A truly entertaining, 100 laughs per minute conversation between The Invite director Olivia Wilde and her co-star and close friend Seth Rogen.
Topics covered include: Saying bad things about famous people, first meeting at Olivia’s table read for Knocked Up, G-rated bisexuality on The O.C., the craziest audition of Seth’s life, constantly being mistaken for a courier, anti-gravity, The Invite’s origins as a play, dreams of being all alone in outer space, Seth’s good cop, bad cop dynamic on set of The Studio, laughing at your partner’s jokes, getting a little insight into their castmate's sex lives, and the true joy of finally getting to be funny together in The Invite.
Seth Rogen: Hi, I'm Seth Rogen.
Olivia Wilde: Hi, I'm Olivia Wilde, and this is The A24 Podcast.
Seth Rogen: So we just talk. Do we refer to the cameras? How do people do this?
Olivia Wilde: Do we pretend?
Seth Rogen: What did Alex Garland do? Do you like doing podcasts?
Olivia Wilde: This is the first time I've ever done a podcast.
Seth Rogen: Who's hosted? No, it isn't, actually?
Olivia Wilde: No, I've done, recently, my first longer- form ones, which I think they're great.
Seth Rogen: Are they?
Olivia Wilde: It's much better than a talk show.
Seth Rogen: I guess.
Olivia Wilde: But my problem is then I forget, inevitably within like four minutes, I forget I'm being recorded, and then I say things that I should never say.
Seth Rogen: That's my big problem with a long podcast.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, because then you just start being honest.
Seth Rogen: We just talk a horrendous amount of shit about people.
Olivia Wilde: That's what I was about to say.
Seth Rogen: And we can't talk about that here.
Olivia Wilde: I was like, we can't talk shit.
Seth Rogen: We can't do the thing we mostly talk about whenever we're talking to each other, which is just saying bad things about other people, most of whom are famous people.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, and people we love.
Seth Rogen: We really can't talk about, yeah. People who are known. Who, yeah. So we're instantly fighting with one arm tied behind our back.
Olivia Wilde: This is so revealing about-
Seth Rogen: Because it can't just be like, “Talk about what you normally talk about,” because we simply can't do it.
Olivia Wilde: No, it's absolutely not allowed.
Seth Rogen: 45 minutes of entertaining stuff.
Olivia Wilde: I know. I know.
Seth Rogen: I need a year to do that.
Olivia Wilde: But you make it look too effortless, and then people think you can just do this.
Seth Rogen: People be like, “Sit down and talk.”
Olivia Wilde: No, I want lots of prep. I just think that…what I think about things is, nothing.
Seth Rogen: What do you think about things, Olivia?
Olivia Wilde: I think about things all the time.
Seth Rogen: That'd be a good name.
Olivia Wilde: We met because I auditioned for Knocked Up, and-
Seth Rogen: Yes, you did the table read for Knocked Up.
Olivia Wilde: We need to find the footage and then destroy it.
Seth Rogen: Yeah. No, I bet it was good. I bet it was good.
Olivia Wilde: I mean, was it? I can't imagine. Well, obviously I didn't get the part.
Seth Rogen: Not Katherine Heigl good. It was good.
Olivia Wilde: No, but who got it before Katherine Heigl? It was Hathaway.
Seth Rogen: It was Anne Hathaway who quit the movie.
Olivia Wilde: Is that known?
Seth Rogen: I think it's known. right?
Olivia Wilde: Because of the crowning, right? Is that real?
Seth Rogen: She did not want... Yeah. I mean, that was the... It could have been a hundred million things. That was what I remember being told.
Olivia Wilde: Crowning is a tough one.
Seth Rogen: She didn't want the crowning of the baby to be visually represented. Which I respect.
Olivia Wilde: Even though it wasn't going to be hers, like presumably-
Seth Rogen: No. And there was no confusion after it happened in the movie. No one was like... Because it was a baby coming out of it. And so, no, Daniel Day-Lewis wouldn't do that. Like, that's a level of acting that… so it's obviously not real. It's obviously not real.
Olivia Wilde: But she didn't even want…she felt that it was not her brand.
Seth Rogen: Part of me also, we had started rehearsing the movie, and part of me was just... I mean, and again, maybe she was just like, “I don't know if this is for me.” And again, I don't know. I will take what she said at face value, which was the crowning.
Olivia Wilde: But respect. That's great because she knew. She had a sense, and she knew it's not for her.
Seth Rogen: Yes. And history will tell she has been right about a lot more things than I have over the years. I think she was probably right.
Olivia Wilde: And then Heigl was perfect.
Seth Rogen: She knew what was right for her. Yes. And then Heigl was great. Katie Heigl was great.
Olivia Wilde: Who knows what I would have done.
Seth Rogen: I remember you had been on-
Olivia Wilde: What had I even done?
Seth Rogen: You were a lesbian on The OC.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. Well, I was bisexual. I was bisexual bartender, Alex Kelly.
Seth Rogen: You were bisexual.
Olivia Wilde: I was passionate about live music, but all anyone wants to talk about. The crazy thing is that when we did that, there was one, it was like the most tame, G-rated bisexuality ever portrayed on camera. And yet it was like huge news. It was like sweeps, sweeps, like crazy big news.
Seth Rogen: So it's early aughts. We're talking early aughts.
Olivia Wilde: And now we have Heated Rivalry. And I just think-
Seth Rogen: Full penny.
Olivia Wilde: Full penny. And we had like one little kiss.
Seth Rogen: One kiss, people were losing their mind.
Olivia Wilde: They’re losing their mind. We got short-changed. But that was like probably all I had done, if even that.
Seth Rogen: It was. I think it was.
Olivia Wilde: I might have still just been a lowly casting assistant who somehow-
Seth Rogen: Did you work for a casting?
Olivia Wilde: I worked for Mali Finn. Do you remember Mali Finn?
Seth Rogen: Did she cast 8 Mile?
Olivia Wilde: She did.
Seth Rogen: Because she's the one who's... I only remember her because she's responsible for the craziest audition of my life where we were told for 8 Mile to... I auditioned for 8 Mile.
Olivia Wilde: For the lead role, but Eminem got it.
Seth Rogen: Eminem got it.
Olivia Wilde: You would have been great.
Seth Rogen: I would have been good. No, I was a guy, auditioning for a guy called Cheddar or something, maybe. And what's funny, and I guess if you were her casting assistant, this also makes sense and adds up, is that I was told beforehand, because the scenes were with other rappers, and we got a fax or some shit beforehand being like, “No one in this office feels comfortable reading the other roles. So you have to bring someone to read with you.” We all had a rapper on standby, a reading rapper.
Olivia Wilde: You brought Eminem.
Seth Rogen: Yeah. No. Well, what's funny is I found out Jason Segel also had an audition for it, and so we just went with each other, and then one of us did it, and then we switched to the other one.
