Could you talk about your approach to this show and what made you want to tell the specific story?
ROGEN:The Comeback.
GOLDBERG:Ah, yeah, touche.
L-R: Seth Rogen and Martin Scorsese in ‘The StudioCourtesy of Apple TV+
ROGEN:Doesnt get enough love, but its about something very different.
GOLDBERG:It wasThe Larry Sanders Show,The Player[from 1992].
Theres some inspiration, more visually from Birdman, which is about a play, still not the same.
But yeah, it mostly was our own very stressful, but not that important lives.
DEADLINEAs you said, obviously people are really interested in the inside baseball of it all.
Were there any jokes you had to cut or pull punches here and there?
ROGEN & GOLDBERG:No, we just touched on the topics we wanted to.
[Laughing]
GOLDBERG:But most of the actors actually were like, Lets go harder.
Not just game, but wanted to go deeper, crazier, get into it.
I know withThe Boys, you had Charlize Theron come in, and shes here again.
Was it a mix of calling in favors, or were people really excited to jump in?
GOLDBERG:Very few favors at this point, weve used most of our favors.
ROGEN:Charlize was our biggest favor.
And we guaranteed that her joke would be funny.
GOLDBERG:And it was!
ROGEN:And she got to hang out with Martin Scorsese.
Like, everyone kind of had a different reason, but everyone who came was really game to play.
ROGEN:We had never even met a lot of them.
I think Id met Olivia Wilde once or twice, Zoe Kravitz once or twice.
DEADLINE:Whats great about this show is it speaks to the adage that every film is a miracle.
Its always been this way.
But thats not true.
GOLDBERG:If they only cared about money, theyd work in finance.
[Laughing] They would have weeded that out a long time ago.
And so that was something that weve honestly always been exposed to.
She has an encyclopedic knowledge of filmmaking technique and of structure and of all of it.
And that, to me, was not how these people had ever been portrayed.
They just are at the center of this conflict between the corporate pressures and their love of film.
DEADLINE:From the theme to the costuming, theres a retro style in play.
Was that a nod to Old Hollywood, like the Golden Age?
And just, its cool.
GOLDBERG:And to a lesser degree, butPineapple Expresskind of feels like an 80s movie.
ROGEN:Yes, David Gordon Green did the same thing.
It was something we saw from the directors we were working with.
We had a palette that they could only exist within, more or less.
ROGEN:Its like they had their own uniform.
GOLDBERG:We should do that at our actual company.
ROGEN:We should just dress like this instead.
DEADLINE:This kind of coordinates.
ROGEN:Pretty funny.
GOLDBERG:Mostly for you, because I dress like sh.
ROGEN:[Laughing] I have an upscale version of whatever youre wearing.
The Studio also touches on the divide between independent, prestige films and big tentpoles.
In your career, youve kind of done both.
What did you want to convey about how the two are often pitted against each other?
Why do they make these little things for theater that shouldnt be [made]?
GOLDBERG:Cause its a company.
They gotta make money.
ROGEN:We also talked about how its such an allure to attempt to tick all the boxes.
It makes a billion dollars, literally, and wins Best Picture.
GOLDBERG:Have we made some bad choices?
ROGEN:Yeah, probably.
GOLDBERG:Oh, no!
DEADLINE:I do think the Martin Scorsese Kool-Aid movie would be incredible though.
ROGEN:Oh, for sure.
And he was like, Yeah.
GOLDBERG:Its a cool title.
ROGEN:I know, hes like its a good title.
He kept riffing on it.
Little Kool, big Aid!
You cut it real fast.
This interview has been edited and condensed for concision and clarity.
