Seth Rogen began to realize that his Apple TV series The Studio was having a major cultural impact after his show parodied the hilarious mascot and he started seeing Kool-Aid Man memes whenever a major intellectual property movie was announced. “Today, a studio head told me that when someone was pitching a movie for Love, he said, ‘All I imagined was you making fun of me,'” he said.
Rogen spoke Friday night at a special event held in partnership with Variety at the Wallis Annenberg Performing Arts Center after the screening of the Season 1 finale of “The Studio.” It came just days after the Emmy Award-winning show repeated its win for Best Comedy Series at the Critics’ Choice Awards and just two days before it did the same at the Golden Globes. In fact, an entire episode of The Studio was set at the Golden Globes, which Rogen admitted was “unrealistic” considering the three nominations were perceived as “making a mockery of the Golden Globes.”
Rogen was joined by co-producer, co-director, and screenwriter Evan Goldberg, as well as cast members Ike Barinholtz and Chase Suey Wonders, and their wide-ranging conversation had the packed venue laughing and cheering throughout.
There was a reception and screening of Episode 9 before the finale screening, and the Continental Studios gang headed to Las Vegas for CinemaCon. Then, the night before, chaos ensues when fictional Hollywood executive Matt Remick, played by Rogen, throws a studio party. This episode was followed by conversations with several of the lower-level craftsmen who appear in the series.
Adopting the city’s motto, “What happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas,” was not taken lightly by costume designer Kameron Lennox, especially when it came to Kathryn Hahn’s Maya Mason. “Her outfit is already outrageous. What would she do?” Lennox found the perfect camouflage outfit to add a “military vibe” to the character. “I happened to come across a retro two-piece camouflage pattern with mirrors all over. I thought, ‘This is Las Vegas in a nutshell.'”
Hair designer Vanessa Price revealed that she was “inspired by” The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne, adding that she had her create a custom barrette with the word “Kool-Aid” written on it in Maya’s hair to tie in with the movie she was trying to sell to audiences.
While Price and Lennox went all out, makeup designer Georgie Douglas kept things simple. “We kept her clean.”
Casting director Melissa Kostenbauder touched on the process of finding all the actual cameos, from Dave Franco to Martin Scorsese to Zoe Kravitz, to appear in the entire film. “This is real proof that Seth, Evan, James Weaver and the rest of the Point Gray folks have established their reputation and credibility in the entertainment industry and that people are coming to play.”
Editor Eric Kissack mentioned live editing, describing his job as having to “look at the scene as it’s being shot and just start compressing it.”
Watch the video above.