Olivia Wilde: We need that. That's the tape I will find.
Seth Rogen: We both started laughing. I started laughing uncontrollably to the point I was just like… It was too stupid.
Olivia Wilde: Also, the fact that-
Seth Rogen: Cheddar Bob.
Olivia Wilde: Who ended up playing Cheddar Bob?
Seth Rogen: I don't think anyone of note. I don't think anyone, yeah.
Olivia Wilde: But I remember that Eminem, he had his ankle bracelet, his anklet, his prison-issued anklet.
Seth Rogen: His prison-issued anklet?
Olivia Wilde: The one that I feel like Lindsay Lohan also had for a time. It's a monitor.
Seth Rogen: Monitor. You'd say “ankle monitor.” Ankle monitor. And I know everyone knows what you're talking about, but I think you could get... I'm curious if you...
Olivia Wilde: You know? It's a piece of jewelry that you're given by the state, and he was-
Seth Rogen: That lady has one, Anna Delvey?
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, Anna Delvey has it.
Seth Rogen: She has one. An ankle monitor.
Olivia Wilde: An ankle monitor that he...
Seth Rogen: He had one while they were shooting?
Olivia Wilde: Yeah.
Seth Rogen: Wow.
Olivia Wilde: Or at least during the casting process.
Seth Rogen: So he did read with some people.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, I guess.
Seth Rogen: Just not me.
Olivia Wilde: Just not you. But the you and Segel tape is all I care about now. I need the Epstein files and that tape.
Seth Rogen: Looking back, and I have a good answer for this that I've talked about in the past, but what is... You go first, though. What is the audition tape that if it-
Olivia Wilde: Like my Mamma Mia?
Seth Rogen: Yeah. Yes. What is your Mamma Mia?
Olivia Wilde: The chill that went through all of us when we realized that was-
Seth Rogen: Which Chris?
Olivia Wilde: Chris.
Seth Rogen: He's the forgotten Chris. Chris. Oh, no. Edit it so we just come up with his name.
Olivia Wilde: Chris Klein?
Seth Rogen: Yeah.
Olivia Wilde: Okay. Yeah. Chris Klein. Chris Klein, as we all remember.
Seth Rogen: We're fans of Chris. The Mamma Mia audition.
Olivia Wilde: And that was not fair, and we all felt so scared.
Seth Rogen: Yeah. And Dominic Cooper, who I worked with a bunch, got that role. And so that was also funny because I felt like I had a little extra connection to it because I remember being around Dominic and being like, “You got Chris Klein.”
Olivia Wilde: It wasn't even just the audition. It was like the banter.
Seth Rogen: You saw Mandy Moore out in the waiting room. She's an angel, whatever that is. It's like every element of it.
Olivia Wilde: Because we've all done that. We've all had horrific, nervous banter.
Seth Rogen: I was a bad auditioner. I remember I was showing up to the audition for Band of Brothers…I would always show up. I never like…I would go to every audition in a Stussy T-shirt and cargo shorts. No matter what the role, because I didn't have a ton of clothes. I wasn't like, “Oh, I can dress in character.”
Olivia Wilde: World War I.
Seth Rogen: I would also always show up at the auditions, and go to the desk and they'd go, “Are you dropping off or picking up?”
Olivia Wilde: No.
Seth Rogen: Because they thought I was a courier or messenger.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, you give courier.
Seth Rogen: That happened every time. And then I'd say, “No, I'm here to audition.” And then I would sign up. But I remember it was a scene from the movie where I opened the door to the Band of Brothers audition room, and it was like 35 guys in head-to-toe military uniforms, and I'm in a Stussy T-shirt and cut cargo shorts and Airwalks. And I was like, “I don't think I'm going to get this one.”
Olivia Wilde: If you had gotten the role, that story would be so triumphant.
Seth Rogen: That would have been pretty impressive. I didn't, though. Yeah. What's the worst audition?
Olivia Wilde: Oh God, there's-
Seth Rogen: There's probably a few.
Olivia Wilde: I feel like I've blacked them out because there's so many.
Seth Rogen: What are some things you auditioned for that were big?
Olivia Wilde: I auditioned for everything.
Seth Rogen: Everything. Me too.
Olivia Wilde: Okay.
Seth Rogen: Yeah.
Olivia Wilde: I do remember it's like the times when I was sure I was getting it, that's probably the most mortifying. I remember I think quite a few of us thought we were getting the role in Gravity. The Sandra Bullock-
Seth Rogen: The Sandra Bullock role? Wow, really?
Olivia Wilde: Because we all-
Seth Rogen: And what was that audition like? She's like alone. You're like an illuminated egg strapped into a harness.
Olivia Wilde: I did a lot of anti-gravity work. No, they put us in a pod. It felt very legit because they had a real pod.
Seth Rogen: I bet everyone who made it to the pod is like, “I'm fucking in.” They're not putting just anyone in this fucking pod. How many ladies were in front of this pod?
Olivia Wilde: That's right, I mean, it was me and everyone you can imagine of the same year of Hollywood High School that were all in.
Seth Rogen: They're putting Kate Hudson in the pod.
Olivia Wilde: Kate Hudson, 100%. Sandy Bullock didn't have to go in the pod.
Seth Rogen: She didn't go in the pod.
Olivia Wilde: She was like, “I'm not getting in there,” and they're like, “You can have the role then.”
Seth Rogen: No, Chastain's in the pod.
Olivia Wilde: Chastain, 1000%. Sienna Miller.
Seth Rogen: Maybe Hathaway's in that thing. She's in the pod.
Olivia Wilde: I feel like Hathaway's probably in the pod, and yet she was like, “I'm going to wait for Interstellar. Let me have...”
Seth Rogen: Yeah, yeah. I'll be in my own thing. This is not my time for space.
Olivia Wilde: When I think of the footage that exists-
Seth Rogen: Of you in the pod?
Olivia Wilde: ... of the moment when it was the crawling out of the pod back onto Earth. Remember when she touched dirt?
Seth Rogen: Did you audition for that?
Olivia Wilde: And you had to discover Earth again?
Seth Rogen: No, you had to do that in the audition scene? Oh no, that's terrible. That's the worst thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Were you like on the ground?
Olivia Wilde: There was some like some fake grass, and I had to-
Seth Rogen: You’re like on the AstroTurf in an audition room.
Olivia Wilde: The other one, speaking of Chastain, the other one that I remember, another hideously embarrassing one, was for The Tree of Life.
Seth Rogen: Oh yeah. Also weird, I bet.
Olivia Wilde: And it was so weird and it was Terrence Malick saying-
Seth Rogen: Portman was in the pod.
Olivia Wilde: Portman was definitely in the pod. But The Tree of Life, but it was Terrence Malick saying, “Be grace.”
Seth Rogen: Oh no.
