Seth Rogen and Jason Segel First Bonded As Two Teens Watching ‘The Matrix’ While High
Though they’re each big names in their own right these days, Jason Segel and Seth Rogen both got their start on the cult classic show Freaks and Geeks. It pains me that I might have to explain that, given how long it’s been since the show aired. So if you’re a young comedy fan who’s never seen it: I recommend fixing that immediately. Outside of being known for being really, really good, Freaks and Geeks was also known for the casting of, at the time, unknown actors who were actual teens. No 32-year old high school quarterbacks with clear five-o-clock shadows here.
Maybe because of these natural age similarities, the cast is also known for having become very close. After all, working on a smaller show when your colleagues aren’t already famous actors looking toward their next gig engenders more genuine interpersonal relationships.
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In an interview with Variety, Rogen and Segel shared how they first bonded when working on Freaks and Geeks together, and it’s blissfully normal. None of the Hollywood “well, I was familiar with his work and he was familiar with mine, and it turned out we shared an agent, so we started going to the same blood-transfusion clinic.” No, Rogen and Segel bonded the old-fashioned way, over a mutual interest: marijuana.
Of course, Rogen’s love of weed isn’t news. Publishing a story about that would be like when scientists release one of those studies that determine “French fries are linked to obesity.” Segel’s, though maybe not as obvious, wouldn’t exactly have been a wild assumption. The man wrote a puppet musical about Dracula, after all. What makes this a delightfully specific story is the one event both Rogen and Segel picked out of the haze as the moment they became friends — an elevated viewing of the iconic sci-fi movie The Matrix. Something which, to this day, is probably still a great way to enhance any friendship.
Segel brought up the moment, which he said the interview had brought to the front of his mind:
SEGEL: In preparation for this, I was thinking about the first time we bonded. I have a very clear idea of the moment.
ROGEN: What was it?
SEGEL: While we were shooting the pilot, The Matrix came out. We didn’t know each other that well. We didn’t know anybody else that well. We were all just meeting each other. And all we knew is that you and I both liked to smoke weed.
ROGEN: (The film) came out the day the pilot wrapped, so in my head, the whole pilot was just a march to The Matrix being released.
SEGEL: We rolled giant ts and drove to the movie theater and saw The Matrix together. I coming out of that movie legitimately feeling like something had changed. It was a very inspiring thing.
ROGEN: It was like our Star Wars.
A delightful peek back at a simpler time for everyone involved. The only part of the tale I’m disappointed in? That the interviewer didn’t ask the most important question regarding an impressionable teen’s first time seeing The Matrix: Did either of them subsequently try to pull off a leather trench coat?
Jason Segel, Seth Rogen, if you're reading this, please let me know. My money would be on Segel, and possibly Rogen being the one to (rightly) mock him until he stopped wearing it.
