in order for his reaction to be more palatable.
“We actually had to change that midway through to make them be way meaner to him,” he said. “It wasn’t supposed to be that way. And they all just instinctually started doing it. And then we rewrote things quickly to match it.”
In “The Pediatric Oncologist,” Matt is a one-man-army trying to insist on the vitality of art in metaphorically saving lives — while faced with haughty doctors who actually save lives. After outbidding one of his girlfriend’s peers at the auction, to the fury of everyone at their table, he gallantly obliges to gift the vacation package back — if the physicians agree that what he does is equally as important to their work. When this obviously backfires, the perpetually clumsy studio boss takes a tumble and breaks his pinky … which places him squarely in the care of the doctors that swoop in on an ambulance. But he doesn’t let up, remarking that the hospital room he’ll be in will have a screen.
“[The actors] were like, ‘I just don’t think anyone is gonna remotely be on your side when you’re saying this stuff, and you’re gonna seem crazy,’” Rogen recalled. “I was like, ‘I think I could do it in a way where it’s just pathetic enough that you actually believe what I’m saying to the point that you’re sympathetic to what I’m feeling.’ That was the hardest needle to thread, for sure: Is my behavior just despicable, or is it something you would in any way can sympathize with? And it’s both.”
Rogen, who also co-directed the episode along with Goldberg, said he wanted the moment to convey how he’s often felt alongside doctors.
“Ego is a very powerful thing in Hollywood for people in all fields, and I think that, to us, is just a big part of the joke. And we see it in ourselves. ‘The Pediatric Oncologist’ episode is based on my own feelings, being at tables with doctors and not feeling respected — nor should I — but that is based on my own ego. And placating people, kissing people’s asses because you want a thing, wanting to be thanked, but a part of it is also from a very human, relatable place.”
The Studio premieres weekly on Apple TV+, with the Season 1 finale set for May 21.
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