Ron Howard Improvised a ‘Miraculously Funny’ Bit for His Cameo in The Studio, Says Seth Rogen: ‘Stroke of Genius’ (Exclusive)

Seth Rogen was very impressed by Ron Howard’s acting chops in The Studio.

The legendary director appeared as himself in the third episode of the Apple TV+ series, which arrived on April 2, and got into a hilarious tiff with Rogen’s character, studio head Matt Remick, over a critique of his upcoming film, which starred Anthony Mackie and Dave Franco.

One of the episode’s funniest moments came when Howard, 71, took off his baseball hat and threw it at Rogen, which prompted him to fall backwards and crash into a bar cart, escalating the already-tense scene — and Rogen tells PEOPLE that the moment was actually Howard’s idea.

“It was his idea to throw his patented Imagine hat at me, which I thought was a true stroke of genius,” Rogen says. “For him to weaponize his trademark look was a really miraculously funny idea.”

Rogen, 42, says that Howard “was so game and so good and really tried so hard” during his days on set. “[He] worked really hard on the performance and the role and yeah, he was very impressive.”

Plus, Howard was chock-full of incredible anecdotes about his illustrious career and the star power he’s come across.

Ike Barinholtz, who plays Rogen’s No. 2, Sal Saperstein, tells PEOPLE the director had “great stories” that he was constantly sharing.

“You could just turn and be like, ‘Tell me something about American Graffiti.’ He’d be like, ‘Harrison Ford bullied me quite a bit with Paul Le Mat,'” Barinholtz says. “He’d just launch into a crazy story.”

Rogen agrees, recalling the time Howard revealed that Ford “called [him] Opie” on the film’s set.

In an Instagram post on April 2, Howard shared a clip of him and Rogen from the episode and thanked the team for “including me.”

“I had such a blast…only one thing to say to Seth, Evan and the entire team…You Rule,” Howard wrote in the caption.

Rogen told PEOPLE that all of the A-list cameos featured in the series — which have also included Martin Scorsese, Steve Buscemi, Charlize Theron and Greta Lee so far — were written with specific stars in mind.

“We would write it to our idealized version of who we could get, maybe, and we very often got those people, which was shocking,” he said. “People in general are pretty cool to make fun of themselves and Hollywood and seem to get the joke, which was nice.”

New episodes of The Studio premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV+.