Seth Rogen had to make a bunch of movies in order to win an Emmy. The actor/writer/director/producer just received the first major acting award of his career from the Television Academy, who awarded him the Best Actor in a Comedy Series trophy for his work on the Apple TV+ series The Studio – where he plays a beleaguered movie executive. Given how the show draws upon Rogen’s years of experience in the movie biz, it’s easy to forget that he started off his career as an unlikely TV star.
That unlikelihood wasn’t related to his talent, but the combination of his prodigiousness and his offhanded way of showing it off. Rogen was an unusually young stand-up comic in his native Canada, which meant he was still a genuine teenager when he was cast on the Paul Feig/Judd Apatow dramedy Freaks and Geeks. Obviously the younger “geek” cohort of the show featured less grown-up characters, but the older “freak” contingent had Rogen opposite peers played by actors between two and seven years older than he was. (Rogen was 17 when the show premiered, probably 16 when cast; star Linda Cardellini, by contrast, would have been 23 or 24.) Pretty much every actor on the show was killing it – even the twentysomethings playing teens felt strikingly real – but Rogen was a real discovery inasmuch as he had never really acted before, and brought to life a familiar type not always depicted well (or at all) during the teen-media boom that was underway back in 1999.
Yes, his Ken was positioned as the sarcastic comic relief on an already-funny show, rarely given his own lead storylines. But he captured a certain kind of monotone teenage skepticism, enhanced by the show’s gradual filling in of details about his character. (For one thing, unlike his “freak” friends, Ken seemed to have an upper-middle-class upbringing.) He came across as a smart kid rebelling by playing a little dumb while retaining a smartass streak, making him a particularly good foil to Jason Segel’s goodhearted but sometimes dim Nick.
Later, Rogen would mention feeling a little hamstrung by network TV restrictions on Freaks and Geeks; the teenagers couldn’t swear or be shown getting high with the same frequency that they probably would have in real life. The same was likely true of Undeclared, the campus-set comedy series that served as an unofficial companion after Freaks and Geeks was canceled. Rogen, who also wrote on the show, was the one principal Freaks and Geeks cast member who carried over to the main Undeclared ensemble, and it was easy enough to imagine that slightly sanitized version of Ken cleaning up a little more and heading off to college. But the restrictions on both shows almost certainly enhanced their writing, which couldn’t lean too heavily on raunch or shock value – and anyway, do any Freaks and Geeks fans really go around wishing, “boy, if only that show had been funnier”? Most of them rightfully consider it near-perfect, and Undeclared is damn good, too.
The restrictions placed on those shows in terms of their airtimes, however, were more vexing; both were axed after a single season. Then again, they both cleared the path for Apatow to try his hand at movies, eventually bringing many of his TV pals along with him. This was how Rogen scored a major supporting role in Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin and, in true TV style, felt like he got his own spinoff with Knocked Up (even though he wasn’t playing the same character). As later-stage coming-of-age movies about adult-adolescent hybrids became popular, Rogen was perfectly positioned as an actual twentysomething. Eventually, he parlayed actual adulthood into the smash Neighbors.
Like a lot of 2000s-era stars, Rogen eventually turned to TV, usually in more behind-the-scenes roles as he became a prolific writer, producer, and occasional director with his creative partner Evan Goldberg. But The Studio wasn’t actually his return to starring on a television series; oddly, he has a near-concurrent Apple TV+ series Platonic whose first season preceded The Studio and whose second season just premiered in the same calendar year. (It’s still releasing episodes; the finale arrives October 1st.)
Platonic hews far closer to Rogen’s movies. At times, it resembles an alt-universe version of Neighbors, where he and Rose Byrne played husband and wife, and which was directed by the show’s co-creator Nicholas Stoller. In Platonic, they’re close friends who reconnect after a long separation; when the show begins, she’s a stay-at-home mom and he’s a recently divorced beer brewer. A lot of shows would turn this into an illicit will-they-or-won’t-they; Platonic makes it more of a so-if-they-won’t-then-what? Though it recalls Rogen’s movies, the more sitcom-like framework relieves the pressure of having to finalize or define a relationship between two people who are still figuring out how they fit into each other’s lives.
The Studio is more technically ambitious – and more of Rogen’s baby, in that he and Goldberg exercise their directing chops by helming every episode. It’s also an odd occasion to honor Rogen’s acting, which has, granted, gotten quite nuanced over the years. He did nicely understated, less comedic roles in The Fabelmans, Steve Jobs, and Take This Waltz, and Platonic balances out the antic Rogen of old with the more weathered perspective of a guy who’s been through more ups and downs, including a divorce. Matt, his character on The Studio, is a great conceit: a genuine movie lover who has ascended to his dream job as studio head, only to realize that every single decision involves a farcical level of artistic compromise. The show focuses, with a relentlessness that can be exhausting, on the cringe comedy of someone who wants desperately to be cherished and respected by the filmmakers he admires, but doesn’t quite have the courage to fully earn it. At the same time, Rogen himself doesn’t quite come across like a genuine exec, even when he commits to the discomfort. It’s more of a Steve Carell-style part – a nice stretch for Rogen that nonetheless leans into his later-career propensity for more manic slapstick than pointed satire.
These outbursts used to be funny for their contrast; Rogen was so good at planting his voice in deep, unyielding deadpan that to see him occasionally freak out was an extra bit of spice. The Studio makes these moments a feature of nearly every episode. With Platonic still airing and Freaks and Geeks an eternal high-water mark for TV, it’s fair to consider The Studio a stealth career award for a guy who might have been a perpetual comic sidekick or an obscure stand-up comic if not for a few lucky breaks and a lot of perseverance. As with the Oscars, though, the career award has arrived for a less deserving performance. Platonic is a solid television show that connects back Rogen’s roots. The Studio is a love-hate letter to a whole other medium.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.