Olivia Wilde: And I was like... I think I did a lot of anti-gravity work.
Seth Rogen: I would just do this. I wouldn't get the role. I would always just go to “Oh, wow.” And I would say, “Oh wow.”
Olivia Wilde: Oh, wow.
Seth Rogen: Don't talk so much. Oh, wow. Look at all this. Oh, wow. This is crazy.
Olivia Wilde: Look at this. They're like, “Thank you...”
Seth Rogen: This is crazy.
Olivia Wilde: Look at this. They're like, “Thank you, leave.”
Seth Rogen: That's not good acting.
Olivia Wilde: Please. Okay. Thanks for having me. You guys see Mandy Moore out in the waiting room?
Seth Rogen: Yeah. Cast her.
Olivia Wilde: What a girl.
Seth Rogen: Yeah, you guys see Mandy? She's a sweetheart.
Olivia Wilde: Oh no, I know one. I know. I have too many.
Seth Rogen: What's another good one?
Olivia Wilde: What was the singing movie with Tom Cruise where he sang?
Seth Rogen: Rock of Ages.
Olivia Wilde: Thank you.
Seth Rogen: Who got that?
Olivia Wilde: I sang with Tom Cruise.
Seth Rogen: Oh, wow. In the audition with Tom Cruise.
Olivia Wilde: And he's such a nice man.
Seth Rogen: He's so nice. Such a lovely guy.
Olivia Wilde: And he was so encouraging.
Seth Rogen: You got this. You got this. The story I always remember, I've met him many times, but this story-
Olivia Wilde: Really bad.
Seth Rogen: This was a story Bill Hader told me he met him at the Tropic Thunder table read, and he went up to him and went, “You're Bill Hader, and you're on Saturday Night Live.” And Bill was like, “Yeah, I sure am.”
Olivia Wilde: Just basic... Basic facts to get away-
Seth Rogen: I know who you are.
Olivia Wilde: Who you are.
Seth Rogen: I know who the fuck you are.
Olivia Wilde: That's like you know when you've been really bad in a movie, when someone's like, “You did that.”
Seth Rogen: You did that. Wait, what? Didn't you sing “Pour Some Sugar On Me” or some shit like that?
Olivia Wilde: No, I sang... What's the song?
Seth Rogen: Just a small town girl.
Olivia Wilde: No, “I Want to Know What Love Is.”
Seth Rogen: Oh yeah, “I Want to Know What Love Is.”
Olivia Wilde: And that is not an easy song.
Seth Rogen: That movie is not very good. And the play wasn't good. You can't take a bad play.
Olivia Wilde: You can't take a bad play.
Seth Rogen: Plays are bad too. No, the best of plays make the worst movies. So when you take a-
Olivia Wilde: Except for The Invite.
Seth Rogen: Yeah. Was that a play?
Olivia Wilde: Yes.
Seth Rogen: I know nothing about it. I, for the record, have never seen... I have no idea how many other versions of this movie there are.
Olivia Wilde: There's like 27 of them.
Seth Rogen: I don't know how many languages it's in. I've seen none of them.
Olivia Wilde: I know.
Seth Rogen: I know nothing.
Olivia Wilde: And no one else has to either.
Seth Rogen: I know nothing about any other version of this movie in any way. It was a play?
Olivia Wilde: It was originally a play.
Seth Rogen: Whoa. I get that. That makes sense.
Olivia Wilde: It makes sense.
Seth Rogen: Part of me in my head, I was like, “We should make this a play.”
Olivia Wilde: We should make it into a play. Then I asked you, I was like, “Would you ever do this?”
Seth Rogen: This would be a good play.
Olivia Wilde: I asked if you would ever do a play, and you were like, “I'll never do it.”
Seth Rogen: Never want to do a play ever in a hundred million years.
Olivia Wilde: You were like, “That sounds so not fun.”
Seth Rogen: It does seem very hard and not very fun.
Olivia Wilde: I think for you too, the idea of asking you to repeat something-
Seth Rogen: Over and over and over and over and over again? No.
Olivia Wilde: You would just be like, “No”
Seth Rogen: Yeah, I could do it for a day.
Olivia Wilde: For a day, you can repeat things a certain amount of time.
Seth Rogen: Yes, one day I can repeat things a million times. I'll never stop. I'm happy.
Olivia Wilde: But you're also... And I'm not just blowing smoke. You're like a real one-take wonder.
Seth Rogen: I sometimes can.
Olivia Wilde: You are.
Seth Rogen: I've been conditioned to...you know I think with The Studio, I've been conditioned to-
Olivia Wilde: Plug.
Seth Rogen: ...perform in a... Yeah.
Olivia Wilde: All right. Well, we've heard it.
Seth Rogen: On Apple TV+.
Olivia Wilde: Oh my God.
Seth Rogen: Partner of A24, I think in some corporate... there's some tie-ins there. They're doing something with each other.
Olivia Wilde: Wait, wait, hold on. What was your bad audition? I've given you like seven tonight.
Seth Rogen: Oh, man. Well, the worst one ever is the movie Gigli where I auditioned to play... The plot of Gigli is-
Olivia Wilde: Remind me. Remind us all.
Seth Rogen: I don't remember 100%, but it's something to do with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are both like assassins, like hit people.
Olivia Wilde: That really got lost in the press coverage.
Seth Rogen: And the plot is they kidnap, I believe they kidnap-
Olivia Wilde: Each other. Oh no.
Seth Rogen: ... a young man who is-
Olivia Wilde: You.
Seth Rogen: ... cognitively impaired.
Olivia Wilde: No, that's not the plot.
Seth Rogen: That is the plot. And I'd say it is depicted in true early-aughts, late-'90s fashion.
Olivia Wilde: With extreme sensitivity.
Seth Rogen: Yes. And I think I can't remember who... The guy from The Hangover, I think, got the part, the guy who they lost.
Olivia Wilde: Bradley Cooper.
Seth Rogen: No, yeah, exactly. What's his name again? Bradley Cooper. The guy who's lost in The Hangover.
Olivia Wilde: Oh yeah, Justin Bartha.
Seth Rogen: Justin Bartha had got the role, but I auditioned to be the cognitively, the mentally challenged guy. And I like went for it. I was like, “This is my time. I'm going to get it.” And Martin Brest was the director. He was a good director, director of Midnight Run, one of the greatest movies of all time. So I was like, “This is going to be good.”
Olivia Wilde: You're like, “I'm going to win an Oscar.”
Seth Rogen: I'm like, “I'm going to win an Oscar. I'm going to win an Academy Award for this movie.”
Olivia Wilde: For Gigli.
Seth Rogen: And it truly is one of those, if that tape got out, it would destroy my career.
Olivia Wilde: You are done.
Seth Rogen: It would end me. It would fully end me.
Olivia Wilde: That's one tape-
Seth Rogen: It would be very bad.
