Seth Rogen Has Some Strong Words About Negative Reviews From Critics
Famous comedian claims that most critics are unaware of the damage they are doing.
Seth Rogen, a Canadian actor, comedian and filmmaker, has certainly had notable ups and downs in his career.
Best known for his work on Superbad (2007), Pineapple Express (2008) and This Is the End (2013), which were well received by critics and audiences, the comedian has been involved in many other projects, some of which ended up being slammed against the wall with negative reviews.
During a recent discussion about mental health and self-doubt on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Rogen opened up about how devastating such negative responses from critics can be to the people involved in the creation of the projects being reviewed.
The comedian told host Steven Bartlett that he thinks if most critics knew how much it hurts the people who made the things they write about, they would rethink the way they write those things.
"It's devastating. I know people who have never recovered from it honestly – a year, decades of being hurt by [film reviews]. It's very personal…
It is devastating when you are being institutionally told that your personal expression was bad, and that's something that people carry with them, literally, their entire lives and I get why," Rogen said.
After the host brought up the 2011 superhero comedy The Green Hornet, in which Seth played the titular superhero, which bombed with critics and earned only 44% on Rotten Tomatoes, Rogen said:
"For Green Hornet, the reviews were coming out and it was pretty bad. People hated it. People were taking joy in disliking it a lot.
But it opened to like $35 million, which was the biggest opening weekend I'd ever been associated with at that point. It did pretty well. That's what is nice sometimes. You can grasp for some sense of success at times."
He later elaborated that the lingering criticism of his 2014 comedy The Interview "felt far more personal."
"Green Hornet felt like I had fallen victim to a big fancy thing. That was not so such much a creative failure on our parts but a conceptual failure. The Interview, people treated us like we creatively failed and that sucked," said the comedian.
However, fans were not impressed with the comedian's revelation. Commenters on social media suggest that Rogen is simply "clueless."
Some say that the critics are writers, and all writers know exactly how it feels to have their art critiqued. Others point out that the critics are simply doing their jobs, and perhaps Seth should focus more on the quality of his projects.