By Variety | Created at 2025-03-27 01:32:40 | Updated at 2025-04-05 01:49:41
1 week ago
On the carpet ahead of Variety and Apple TV+‘s “The Studio” screening and Q&A, the cast discussed the most memorable notes and pitches they’ve gotten while working in Hollywood.
Director and star Seth Rogen said he remembers the pitch for Ridley Scott’s rumored “Monopoly” movie “verbatim” since the meeting was helmed by the “Alien” director himself.
“It was a meeting with Ridley Scott,” Rogen said. “He was going to direct the ‘Monopoly’ movie, and me and Evan [Goldberg] went into his office and he said, ‘Imagine a helicopter shot of Central Park. You’re looking down on it from above. You pull up, you see all the buildings surrounding Central Park. What does it look like?’ And then he said, ‘A Monopoly board!’ And were like, ‘Fuck, that’s good.'”
While the “Monopoly” movie landed for Rogen, there were other pitches that did not resonate nearly as well.
“I think there was a ‘Hungry Hungry Hippos’ movie in development for a while,” Rogen added. “Kool-Aid is not far off from what is actually floating around the halls of this place by any stretch of the imagination. I think we’ve been pitched every brand. I feel like there was a ‘Doritos’ movie at some point.”
Bryan Cranston, who plays a guest role in “The Studio,” said the wildest note he ever got came while working a modeling gig in his early 20s.
“I showed up, and the guy wanted me to wear a specific suit,” Cranston explained. “So I put on the suit, and it was way too big on me. It needed to be tailored. But the photographer came in, looked at the suit, and he goes, ‘You have a terrible body for clothes.'”
As for Chase Sui, who plays Rogen’s on-screen coworker Quinn Hacket, her worst note was for a role you may assume requires little acting chops: a dead body. But according to one director, Sui could’ve been a more convincing corpse.
“I had to play a dead body one time, and I got the note, ‘Be deader, if possible,'” Sui said. “Honestly kind of a good note, but a tough one.”
Series actor Dewayne Perkins said he once got a note to “change the color of a car,” which he feels was more of a self-serving critique than an actual note.
“They were like, ‘I just don’t like that color,’ and I was like, ‘That’s not a note. That’s simply a preference. And sure?'” Perkins said. “It’s notes like that where I’m like, ‘Oh, ok. You just wanted to say something.'”
“The Studio,” which premieres March 26 on Apple TV+, follows Matt Remick (Rogen), an up-and-coming studio head trying to balance the art and business sides of an unpredictable film industry. Other cast members include Catherine O’Hara, Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Hahn, Keyla Mejia and Nicholas Stoller.