Olivia Wilde: We're going to bury that until after July 10th.
Seth Rogen: Yeah. I hope it's gone. I pray it was taped over.
Olivia Wilde: Oh my God.
Seth Rogen: I imagine it was lost to the ages, but if... That's for sure the worst one.
Olivia Wilde: When you left, were you like, “I nailed that.”
Seth Rogen: I was like, “I got that.”
Olivia Wilde: I've got the role.
Seth Rogen: Crushed it. You crushed it, Rogen.
Olivia Wilde: So brave. So brave. Oh my God.
Seth Rogen: It was-
Olivia Wilde: That might be better than me singing with Tom Cruise.
Seth Rogen: It's pretty bad. It was bad.
Olivia Wilde: We're different than a lot of people that we both auditioned for a lot of... There are people-
Seth Rogen: Who never auditioned.
Olivia Wilde: ... who are like, “I don't know. I was discovered out of Juilliard.”
Seth Rogen: Yeah, no, it's true. I know a lot of people like that.
Olivia Wilde: But we really like worked the grind.
Seth Rogen: And to this day, I can't physically sit in the same room with people while I am auditioning them.
Olivia Wilde: No. Oh, while you're running the audition?
Seth Rogen: Like if I'm even running the audition. I can do it if I have to, but I like want to tear my skin off because I vicariously pick up all the horror.
Olivia Wilde: You're too much of an empath.
Seth Rogen: Only in this one capacity. Other than that, I don't care how people think at all.
Olivia Wilde: But you also...
Seth Rogen: I'm empathic in audition rooms. That's it.
Olivia Wilde: I think it's because your instinct for when things are good is so quick and so strong, and when things are bad, you immediately know bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
Seth Rogen: No. And in general, if I'm watching audition tapes, and I will watch... I won't stop right away, but I know within five seconds if the person is the right person or not. And it's tough. They're just...
Olivia Wilde: Has anyone ever… when you've auditioned people, has anyone ever surprised you? Have you ever been wrong about that? Five seconds in, you're like, no way. And then they do something.
Seth Rogen: Sometimes I'll click over to take two. I'll be like, “Oh, they really turned it around.”
Olivia Wilde: They made a choice. They made a different choice.
Seth Rogen: Yeah. If there's two takes, I'll always look at both of them, because often it is very different from the first one to the second one.
Olivia Wilde: For me, it's when people work too hard on their self-tapes.
Seth Rogen: Yes.
Olivia Wilde: I don't need a perfect frame. When I can see that a lot of work went into it. I'd rather see a shitty iPhone video selfie in the car while they're driving to their real job than a perfectly framed, lit self-tape.
Seth Rogen: Yeah. No, it's true.
Olivia Wilde: Have you ever watched the SNL auditions?
Seth Rogen: It's funny. Yeah, I just started seeing some of them because I feel like-
Olivia Wilde: Fascinating.
Seth Rogen: ... they've been coming up on my Instagram algorithm.
Olivia Wilde: That feels like ones that shouldn't be getting out, but I guess they let out the ones that are good.
Seth Rogen: Yeah, that are good. I was asking some of the SNL producers, what is it like to sit in a room like... Because when it's written, it's different. You know what I mean? And I always actually feel bad. I get very self-conscious of the auditions because I've often written what they're saying, and I'm like, “Is it bad?”
Olivia Wilde: But isn't it useful-
Seth Rogen: Is it bad because I'm bad? Did I not write it well enough?
Olivia Wilde: Right. But then you can use their bad auditions to rewrite-
Seth Rogen: To rewrite it. But what'll happen is the first audition, I'll be like, “Oof, I didn't write this scene well.” And then I have to hear it said to me 45 times.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, you're like, “I know it's bad.”
Seth Rogen: This is really bad.
Olivia Wilde: It's still bad.
Seth Rogen: To every person, I'm like, “It should be like this.”
Olivia Wilde: And sometimes they give you such good ideas. I remember auditioning Billie Lourd for Booksmart, and the scene was fine, but she came in, and she spent like 20 minutes, it felt like, trying to find the sides in her bag. And by the time she found them, I was like, “She's obviously got the role. We're done.” Because she was just so funny about taking out all this random shit and like clearly being such a hilarious weirdo.
Seth Rogen: She's just a funny person.
Olivia Wilde: And I was like, “That's it. Don't even read.”
Seth Rogen: Sometimes someone will do something so funny in the audition where like we have to cast this person just because it would like it be morally wrong to-
Olivia Wilde: Rewrite the whole movie.
Seth Rogen: ... do the thing, to steal their thing and to not cast them, which some people do.
Olivia Wilde: That's happened to me. I've seen things in movies where I'm like, well.
Seth Rogen: I did that in my audition. Oh yeah, definitely.
Olivia Wilde: But then maybe every other person did too.
Seth Rogen: Maybe. Maybe it wasn't that original a choice, Olivia.
Olivia Wilde: It definitely wasn't. You think Anne Hathaway also crawled out of the pod and went, “Wow.”
Seth Rogen: You ate the dirt.
Olivia Wilde: I did.
Seth Rogen: You just munched on.
Olivia Wilde: And they were like, “How did she get in there?” And I literally left, and I was like, “I'm going to be in this.”
Seth Rogen: I'm going to be in space.
Olivia Wilde: Space. So crazy.
Seth Rogen: I'm going to be in this little pod. I'm going to be in the pod. And then that movie is like, you see what it is, and it's like her head is real and it's essentially a cartoon, and her entire body is CGI. None of it's real. And it seemed like probably the most unpleasant movie of all time to make. She's like literally in a harness getting jerked around in a glowing sphere.
Olivia Wilde: And these people, they want... Ryan Gosling just did the space movie.
Seth Rogen: Oh, yeah.
Olivia Wilde: And I saw footage of him on the rigs.
Seth Rogen: Alone in space. Never send me to space.
Olivia Wilde: No. I mean, but you'd be great in space if you had, like, buddies. You alone in-
Seth Rogen: If I had some buddies in space. Yeah. I don't want to be alone in space.
Olivia Wilde: Alone in space.
Seth Rogen: Give me some friends in space.
Olivia Wilde: I'd be fine.
Seth Rogen: That will be good.
Olivia Wilde: I'd be fine in space. I actually keep... When people ask me what making this movie was like, I have brought up the Artemis II mission and said, “I felt like we were the four astronauts in the Artemis II pod.”
Seth Rogen: Interesting.
Olivia Wilde: Because it was like four people who had very specific skills-
Seth Rogen: Roles. A job set.
Olivia Wilde: And in order for it to work, everyone had to, you know-
Seth Rogen: Really do their thing.
Olivia Wilde: ... pull the levers and do whatever they were doing. Although I don't know if we needed a 24-hour live stream of that mission.
Seth Rogen: No. They weren't doing much up there.
