Still McLovin’ it

With The Studio, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg grow up, sort of

- AUSTIN CONSIDINE

Amaka Records, on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, isn’t the best place for someone of Seth Rogen’s visibility to shop hassle-free. Located just blocks from the Chinese Theater, right by Dr Phil’s and Don Rickles’ stars on the Walk of Fame, there may be few places worse.

But when Rogen wasn’t being interrupted by his admiring bro-fans, who were legion — one wore toe shoes and a Lil Dicky shirt; another cried — Amoeba was, however, a perfect place to dig through hundreds of vinyl soundtracks.

It was the Tuesday before the Oscars, and we were there with Rogen’s longtime creative partner, Evan Goldberg, to browse records and talk about their latest creation: The Studio, an ambitious, celebrity-studded industry satire for Apple TV+ that premiered last month.

Rogen had been tasked by his wife to stock more jazz — appropriate given the new show’s jazzy score and improvisational feel, shot mostly in long single takes. But as Goldberg and Rogen, who have been friends since they were teenagers, noted, their taste in music had really been formed by their love for movies.

So we found ourselves first among the soundtracks, where highlights included a reissue of The Three Amigos — “One of my favourite movies of all time,” Rogen said — and two copies of the soundtrack for Soul Man, the 1986 comedy about a young white guy who pretends to be Black in order to attend a Harvard scholarship. (Different times, as they say.)

“Dude, I was just telling some people at work about this yesterday!” Goldberg said.

“It has a good soundtrack,” Rogen ventured. Then, as if speaking with one mind, simultaneously:

“Is it racist to buy it?”

“Is it racist to own this?”

In their hands, Goldberg and Rogen, who for decades have held the boulevard as a main thoroughfare, held a very cool object lesson on what not to do.