Seth Rogen

Seth Rogen was doing stand-up in Vancouver as a teenager and was cast in Freaks and Geeks before he was out of school. The show lasted a single season, the Judd Apatow association outlasted it by decades, and most of the films people think of as his came out of that relationship.

The persona is fixed and the laugh is famous, but what he actually plays, over and over, is a reasonable man losing an argument he ought to win. Ben Stone in Knocked Up is the template: not stupid, just permanently outmatched by his own situation. Neighbors is the same character a decade later, defending a house against people having more fun than he is, and it is funnier because he now has something to lose.

The more interesting career happens behind the camera. With his writing partner Evan Goldberg he built a production operation that made This Is the End and The Interview, both of which he co-directed, then Preacher, which he co-created, and Invincible, where he also voices Allen. The accolades are an odd shape for a man best known for playing stoners: Emmys, a Golden Globe, and awards from the Directors, Writers and Producers guilds.

The dramatic turns land for a specific reason. His default setting is so relaxed that any tightening reads as enormous. Steve Jobs gives him a Wozniak with a genuine grievance, 50/50 asks him to be a bad friend trying hard, and The Fabelmans uses him as the family friend everybody likes and nobody quite trusts.