Ridin’ High on the ‘Pineapple Express’
By Emily Christianson, Hollywood.com Staff
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Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Pineapple Express; is it a stoner movie? No. Is it an action movie? No. However it is a stoner/action hybrid jam packed with pot smoking, chase scenes and a whole lot of comedy. The new flick, directed by indie favorite David Gordon Green, tells the story of a stoner named Dale (Seth Rogen) who witnesses a murder-in-progress while working his job as a process server. Convinced the killer saw him flee the scene, Dale goes on the run, enlisting the help of his needy and annoying dealer Saul (James Franco).
Seth Rogen
Character: Dale Denton
Occupation: Process Server/Weed Smoker
Hollywood.com: You’ve got some pretty cool smoker moves, exhaling the smoke and then inhaling it back in. Where did you learn that?
Seth Rogen: It's a pretty good one, huh… just growing up in Vancouver. You kind of learn that one early on, I guess [laughs]… I've heard someone call it a Ghost Face… It's called The Rogen. Do it with your friends.
HW: You played a stoner before in Knocked Up. So is there some method acting going on here?
SR: [Laughs] I guess so. I mean, no. I don't smoke weed on set all day. I just want to say that, you know, not all day. After lunch you get tired. What can you do? To me the fact that a character smokes weed isn't really what I hang my hat on necessarily. To me Arthur and James Bond aren't the same because they both drink. So I would kind of equate it to that. They're different guys who both have a similar habit. To me they're very different guys though.
HW: How much bro love is there between you and your costars?
SR: Mad bro love. Is that the right expression? I think. We get along. I don't know. We're all friends. It's very bonding to beat the crap out of each other. You're very physical and you're in these somewhat homoerotic positions. There's a lot of me on Danny McBride's back. I rode Danny's back for two days.
HW: I appreciate you bringing Huey Lewis back to the world of movie soundtracks. Can you talk about that inspiration?
SR: Thank you. I mean, we made this movie and I would say that it was somewhat of an homage to '80's action movies and in its own way an '80's action movie in and of itself. We thought ‘what’s the one thing that every great '80's movie has?’ which is a song by Huey Lewis that says the title of the movie [in the song]. I had actually been singing it in my head as we were editing the movie. I just kind of wrote a version of it. As I was driving to the editing room I would be singing, Pineapple Express – and then I ran it by these guys one day, I remember. I was like, 'You know what would be crazy, if we could get Huey Lewis to do a song for this.' For some reason I thought that would be like unattainable, but it was way easier than you'd think. Two days later we had a song from Huey Lewis [laughs]. I didn't realize you could just call him up and he'd be like, 'Okay.'
Next: James Franco