Seth Rogen and James Franco’s career resumes have many overlaps. The dynamic duo starred together in the TV comedy “Freaks and Geeks,” followed by numerous big screen films, such as “Pineapple Express” and “This Is the End.”
However, the pair’s last co-starring role was in 2017’s “The Disaster Artist,” and, according to Rogen, there may never be another.
Seth Rogen and James Franco Friendship
The “Superbad” star opened up about where his friendship with Franco currently stands during a recent interview with The New York Times.
“I honestly think the nuance of it is too personal for me to get into right now,” Rogen told the outlet in an interview published on Saturday, June 13. “It is a very personal thing. There’s the public-facing side of it, which I’ve spoken about, and I have the same stance publicly that I’ve had, and I think the proof is in the pudding — I have not worked with him in years.”
Rogen continued, “But the personal side of it is just so nuanced, and it involves people that I don’t know if I should be dragging into this. I don’t know what I would benefit from getting deeply into it. Nothing has changed since the last time I talked about all this, and I haven’t worked with him in a really long time, and I have no plans to.”
The “Knocked Up” comedian was referring to his 2021 interview with the U.K. Times.
“I … look back to that interview in 2018 where I comment that I would keep working with James, and the truth is that I have not and I do not plan to right now,” he told the Sunday Times Magazine in May 2021.
Seth Rogen and James Franco Timeline
The former friends first worked together in 1999, as young actors on the cult classic “Freaks and Geeks.”
They went on to become a classic duo in Hollywood, after reuniting for the 2008 comedy “Pineapple Express.”
“We didn’t have a falling out or anything; he just became very successful after ‘Freaks and Geeks’, and I just sat on my couch and researched this movie for two years,” Rogen told CBS’s The Early Show in August 2008.
The pair would go on to co-star in a number of projects over the next decade.
However, after allegations against the “Hey Joe” artist surfaced in 2018, things began to fall apart publicly.
“What I can say is that I despise abuse and harassment, and I would never cover or conceal the actions of someone doing it, or knowingly put someone in a situation where they were around someone like that,” Rogen said during his interview with The Sunday Times in 2021.
Later that year, Franco broke his silence on the once-close friendship.
“He was my absolute closest work friend, collaborator, we just gelled,” Franco told SiriusXM in December 2021. “What he said is true — we aren’t working together, and we don’t have any plans to work together.”
He later told Variety in October 2024, “I haven’t talked to Seth. I love Seth, we had 20 great years together, but I guess it’s over.”
