“To us that was never scary, the idea of blending drama and comedy, because we had all done it before,’’ said Rogen as he slumped into an armchair at the Four Seasons and harkened back to his days on the show “Freaks and Geeks.’’ The actor was in Boston with screenwriter Will Reiser earlier this month to promote their film.
“50/50’’ chronicles a chummy but otherwise distant friendship between Kyle (Rogen) and his cancer-stricken buddy Adam, played by Gordon-Levitt. When their tentative bond is suddenly saddled with medical tragedy, they tackle the situation, despite being awkward 20-something males already ill-equipped to speak of intimacies.
When it came time to convince a studio to green light “50/50,’’ it didn’t hurt to have the involvement of a heavy-hitter like Rogen, star of “The Green Hornet,’’ “The 40-Year-Old-Virgin,’’ “Knocked Up,’’ and “Pineapple Express.’’
“Having Seth attached not only as a producer but as a star certainly helped make the movie much more commercial,’’ said Reiser. In fact, Reiser, Rogen, and their producing partners didn’t even try to sell “50/50’’ based on an elevator pitch. “I just figured I’ll write it and then I’ll sell it,’’ Reiser said.
Not that Rogen even likes to “pitch’’ his movies. “None of my movies are really that pitchable,’’ Rogen said. As a producer, he’s more comfortable working with a completely written script. “Nothing we’ve done really looks good on paper. It was really awesome that Will was willing to just write. It afforded us a lot of creative freedom.’’
They both agreed that genre definitions and boundaries “get in the way.’’ They don’t go for discussions of “tone’’ either.
“We as filmmakers never talk about that,’’ Rogen insisted. “There’s never the ‘genre’ conversation. People like to know how to describe it to each other…’’
“For marketing purposes,’’ Reiser added.
