This isn’t the first time Seth Rogen has teased the possibility of some playful antagonism between him and Steven Spielberg. In an earlier appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in 2018 (via HuffPost), Rogen told the story of how Spielberg came up to him at a party while he was smoking pot. “I just kept smoking it in Steven Spielberg’s face,” Rogen said, “as I saw, like, the look on his face where he’s just like, ‘I’m never working with this motherf***er … ever.'”
This was before Spielberg cast Rogen in “The Fabelmans,” so obviously, he wasn’t put off by the incident too much. Then again, maybe it fed into the characterization of Uncle Bennie and Sammy Fabelman’s strained relationship with him. In “The Fabelmans,” when Sammy happens upon some incriminating background footage of Bennie and his mother on a camping trip, his world comes crashing down around him. After that, he becomes leery of Uncle Bennie and wants nothing to do with him or his ingratiating camera gifts.
Our review of “The Fabelmans” called it “one of Steven Spielberg’s warmest, most autobiographical films,” but Spielberg did — by way of revenge, perhaps — force Rogen to get an unflattering haircut for the movie, telling the actor (per Indiewire), “I want you to cut back your hairline so it looks like you’re going much more bald than you are.” This year, when asked which of Rogen’s previous stoner movies he likes, Spielberg told Variety, “Having never been stoned, I don’t see them as stoner movies.”
“The Fabelmans” is now streaming on Showtime.