Olivia Wilde: Because it took away some of the mystery and you realize like half the time they're just-
Seth Rogen: They're just chilling.
Olivia Wilde: Did you see the part where the guy opened his iPad, and we saw his code, his password? It was 6969.
Seth Rogen: Nice.
Olivia Wilde: I was like-
Seth Rogen: I like that. Good for that astronaut.
Olivia Wilde: That makes me love space.
Seth Rogen: We've got a cool astronaut.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. See, this is how you get to me. I'm the audience who needed that to plug in.
Seth Rogen: I like that.
Olivia Wilde: But no space movie. They can't be making any more for a while. Who knows?
Seth Rogen: They got more for day. One just came out a week ago.
Olivia Wilde: There's a new one?
Seth Rogen: The Mandalorian. They're in space. They're flying around in space.
Olivia Wilde: Are you in that?
Seth Rogen: No.
Olivia Wilde: I feel like you could have been in that.
Seth Rogen: Supergirl’s in space.
Olivia Wilde: Supergirl’s also in space.
Seth Rogen: They're all in space. People love space.
Olivia Wilde: Shit, we should have done The Invite in space.
Seth Rogen: I know, The Invite in space.
Olivia Wilde: It would have crushed. We don't know, maybe that's the reveal. I did have... Find it when we were-
Seth Rogen: So we open the door at the end, and we're in space.
Olivia Wilde: When we were in post, and there was like, I could have put anything outside the windows because we were actually on a soundstage.
Seth Rogen: We were on a soundstage.
Olivia Wilde: So I was putting lights and city, San Francisco, outside, and I was like, I could just put a-
Seth Rogen: Put a little spaceship.
Olivia Wilde: A little spaceship go by.
Seth Rogen: That'd be cool.
Olivia Wilde: And then we could say we're sci-fi.
Seth Rogen: People would think it was a smarter movie, probably.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. Now they're like, this has nothing.
Seth Rogen: They're in space.
Olivia Wilde: Oh, I get it.
Seth Rogen: Oh, I get it.
Olivia Wilde: It works because they're in space-
Seth Rogen: We're like in a zoo.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. Yeah. We are the zoo animals.
Seth Rogen: Human zoo.
Olivia Wilde: Shit. Well, next time.
Seth Rogen: Next time.
Olivia Wilde: Next time.
Seth Rogen: I remember seeing you at SXSW briefly, I think, for one moment.
Olivia Wilde: Yes, because you had The Long Shot and we had Booksmart.
Seth Rogen: And you had Booksmart. I remember going ...
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. And I was like, “Your movie's going to make a lot more money than mine.”
Seth Rogen: Not true. I don't think it's true. I don't think it did.
Olivia Wilde: I think it's definitely true.
Seth Rogen: We could go to the numbers. I really don't think it's true.
Olivia Wilde: I would put all the money that it made on that wager. But I think that it really, it was the first time, and yet… I think everyone feels like they know you. So that's also a thing where I'm like, “No, we knew each other.” But just because I watched a bunch of your movies, so I felt like we'd hung out a lot, but The Studio-
Seth Rogen: You get me.
Olivia Wilde: I get you.
Seth Rogen: That was the first time we worked together closely.
Olivia Wilde: Definitely the first time.
Seth Rogen: We spent a lot of time together.
Olivia Wilde: And that was when I became familiar with your good cop, bad cop dynamic.
Seth Rogen: I know. You're one of the only people that really clued into that.
Olivia Wilde: I love it.
Seth Rogen: And we really thrive.
Olivia Wilde: It is the funniest thing and what it is that you pretended to be-
Seth Rogen: I almost don't want to tell ... You're going to tell people.
Olivia Wilde: No, the idea that you are so ... Again, this goes back to you being such an empath, such a nice person, that you will laugh and be so encouraging to everything that happens on set and then you'll be like, “One second.” And then you would disappear, and then Evan shows up and is like, “Don't do anything that you were doing. The choices that you just made, don't make any of them.” And I'm like, “Oh, Seth loved them though.” He did walk away at one point.
Seth Rogen: We talk between takes. We have private conversations.
Olivia Wilde: It's a perfectly-
Seth Rogen: I do find that sometimes the actors I'm in the scene with don't love to be directed by the person they're in the scene with.
Olivia Wilde: Well, that makes sense.
Seth Rogen: Yes.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, that's an-
Seth Rogen: Did you find that?
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. But I felt like it was never like, “Oh, don't do that thing.” It was like, “Should we try it-
Seth Rogen: Yeah, different?
Olivia Wilde: ... differently?”
Seth Rogen: Yeah.
Olivia Wilde: Like, “Are we bored of this? What if we tried this or what if ...” The only time I really gave you any direction was giving you permission to be meaner to me, and I loved it.
Seth Rogen: And I loved it too.
Olivia Wilde: Because I was like, “You can fucking bite my head off.” Because you got really mad, and then I almost saw you pull back on it because you're like, “Oh, that's so mean.” And I was like, “You can be so, so mean.”
Seth Rogen: So much meaner. Yeah.
Olivia Wilde: And I love it. Mean you is great.
Seth Rogen: Yeah, it's in there.
Olivia Wilde: But it's great. It feels like, then, it's a release so that you don't have to be mean to other people. You can just scream at me whenever you feel that you need to scream at anyone else.
Seth Rogen: I'm so much meaner on camera than I ever have to anybody, I think.
Olivia Wilde: Oh, in reality, I just cry.
Seth Rogen: I'm only screaming at people on camera, and I like it. It does get it out of my system.
Olivia Wilde: I'm the same, though, but in reality, when I fight, I just cry. I literally can't. I can't get mad.
Seth Rogen: I don't fight that much.
Olivia Wilde: I know.
Seth Rogen: Yeah.
Olivia Wilde: You're a lover, not a fighter.
Seth Rogen: I am a lover, not a fighter.
Olivia Wilde: I disassociate and you just walk. You just like-
Seth Rogen: I do just walk away.
Olivia Wilde: ... exit the situation.
Seth Rogen: I do leave. I'm good at leaving.
Olivia Wilde: Which is healthy.
Seth Rogen: I'm going to literally just walk away.
Olivia Wilde: You're just like, “Well, okay.” You go away.
Seth Rogen: I'm good at walking away with incredible intention.
Olivia Wilde: Yes.
Seth Rogen: I genuinely look like I'm going to do something or go somewhere that I have to be.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, you're like, “Oh!”
Seth Rogen: Yes. I don't awkwardly leave. I go. I rock it up.
Olivia Wilde: No. Yeah. You seem like you just got an important phone call.
Seth Rogen: It seems like I just realized I have to do something incredibly important.
Olivia Wilde: And you go somewhere, and that's better than ...
Seth Rogen: And then I usually just go outside and smoke some weed and scroll on Instagram on my phone.
