Goldberg makes a splash in Hollywood
Canadian gave up aqua-fitness gig to take a stab at making movies
Reelside On demand, The Movie Network/ Movie Central
Let’s all have a moment of silence for the greatest aquafitness teacher that never was. It’s true — if it weren’t for Hollywood, Evan Goldberg might be living out his glory days as a pool noodle jockey instead of making multimillion-dollar films.
The director, producer and writing partner of Seth Rogen is featured on the Movie Central/ Movie Network documentary series Reelside, about successful Canadians in Hollywood.
In his career so far, the 30-something Vancouver native has made movies including Superbad, Pineapple Express, The Green Hornet, The Watch and The Interview.
But before that, Goldberg was busting out pool-friendly moves like the wide-march and the jump-and-tuck for fun and profit.
“I was already a lifeguard and I realized that you could get 25 bucks for 45 minutes, and you got a workout, so I became an aquatic fitness instructor,” he says. “I worked at YMCAs in Vancouver and Montreal, and then sadly had to give up my passion to become a filmmaker.”
Reelside’s third episode includes the making of Rogen and Goldberg’s 2014 film Neighbors, the première of 2013’s This is the End and insights from Goldberg’s protégé, Matthew Bass. Other instalments feature Arrow actor Stephen Amell, photographer Caitlin Cronenberg and Orphan Black co-creator Graeme Manson.
Less a fawning tribute and more a trove of tidbits, Reelside is interested in the little-known stories, the reasons why working in Los Angeles is awesome and why it can, to be blunt, suck.
Where else can you hear about Rogen and Goldberg’s lean and depressed months while writing Pineapple Express? Or the time actor David Krumholtz found Goldberg passed out in a bathroom stall after the première of The 40-Year-Old Virgin?
Goldberg’s episode is notable for spotlighting the less-visible guy in the Goldberg-Rogen writing duo, the one who’s never asked to do the Seth Rogen Laugh and never gets top billing on a movie poster.
Goldberg and Rogen met as adolescents on the Vancouver bar mitzvah circuit and at age 13, after deciding they could come up with better films than those they were watching, wrote the raunchy teen comedy Superbad. The movie was released in 2006 and grossed almost $170 million worldwide.
“I would say we were pretty typical guys, nothing of great interest. Very interested in hooking up with girls. Generally unsuccessful at hooking up with girls. Very into video games, played rugby, did karate, just your standard Canadian kids stuff,” Goldberg says.
Vancouver, he adds, was a place that encouraged their film aspirations and helped shape their comedic style.
“If you look at the famous and successful comedians across history, there’s a bizarre amount of Canadians. Jim Carrey, Lorne Michaels, Mike Myers, everyone from SCTV — there’s just so many. I think it’s because we get everything that is in America, but we’re not Americans. As Canadians, it’s easier to make fun of them,” he says.
“The other thing is that growing up in Vancouver, making movies was not an unattainable thing. They filmed Masterminds with Patrick Stewart at our high school, and there was a Lou Diamond Phillips movie filmed at our high school.”
Heading to L.A. was a natural next step. While Goldberg attended McGill University in Montreal, Rogen landed a part in Judd Apatow and Paul Feig’s much-loved TV series Freaks and Geeks. Apatow’s Undeclared, starring Montreal actor Jay Baruchel, was next.
“We wanted to make big, big movies. And in order to make big, big movies you’ve gotta come to America. You can make some pretty big ones in Canada — Goon, the hockey movie that me and Jay Baruchel wrote, wasn’t a small movie. But I wanted to destroy the world and blow up dictators and all that.”
He did the latter, by the way, with last year’s The Interview — a political satire that drew the ire of North Korea because leader Kim Jong Un was its onscreen assassination target.
Goldberg has six projects in production, including a sequel to Neighbors and a TV adaptation of DC Comics series Preacher. Rogen is along for all of them.
“We do practically everything side by side,” says Goldberg.
“I’d say there are no bad parts of having a partner, only good parts. It’s a massive benefit. Whenever Seth proves me wrong, or enhances one of my ideas, it wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t there. And it happens every five minutes.
“So why would I ever stop working with him? It’d be like cutting half my brain out.”