Friday, October 05, 2012

I asked Seth Rogen if we could have been friends



My above question for Seth Rogen appeared on CNN.com just over a year ago, as part of a series of questions from iReporters for Seth Rogen and his writing partner, Will Reiser, who were promoting their movie 50/50. The question I submitted was officially "vetted" by CNN, and then it was featured on the page advertising the upcoming interview. And in the Q&A session, my question was given the cool position of being the very last question. But I only just now finally screen-recorded the interview and edited it down to my part to put on YouTube. So for those of you who missed it back then, here's the story: In September 2011, I started posting a few videos on the CNN iReports site. Producers from the site contacted me and said they thought my stuff was really funny and they asked me to submit questions for their celebrity interviews. When I saw that Seth Rogen was going to be one of those celebs, I saw my chance at redemption. Because a year earlier, I'd been house-sitting for my friend Jenn on a tiny street where Director Sarah Polley was shooting her movie Take This Waltz with Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams (and Sarah Silverman, who wasn't in the scenes on the street). All month I thought about walking over to say hi to Seth. I even talked to a tech guy who had cords on my lawn and who said that for the inconvenience of the shoot I could likely get a meet and greet with the Director and actors. But I never got the guts to do anything. Then, one day, while I was standing in the doorway of the basement apartment, drinking aloe juice, Seth Rogen walked by. He said "Hey."I wanted to reply: "Hey, how's it going? How's your Green Hornet movie going? I'm a comedian and Jewish and Canadian, like you. Do you want to hang out? Maybe we could make some comedy together." But instead I said: "Hey." And that was that. Then I proceeded to beat my head against a wall for a year, bemoaning the fact that I'd blown my once-in-a-lifetime chance to ever be living on a tiny, secluded street with a big Hollywood comedian who had nothing else to do between takes other than to hang out with me. I tried to come up with ideas like making a song for him, but he was infamously not on Twitter, or Facebook, or anything. I toyed with the idea of making a song for Sarah Silverman, so that I could become her friend, and then maybe I could get in with Seth through her. But I never did that either. Instead, I stewed. And in the end, well, I turned the lemons of the situation into the lemonade of this video. Now, instead of me having blown a possible friendship with Seth Rogen, I've made a video so that millions of people can see that I blew a possible friendship with Seth Rogen. Hmm... Ok, let's pretend that's a better situation. Otherwise I'm going to start crying again.

If you want to see the questions from the other iReporters, the full video is here: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2011/09/26/ireport-seth-rogen-will-reiser.cnn

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