Seth Rogen on ‘Personal’ Impact of Bad Reviews: ‘I Know People Who Never Recover From It’

Seth Rogen, who’s among the pitch-perfect cast of Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed Best Picture nominee The Fabelmans, opens up in a new interview about the oft-sustaining impact criticism can have on an artist.

The topic was broached during Rogen’s appearance on the latest episode of Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO podcast, with Rogen and the host first going deep about self-doubt in a more general sense. From there, Rogen was asked about criticism specifically, resulting in a candid observation informed by real-life experiences. 

“Of course it hurts everyone,” he said about 29 minutes into the video below. “Yes, very much so. I think if most critics knew how much it hurt the people that made the things that they are writing about, they would second-guess the way they write these things. Like, it’s devastating. I know people who never recover from it, honestly.”

Driving his point home further, Rogen noted the “personal” aspect of some criticism’s impact.

“It is personal, you know?” he said. “And so it is devastating when you are being, like, institutionally told that your personal expression was bad. That is devastating and something that people carry with them literally their entire lives. And I get why. It fucking sucks.”

Rogen’s The Green Hornet, helmed by Michel Gondry, was then brought up in the discussion. As fans will recall, the movie was roundly panned; however, it managed to open strong at the box office. Rogen pointed to the latter facet as an example of the “bittersweet” position an artist can find themselves in if they are able to work consistently.

“Life goes on,” Rogen, who also highlighted the critical response to The Interview as “more painful” than The Green Hornet, said. “You could be making another movie as your movie is bombing.”

Rogen acknowledged deeper into this part of his and Bartlett’s conversation that “on the grand scale of things in life, this is not that bad.” Additionally, he noted he himself has “gotten better” at dealing with it, thanks in large part to a change in perspective.

See the full, 85-minute discussion up top. Rogen’s comments, notably, follow similarly insightful remarks from Jonathan Majors in light of the largely not-good reviews for the latest Ant-Man film.

Among the projects next on Rogen’s always-stacked schedule is the long-awaited Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film Mutant Mayhem, out this August. See the recently released teaser trailer below.