Olivia Wilde: And that's self-care.
Seth Rogen: Yes.
Olivia Wilde: And then you're fine.
Seth Rogen: And I know that I have to do that. Yeah. But I do very much ... I do that a lot. Yeah.
Olivia Wilde: But then we pretend when acting to be people who are able to be angry.
Seth Rogen: Yes, very much so.
Olivia Wilde: But that's good, I think, because we're good at screaming at each other.
Seth Rogen: Yes. But the good-cop, bad-cop thing we realized…It's not something we ever had to do again before the show, because normally you do what you did on your film, which is you're like, “It's fine. Like, we can remove this. Like, let the person do their thing and get it out of their system.” And we would make that calculation all the time. I remember we were making this at the end. We were like, “It's so much better to let them riff and then to come up and tell them like, 'Don't do that anymore.'”
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, but let them do it.
Seth Rogen: Yeah, let them do it.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, we've got that.
Seth Rogen: And we've got it. But on The Studio we have to be like, “Don't do it. You can't do it.”
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, that's right.
Seth Rogen: “It fucks up everything you do.”
Olivia Wilde: Also, everyone in The Studio thinks that they're coming in to crush and be hilarious.
Seth Rogen: And to improvise and stuff. And you're like, “That's not our ... We kind of don't do that at all.”
Olivia Wilde: No. I tell everybody when they ask about my episode, I'm like, “No, no, no. It's incredibly carefully written, well crafted, and they just do it so well that it seems spontaneous.”
Seth Rogen: Yeah. And people think we just show up and like shoot between the camera.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. Yeah.
Seth Rogen: But it was lovely because you had a lot of the crew from The Studio and the film.
Olivia Wilde: We did, which made it so cozy and comfortable.
Seth Rogen: It was so cozy and nice.
Olivia Wilde: And they just happen to be the best crew in the world.
Seth Rogen: They're so good. They're amazing. They're so much fun to spend a whole day with as well.
Olivia Wilde: No, and they genuinely…They laugh. They're like very funny people.
Seth Rogen: They make the work much better. They also care. If they think something's not working, they'll be like, “This isn't working.”
Olivia Wilde: Adam will just be like ...
Seth Rogen: In a way that at first other crew members found alarming, and I would have people come up to me and be like, “Is it okay how the camera department is talking to you guys?” And we're like, “Yeah.”
Olivia Wilde: No, it's so much better.
Seth Rogen: We're like, “This is good. Yeah, we like this.”
Olivia Wilde: No, they're locked in.
Seth Rogen: Yeah, they're really locked in.
Olivia Wilde: I noticed that from the second-
Seth Rogen: They're genuinely emotionally invested in everything that is happening, and like they're not shy also in being like ...
Olivia Wilde: No. When I was on The Studio and after our first take, one of them, it was probably Mark, the Steadicam cam operator, who was like, “This is good.” And then I felt like, “Oh, okay. They're seeing everyone, so this is good.” But the funny thing also is that when you asked me to do The Studio, I didn't know ... I think at that point, I didn't know who else was coming on to do guest roles, and it was such a shock to me that then when I was like, “Wait, Martin Scorsese is doing this too. Wait a minute, this is amazing.” And it was so funny too that we did our episode and then I started watching the show, and I was like, “Did everyone else play it like really crazy?”
Seth Rogen: Crazy?
Olivia Wilde: I thought everyone else was playing it really cool and I was like, “Oh, shit.”
Seth Rogen: Yours worked. We knew. We saw it all.
Olivia Wilde: You saw, and you were like, “Keep going.” But it was so fucking cathartic and fun and great. And giving everyone the opportunity to make fun of themselves and make fun of the business is a very healthy, important thing. But it was during our first day on that, which I think I worked two days, so the first of two days.
Seth Rogen: Yep, one of two.
Olivia Wilde: Where I was like, “Oh my God, I have to convince Seth to do The Invite.” And then you, offhand, just to yourself, at one point went, “I'm never going to act in anything. I'm not going to do any more acting in other people's movies.” And I was like, “Shit.”
Seth Rogen: And then I was an easy get ultimately.
Olivia Wilde: You were not… You didn't play ... No, don't give your ... You played hard to get. You didn't put out immediately.
Seth Rogen: Well, because you had this crazy bullshit over being in the movie, which was nuts.
Olivia Wilde: Right, I was not in the movie.
Seth Rogen: There were other actors as the role, and then they were dropping out, and you were playing this bizarre game of listing every actor in Hollywood who was not you to try to slot them into the movie in such a weird way. We were all just like, “It should just be you. Why don't you just be in the movie? Just be in the movie.”
Olivia Wilde: The weird thing is why did I have imposter syndrome about acting it, but not directing?
Seth Rogen: Exactly.
Olivia Wilde: Why did I have all this confidence like, “I can direct you guys, but acting? No, I couldn't possibly”?
Seth Rogen: That's what I was saying.
Olivia Wilde: But also, I don't think I could have done it with anyone else, because we were the Artemis II-
Seth Rogen: Yes, exactly.
Olivia Wilde: ... co-pilots, and we were in a little four-way harness and it was like no one could fall into. It was very specific to that situation, but I-
Seth Rogen: It would've been so weird if it was someone else.
Olivia Wilde: It would've been weird. Also, I would've felt really left out. I would've always been walking and be like, “What did you guys say?”
Seth Rogen: I know. It would've been so weird. Yeah.
Olivia Wilde: It was so funny.
Seth Rogen: Yeah, it would've been very strange.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, because it needed ... Also, I think that the one thing about acting and directing at the same time is you can see things that the camera's not seeing, so you know where then to tell the camera like, “Wait, he's doing something that you guys aren't seeing that I'm seeing because I'm in the scene and we need to come around and get that now.”
Seth Rogen: Yeah, that'll happen sometimes.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. It's like I noticed something that we wouldn't see if I was sitting back at the monitor.
Seth Rogen: I also think it makes all the actors, unless you're telling them not to do a thing, it sort of breaks down this ... There's often sort of a ... I don't know if it's confrontational, but a slightly oppositional relationship between the directors and the actor where you feel like they don't get how hard this is. They're asking me to do another take. They don't get how much energy this is requiring. They don't get how much I'm exerting here or how taxing this is. They don't understand how cold it is in the room or how hot it is in the room or how comfortable it is in this room or how smoky it is in the room. And then when you're there in the scene all the time, it removes this giant layer of just what actors complain about on set basically and what they get in their heads about and what they get kind of annoyed by and worked up about.
Olivia Wilde: It's so true.
Seth Rogen: And I see it all the time where I'm like, “Normally, this is where the actors would start to complain?” But because I'm here with them doing it, they can't because I'm doing it too.
Olivia Wilde: That's exactly it.
Seth Rogen: And right when they're like, “Are we really having to do another take?” It's like, “I'm doing another take. We're all doing it. I'm doing it too.”
