The creators of `The Studio '' explain why they threw guest stars like Ron Howard

For his episode of “The studioRon Howard really wanted to do his best.

The director of “A Beautiful Mind” – a former child star – played himself in the Hollywood comedy of Apple TV +, created by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, about a besieged framework depicted by Rogen. But this Ron Howard was an alternative universe of Ron Howard, who instead of being notoriously kind, is a kind of idiot.

“He was very determined to provide good performance,” recalls Goldberg. “He had not acted in this way for a very long time. He took lessons. He really put his best foot forward.”

Rogen adds: “We repeated on Zoom; he wanted to read the scenes a pile of times.”

Howard even suggested films they could make fun of the script.

The Oscar winner (and the star of “Happy Days”) is one of the many celebrities that the guest play during the inaugural season of “The Studio”. Each half an hour attacks a different headache for Matt Remick from Rogen and with it comes a fleshy role for a director or an actor to bottle. In addition to Howard, “The Studio” also presents Martin Scorsese, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Stoller, Sarah PolleyGreta Lee and Anthony Mackie. And it's only in the first three episodes – the last one is now streaming. Later, Zoë Kravitz, Dave Franco, Zac Efron, Olivia Wilde and Ramy Youssef arise – to name only a few. So why all the famous faces parodais?

“We honestly continued to say that we did not want to do something that was a fantastic version, we wanted it to reflect the reality that possible,” said Goldberg. “It was our northern star: what is the reality of our lives and people working in Hollywood?”

Rogen and Goldberg created the series alongside Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory and Frida Perez. And while Perez is a new relative coming, Huyck and Gregory both wrote on a series that served as inspiration for the way “The Studio” would manage the appearances of the guests: “The Larry Sanders show», Featuring Garry Shandling featured as the eponymous talk show host who would interview real celebrities in his false program.

“The main thing we all connected on was” Larry Sanders' show, “said Huyck, recalling his initial conversation with Goldberg and Rogen. “It was the common tie, and they said to themselves:” We spent a large part of the pandemic to look at it, you wrote on it. Would you like to create a show with us using celebrities to play versions of themselves, but say a new chapter and a more personal version that really talks about where the four of us were at that time? “”

The version they imagined – alongside Perez – was a series that uses each episode to fight against a different Hollywood mini -coat through the eyes of the Matt perpetually stressed. They came across some of the themes thanks to the research meetings they had with the leaders before starting to write.

“We have heard a story on a framework that is terrified to give a note to a director, so it's an episode,” explains Gregory. Another executive told the writers that he or she was crying all the limousine going home if the talent did not thanked during a prize speech. It comes back later in the season when Matt attended the Golden Globes.

It was a meticulous exercise with the star invited to the scenario.

Take for example, Howard. In the episode, “The Note”, Matt must tell a director famous that the last act of his film simply does not work. Rogen and Goldberg wanted someone who was famous so that he could reverse this reputation, as well as someone who had both prestige and box office tubes, which meant that it was difficult to criticize from the point of view of an executive. They also needed a person who made a film with a torsion ending when Matt started working in Hollywood. On the screen, Matt lives with the trauma for having told Howard years ago that it was a bad idea to save the revelation that the character of Paul Bettany is not real for the end of “a beautiful spirit”.

Seth Rogen plays Matt Remick, a director of the anxious studio leading the Fictive Continental studios. “We have heard a story on a framework which is terrified to give a note to a director, so it's an episode,” said Alex Gregory.

(Apple)

“The Venn diagram of what we were looking for and that exists was literally Ron Howard,” said Rogen.

The requirements for the various roles were so specific that if the creators could not obtain the star for which they had written the equipment, they would only write a new episode.

“There was an episode of test screening which, like two or three people on earth, adapted the bill for whom it could be and they were not unavailable,” explains Rogen.

The equipment could still see the light of day: if they get a second season, they will come back. People who would be right for work were willing to do so, they just couldn't make the timing work.

Meanwhile, Goldberg and Rogen always gave way to the star guest to shape his character during a pre-shooting discussion. Polley, for example, added more motivation for his character. Without giving too much, in a later episode, Kravitz, “had very specific thoughts on his knowledge of drugs, what would be his experience, which seemed credible in this capacity,” says Rogen. Howard, on the other hand, had suggestions for the way other characters could suck him.

“We said,” Oh, we want some people to tell you about sycophanic things, “recalls Goldberg. “It was like” five incredibly sycophanic things that were told in my career “. “”

While Rogen and Goldberg had pre -existing relationships with some of the stars who came to get, many of them were not people they were close or knew at all. This helped Rogen and Goldberg directed each episode.

“It's a little easier when we don't know them, to be honest,” said Goldberg. “They are not also comfortable telling us what to do.”

In fact, Scorsese, who invited in the very first episode, even held his language when he noticed that the pair was doing something wrong. “I wish him interrupted us and said to us,” Do it in this way, boys, “adds Goldberg.

Scorsese established the level of talent they hoped to get out of the door. During the plot, Matt, a film buff, convinces the director of “Goodfellas” to run a film based on Kool -Aid – except in the version of Scorsese, the brand is only a way to talk about the Jonestown massacre. When it turns out that the Boss of Matt (Bryan Cranston) will not defend this, Matt must dismiss the venerated director.

“I wish him interrupted us and said to us:” Do it in this way, boys, “said Evan Goldberg about the collaboration with Martin Scorsese, who made a cameo in the first episode.

(Apple)

“Narratively, its existence only puts the challenges of everything, which is why we wanted it,” said Perez. “Bringing Martin Scorsese to make Kool-Aid's film would be the happiest day of your life, objectively, then shooting it would be the worst day of your life. But you would not feel that for everyone.”

Rogen and Goldberg did not meet Scorsese before filming. “Honestly, I was afraid that he was just not going to introduce himself,” explains Rogen.

When he arrived, they discovered that he was an improviser surprisingly good.

“He was so funny,” said Rogen. “Like, I was on” slowing down your enthusiasm “and improvised with Larry David and some of the greatest comic improvisers who walk on earth. I had the chance to work with some of the best and it was legitimately as funny and fast as anyone I have ever improvised in front of the camera. ”

Goldberg and Rogen have a list of wishes of people they hope to appear in future seasons, and Rogen was quite confident to put a dream from the disc: Vin Diesel. “I try to say it publicly to make sure he sees it,” says Rogen with his brand Chortle. “I want wine Diesel more than anyone.”

For what?

“He's great. I love him and he fulfills such a specific role in the industry. It would also be fun to see it not in a “fast and furious” film. “