‘The Studio’: Seth Rogen on Why Record Emmy Noms Might Make His Life Easier and Adding Sarah Polley to Next Season’s Writers Room

It doesn’t get much more Hollywood than this: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s star-packed Hollywood satire The Studio for Apple TV+ is basking in the golden glow of awards season thanks to the Television Academy, which just handed over 23 nominations for the 77th Emmy Awards, tying the record for most comedy nominations in a single season and emerging as the show to beat over favorites like Hacks and The Bear.

“I don’t think anything good is ever going to happen, so it’s nice when it does,” quips Rogen by telephone hours after nominations were revealed last month. It’s a statement that would effortlessly roll out of the mouth of the man he plays on the show, frequently beleaguered studio boss Matt Remick who is trying to maintain his perch and build a legacy in an IP-dominated industry. Kool-Aid man aside, the show featured a who’s who of Hollywood stars, many of whom also heard their names read on July 15, among them Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Bryan Cranston, Kathryn Hahn, Catherine O’Hara, Ike Barinholtz, Zoë Kravitz, Anthony Mackie and Dave Franco.

Below, Rogen and Goldberg talk about their good fortunes, how they overcame all those logistical challenges for season one and why they hired Oscar-winning guest star Sarah Polley for next season’s writers room.

As people who don’t expect good things to happen, how do you wrap your head around tying the record for most comedy nominations in a season?

SETH ROGEN You don’t. You just kind of let it wash over and hope you don’t deal with it wrong. I think I’m still in shock a little bit, but it’s very, very, very nice. It’s not something that has been a part of our career, really, in any way, shape or form. We’ve had a lovely career despite awards, and so the fact that at this age, there’s a whole new novelty and level of recognition that we’ve never gotten is very nice, and it’s surreal that it’s for something that is so Hollywood specific.

Seth, you do so much work on The Studio with writing, directing, executive producing but it’s also your performance that serves as the heart of the show. It seemed like fans and critics alike were rooting for Matt Remick. What does it mean to be singled out for your performance with a nom?

ROGEN It’s so nice. I really tried to do something that I hadn’t done before. From a character standpoint, it really spoke to me in terms of how I actually feel as a person than any of the other characters I generally portray. For better or worse, it speaks most closely to my own personal anxieties and how I fear I come across. There were times throughout this process when I honestly was very concerned about my performance and I wanted to make sure I was serving the show well, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t letting down all of these amazing actors I was surrounded by because I was doing so many other jobs. I still wanted to be a good scene partner despite all of that. It’s nice knowing that my performance didn’t ruin the whole show.

When you have those concerns, where do you take them? To Evan?

ROGEN Yeah, I talked to Evan. He’s the first person I go to. Evan and my wife.

Evan, what is it like to have those conversations?

GOLDBERG I concluded that [his performance] was working a little bit before him because I was behind the camera all the time. He’d come over every now and then and ask, “Is this working?” Or, “Is that working?” I would say, “I know it’s working. We’re good.” A week or two later, he came to accept the same truth, which was a huge relief. But it was only the first few weeks when we even had a back and forth about it. Then we just knew it was working and everything started rolling.

You overcame so many challenges in terms of logistics with all of the locations, the oners, the cameos, extras, tone, etc. What delivered the most anxiety?

GOLDBERG There were a few moments. We created a team that could deliver in the format with remembering their lines or doing improv during long extended scenes. Sometimes there were actors who had small little roles that didn’t quite know how to do it or we had issues with background actors. Those were moments when we had to really direct the person into the right spot. Sometimes we had to just accept that the person was never quite going to get it so we moved things around.

ROGEN I would say, conversely, for pretty much every scene there was a moment when we said, “This might not work.” It was almost a daily arc of rehearsing a scene and then feeling that we were trying to do the impossible. Then you actually try to get it down one time and you’re encouraged enough to keep going and try to make it not just functional but really great. Our [cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra] would always say, “It sucks … until it doesn’t.” There was a feeling on many of the shots and scenes that we thought it might be too hard to pull off. Is this corner we painted ourselves into too difficult to navigate stylistically? Then we would do one and it would work. Every day, every scene that would happen and eventually it all started to work. It was like, “Thank God we stuck with it.”