Olivia Wilde: You'll be like, “I know this is so annoying. Let's do it one more time.” As opposed to ...
Seth Rogen: “Do it again.”
Olivia Wilde: “Guys, do it again.”
Seth Rogen: And you're like, “I'm doing it too. We're all doing it.” And as hard as it is or whatever, it's like we're all doing it.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah.
Seth Rogen: Yeah.
Olivia Wilde: I mean, I guess that's why Nolan ... Never worked for him, probably auditioned. I don't think there's probably a bad audition in there somewhere. I don't know if I got them, but he stands, so I've heard, right next to everyone, which I guess is a way of doing it if you're not in the movie. He's there.
Seth Rogen: He's there. In a suit with a small monitor.
Olivia Wilde: He is in a three-piece suit, even if you're in a spacesuit.
Seth Rogen: Yes, exactly.
Olivia Wilde: But if he was in a space suit in the pod with you ...
Seth Rogen: Quentin Tarantino seems to do…He kind of cosplay dresses, which I think is funny as a director.
Olivia Wilde: I think it's funny and it makes sense. Then it gets rid of that ...
Seth Rogen: You're like, “Oh, we're shooting a cowboy scene. I'm going to dress like a cowboy.”
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, exactly.
Seth Rogen: Which is adorable ultimately.
Olivia Wilde: He is adorable.
Seth Rogen: At the end of the day, it's incredibly cute. I think when a director dresses up in the motif of what it is that they're shooting, it's like-
Olivia Wilde: I think it's what I want.
Seth Rogen: ... “Oh, we're all pretending to be cowboys today.”
Olivia Wilde: We're all in this. Yeah.
Seth Rogen: That's adorable, I think.
Olivia Wilde: You hear stories of sex scenes where then the director also takes off his pants.
Seth Rogen: That's not cool.
Olivia Wilde: Not anymore.
Seth Rogen: Not cool.
Olivia Wilde: Not anymore. That's from the time before.
Seth Rogen: You can't do that anymore, but what a beautiful thing it was.
Olivia Wilde: What a time. What a time we had.
Seth Rogen: What a time we had.
Olivia Wilde: No, but I really think that this wouldn't have worked with anyone else other than you, and I think I would have ... There was no The Invite without you, but the second of the first moment of working with you on The Studio, I was like, oh my God. And then I just got so excited about making the movie, because I was like, wait a minute, this is going to be so good. This could be so good because you are so good.
Seth Rogen: Oh, that's so nice.
Olivia Wilde: But I was like, oh, it really was such a thrill to put you through the trauma of the movie, knowing that we were going to shoot it in order too, which is the thing you were excited about.
Seth Rogen: I love that. Yeah. Yeah. It's so much better. On our show, we do a lot of it in order, because it's in one place, a lot of it.
Olivia Wilde: Oh, yeah. Of course. Oh, yeah.
Seth Rogen: So it's like we'll be in one location for four days, and so we'll pretty much do it in order.
Olivia Wilde: It's crazy how much better it makes everything.
Seth Rogen: Oh yeah. It's way, way, way, way, way better.
Olivia Wilde: And I know it's not always logistically possible, but it is ludicrous when you realize how we usually do it, and you're like, “What the fuck would we have done if we had to do the ending first?”
Seth Rogen: I know. And you're constantly like, “Fuck, I would change that now.” And yeah, yeah. No, it was great. And it was so much fun. I loved it. I had such a good time making the movie. I felt like the scenes... You know, I was nervous. I've known Edward for over 20 years, but we've never really acted together. He's obviously a great actor. Penélope Cruz is also someone I grew up watching. Can I say that?
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. Yeah.
Seth Rogen: Yeah. And so, it felt nice to go into it though feeling like I had an ownership over the character, that allowed me to perform in a way that I wasn't holding back, or scared, or felt uncomfortable about how I fit into the movie.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the dynamic being that we, that they...
Seth Rogen: And what we started was really-
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
Seth Rogen: ... the first few days where it was just us.
Olivia Wilde: It was just us, and then they entered into our home, which felt...
Seth Rogen: And I feel like they saw our rhythm and our dynamic and we're like, “Oh, there's already an energy that's been established.”
Olivia Wilde: That would've been hard to do out of order.
Seth Rogen: Yes, because we created, right away, a very snappy...
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. We were like, doing Clint Eastwood hours. We were like, “It's 2:00 PM, but we talked really fast.”
Seth Rogen: It was great though. And it felt so alive, and it felt funny and confrontational, but like...
Olivia Wilde: What makes me laugh so hard now, I've seen it a hundred thousand times-
Seth Rogen: A hundred thousand times.
Olivia Wilde: …is us changing in that bedroom scene, with the mirrors, because everyone crushed it from production design to cinematography in terms of using those mirrors. Not easy to do.
Seth Rogen: No.
Olivia Wilde: Because you get the camera in the mirror.
Seth Rogen: You see the camera. That's the whole thing with mirrors. They reflect what's put in them.
Olivia Wilde: Mirrors are tricky. And it was like that was all working really well, but we had a way of just always speaking completely simultaneously, which made me laugh so hard and continues to. But that scene is just so realistic for so many people. And I love feeling the audience recognize themselves when they watch that scene, and they're like, “Oh my God.” And it's the completely desexualized experience of getting undressed in front of somebody who you've just seen naked too many times. So the feeling of like, I don't even see you.
Seth Rogen: There's nothing. And that I was so... I remember we did that scene. I was like, “Oh, we're cooking. This is good. I'm happy.”
Seth Rogen: Yeah, it was good.
Olivia Wilde: It was good.
Seth Rogen: It was good. I remember saying, as long as it seems like we're funny together, then that's all people will...
Olivia Wilde: Well, it was such an important reminder.
Seth Rogen: Will care about, ultimately.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, because I would get lost in metaphors and larger purpose of everything and you were like, “If it's funny, it doesn't matter. It just needs to be funny.”
Seth Rogen: If the characters are funny together, especially, you like them together.
Olivia Wilde: Yes. Because the challenge was how we made people not hate us.
Seth Rogen: Hate us as a couple.
Olivia Wilde: Instantly, and things like, break up.
Seth Rogen: Yeah. And to think like, “Fuck this, don't be together.”
Olivia Wilde: People at the end of this movie that...
Seth Rogen: Want us to be together.
Olivia Wilde: They really want us to be together.
Seth Rogen: It's because we're funny together.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. And they're like, it's fine, stay miserable.
Seth Rogen: Because if you're funny together, you inherently have a good dynamic. It is a good dynamic.
Olivia Wilde: Well, it's the first thing to go when you don't have a good dynamic. Don't you think?
Seth Rogen: Yes.
Olivia Wilde: If you stop laughing at your partner's jokes, I think you're cooked.
