The man-child roommates in "Knocked Up" spend their days smoking weed, avoiding work, smoking weed, cataloging movie nude scenes, smoking weed and jousting on a plank over a fetid swimming pool. Did we mention the weed? The movie's star, Seth Rogen, brings plenty of firsthand knowledge of the film's portrait of young guys living together, particularly since he more or less roomed with all of the actors playing his housemates.
"I wanted to paint a picture of what today's young men are like in a way that isn't glamorizing it, but just showing it how I experienced it," Rogen, 25, says. "It's also great for the story because you want your characters to travel a long distance emotionally. So if you start with the most infantile, crass knuckleheads you can conjure, it makes it all the more rewarding when my character is not quite like that at the end.
" Rogen's first L.A. roommate was his "Freaks and Geeks" co-star Martin Starr.
The two shared an apartment when they were 18. "We smoked a lot of weed; that aspect of the movie rings true," Starr, now 24, says. "I remember I got a pound of the (worst) Mexican weed you could find.
It came in a huge Ziploc bag. Seth was so happy to have a pound of weed that he used it as a
A., the notion of giant amounts of Mexican weed is a new concept. And we indulged!
" For anyone who finds the movie's depictions of dude life to be on the fantastic side, Rogen offers up the following anecdote: "Martin and I lived in a two-floor apartment," Rogen says. "One time I came downstairs, and it was really hot, like 130 degrees. And I found Martin passed out on the floor from being drunk, I imagine and the oven door was open and the oven was on and there were burnt-up tater tots inside.
" "So I guess he started making tater tots and went to check on them and then forgot and just left the oven door open all night with the oven on. We could have died. We really could have died!
" "Knocked Up" director Judd Apatow says showing all the crude, sophomoric behavior in the movie serves a greater purpose. "I like showing all that stuff because the basic lesson is: Don't be an idiot. You have to grow up," Apatow says.
"Of course, Seth doesn't look at it that way. He thinks it's all fun. So between the two of us banging heads, it comes out in an interesting fashion.
" Counters Rogen: "Judd likes idiots as much as the next guy. I think that's why he likes hanging out with me and Jonah (Hill) and Jay (Baruchel). It gives him the opportunity to delve back into that sick part of his brain.
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