It feels as though Seth Rogen has been around forever, with the actor enduring as one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood comedy for well over fifteen years now, but incredibly, the Canadian funnyman is only 38 years old, despite having decades of experience in the industry after making his screen debut in Paul Feige’s cult classic TV show Freaks & Geeks before getting his start behind the scenes as a writer on Judd Apatow’s short-lived Undeclared, in which he also played one of the main roles.
Surprisingly, Rogen’s first feature film gig came when he was tasked to perform uncredited rewrites on Michael Bay’s Bad Boys II, but two years later he caught his big break in Apatow’s The 40 Year-Old Virgin. And after headlining Knocked Up, Rogen finally received his first credit as a screenwriter in 2007 when Superbad hit the big screen.
He may have only been 25 when the smash hit comedy was released, but he’d first come up with the idea alongside regular collaborator Evan Goldberg a decade previously when they were in high school, and they hardly tried to hide the autobiographical element by naming Jonah Hill and Michael Cera’s lead characters as Seth and Evan.
Superbad raked in over $170 million at the box office on a budget of $20 million and permeated pop culture in the process, with Christopher Mintz-Plasse owing his entire career to his breakout turn as McLovin. Rogen may have ruled out the idea of a sequel ever happening, but Netflix subscribers will be able to revisit one of the finest teen comedies of the modern era, and arguably even all-time, when it gets added to the content library next month on January 1st.