Seth Rogen: Yes.
Olivia Wilde: I think that's it.
Seth Rogen: I'm now just trying to realize that. Okay.
Olivia Wilde: Lauren hasn't laughed at anything you've said.
Seth Rogen: In 10 years.
Olivia Wilde: Years. I think that's the beginning of contempt.
Seth Rogen: Yeah, probably.
Olivia Wilde: Which is the end.
Seth Rogen: Yeah. Boredom. Boredom.
Olivia Wilde: Boredom, when you're like, “I can't laugh.” It's not going to work.
Seth Rogen: Yes. It was weird making a movie like this too because it's always funny when you make a thing, and inherently everyone involved, whether they like it or not, their personal perspective on relationships and what is a good relationship and what isn't a good relationship, seeps its way into every conversation that you have during the making of the movie.
Olivia Wilde: Oh yeah, literal therapy session.
Seth Rogen: And you see people being like, “This is mean.” In other ways, “It's not that mean.” You're like, “Oh no, that is mean. You don't think that's mean?”
Olivia Wilde: Oh, no. That's not okay.
Seth Rogen: Are you fucking crazy?
Olivia Wilde: Yeah, that's just how you speak to each other.
Seth Rogen: That's how you talk.
Olivia Wilde: No.
Seth Rogen: No, it isn't. That's not how you talk.
Olivia Wilde: I know.
Seth Rogen: That's not bad at all.
Olivia Wilde: Well, my favorite thing was you being like, “What do you mean they don't have sex?”
Seth Rogen: Yeah, that was a big reveal.
Olivia Wilde: Which, if I can say, was an incredibly positive reveal about you, because you were like, “I don't understand. There's a basic problem with the plot. Because why would two people ever stop having sex?” And I was like, “Oh, Seth, you really figured out life.”
Seth Rogen: Well, it was also like, I think with a movie like this, with any kind of movie about, I think something that's somewhat universal but sensitive at the same time, it's hard to make definitive statements about things. So it's hard to be like, “Oh, if you haven't had sex in X amount of time, you're in a bad relationship.” And people don't want to do that. And I think that was part of the process was us being like, “No.”
Olivia Wilde: No, that is bad.
Seth Rogen: That is bad. And maybe it's not bad for everyone, but it's bad for this couple.
Olivia Wilde: Yes.
Seth Rogen: And it probably also is bad for everybody.
Olivia Wilde: It's also bad. No, I think the film has a strong perspective on that piece.
Seth Rogen: Yeah. And that was something I remember we all danced around for a long time as we were rehearsing the movie and kind of rewriting it going into production. Because I feel like no one wanted to be explicit about it, we need an amount of time, and numbers of time you've had sex in that amount of time. And without that we're like, it's like a movie about sex and relationships. And we were sort of making declarative statements about a lot of elements of it.
Olivia Wilde: Which is actually like the thing that happens that, what I've learned from Esther Perel, who is obviously the consultant on the movie, but now I've spent an enormous amount of time with, which so now I've really learned a lot, that she has a thing where she says, “People talk about sex with everyone except the person they're having sex with.” So this idea of people talking to their friends like, “We don't have enough sex, or this sex isn't good, or I want this.” But they don't say to the person, “We don't have enough sex. I want these other things. This is what I want.” Because we find that to be really uncomfortable. And the movie's about forcing the conversation, which we kind of had to do in a meta way.
Seth Rogen: As we were rewriting the movie.
Olivia Wilde: We just have to actually have the conversation, put it in there.
Seth Rogen: And it's especially uncomfortable to have, because then everyone in the room has to reveal what they think is an appropriate amount of time to have sex with their partner or...
Olivia Wilde: Let's all say it on three.
Seth Rogen: Which is uncomfortable, but it is very hard to make a movie like this.
Olivia Wilde: Yes, without...
Seth Rogen: Especially in the rewriting of the film to make it specific for the characters, you kind of have to, at least, say what the movie's perspective is on something like that.
Olivia Wilde: And it's allowed for us to get a little insight into Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem's...
Seth Rogen: Sex life.
Olivia Wilde: Their sex life. Sounds fantastic.
Seth Rogen: Which I think of constantly.
Olivia Wilde: I think of it all the time, thinking about it right now. Oh, God. God bless them. God bless them. I just can't get enough. No, but it was... Yeah. I think that it also is doing that to the audience. The audience is staying after the movie often, and having-
Seth Rogen: To have sex.
Olivia Wilde: To have sex with them.
Seth Rogen: To have sex in the aisles.
Olivia Wilde: And it's been beautiful.
Seth Rogen: It's a crazy reaction.
Olivia Wilde: It's been a beautiful thing.
Seth Rogen: People are fucking in the aisles.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah. You've got to see it.
Seth Rogen: You got to see this movie. You will fuck in the aisles.
Olivia Wilde: That's all we need.
Seth Rogen: It's mayhem. It's fucking-
Olivia Wilde: Fucking Caligula. You got to get in there.
Seth Rogen: It's bonkers. The reaction to this movie is bonkers.
Olivia Wilde: I haven't heard that they're doing that during The Odyssey. I haven't heard that.
Seth Rogen: No, I've not heard that either.
Olivia Wilde: No, I don't know, Supergirl. So people are talking about sex a lot afterward, and they're talking about, they're like arguing over whether or not our couple, we stay together. And they're arguing about what they would do in these scenarios, and it's great. I think it's promoting a lot of...
Seth Rogen: Would those... What would people do?
Olivia Wilde: What would people do? Because everyone thinks they would, and then you get to the point of confronting something like... I don't know if this is spoiler-y.
Seth Rogen: Put a spoiler alert thing on this, A24.
Olivia Wilde: But the idea of like if you... Everyone's thought about an orgy of some kind. Everyone's thought about fucking their neighbor. Everyone's thought about fucking Penélope Cruz. But when you get to the point of confrontation at that moment.
Seth Rogen: Yes. I found it terrifying, but I was also very grateful.
Olivia Wilde: Nothing to me is... Oh my God. Do you remember one of Penélope's moments of improvisation is when she kissed me, and I fully looked into the lens. I lost my mind.
Seth Rogen: You went to The Office. You went full Jim.
Olivia Wilde: I was full Jim.
Seth Rogen: From The Office, you went.
Olivia Wilde: I was like, whoa. And then Adam was operating, I think, and he just started laughing. He's like, “What are you doing?” Of all the people to look into the lens.
Seth Rogen: You can't do that.
Olivia Wilde: But I was like, “Oh my God.” It was so exciting.
Seth Rogen: You went, you like that?
Olivia Wilde: And I just went, “Namaste,” because I didn't know what to do.
Seth Rogen: Yeah, you like that.
Olivia Wilde: But that moment was why we made the movie. Anyway, that's The Invite.
Seth Rogen: That's The Invite.