Do you have a shorthand that you exchange when you know it’s working? A wink, a nod or a word?

ROGEN Probably, but not that I’m aware of.

GOLDBERG A lot of people seem confused as to how we reach conclusions without talking more, but we’ve had so many conversations before that we just know when we’ve got it. There are no specific words or emotional reactions, we should get one. You made me realize we need a catchphrase.

Speaking of painting yourselves into a corner, now that you’ve had so much success, how are you feeling about elevating the show for season two? Will you lean on any of the highlights from season one, like cameos, oners, etc.?

GOLDBERG One of the hardest things to do was getting all these people to be in the show. Now people will want to be in the show rather than us trying to convince people that it will be good. That’s a huge relief, and those elements will be easier to achieve now that we know what we’re doing and we’re bringing together almost entirely the same crew.

Are you already fielding phone calls for guest stars?

ROGEN Much more than the first season. Again, wrangling people and convincing them to join the show was one of the hardest parts of the first season. We worked hard to let them know that we weren’t going to make them look bad or that it would be a waste of their time. Mostly what my brain does now is that I look at these Emmy nominations as something that will make it easier to book guest stars next season. Like, “Great, this could make my life much easier.” 

Tell me about hiring Sarah Polley for the writers room for season two. Did she pitch something or did you make her an offer?

ROGEN She’s just so funny. I’ve known her for years and she’s a brilliant writer. From attending events to working with her, it was so clear that she had so much insight into this industry. She’s been in it since she was a child and she won an Academy Award. Her experience is pretty unmatched, in a lot of ways. She’s just so funny and she loved the show. It was really me just asking her. I didn’t assume she would say yes because she won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. I just said, “I don’t know if you would consider working with us but we think you’d be really additive and it would be fun to hang out with you. You’d make the show better.” She said yes.

I love that. She’s also a remarkable human being. I crossed paths with her a couple of times during awards season and interviewed her a few times, and she was one of my favorite people to talk to. She’s so nice.

ROGEN She’s so funny. Honestly, also, I think people don’t understand what a hilarious person she is and how biting a of sense of humor can be wrapped in the nicest Canadian person imaginable.

I know everybody wants to know about season two, but I’m curious if you have a multiseason plan in place? Can you see Matt’s story extending across five seasons? Or are you only focused right now on season two?

ROGEN The show is not serialized, it’s pretty episodic. In the first season, there’s a general throughline of it being my first year as a studio president and I had to lean into IP to make the studio more financially stable, basically. We do want that to evolve and we don’t want that specific storyline to be the driving motivation for every season. The general conundrum of art versus commerce is a theme that we really like and will continue to lean into. But how it manifests itself in how the season is structured will evolve. We do have a lot of ideas as to how to explore different elements of that.

You covered specific Hollywood cultural moments from the Golden Globes to CinemaCon. Have you identified other big events to feature?

GOLDBERG Yes, we have.

The Studio is a show about Hollywood, shot in Hollywood. Are you encouraged by the recent tax credit increases? 

EVAN GOLDBERG We only hope it makes it easier to have more filming happening in L.A. We love it.

ROGEN We write the show for the city. We were actually really inspired by this documentary, Los Angeles Plays Itself, about how film almost historically captures Los Angeles’ evolution through projects being filmed here. We really embraced that idea, and that’s why it was so important for us to actually shoot at the Chateau Marmont or the Beverly Hilton rather than re-create those locations. We wanted to bring the viewer into this world and show them experientially what it’s like to be in these places through storytelling. To us, that was really one of the more fun parts of the show. As we look to the second season, we really want to engage with the idea of what other Hollywood institutions we can bring the viewer inside of. 

On a personal note, I loved seeing Matt Belloni, the former editor of The Hollywood Reporter and my former boss, on the show. Any plans to bring him or The Town back for season two?

ROGEN They’re too good of an expositional device not to.