Seth Aaron Rogen ( ROH-gən; born April 15, 1982) is a Canadian actor, comedian, filmmaker, and cannabis entrepreneur. Known primarily for his comedic leading man roles in films and on television, he has often collaborated with his writing partner, Evan Goldberg, and filmmaker and producer Judd Apatow. Rogen has received various accolades including five Primetime Emmy Awards, two Actor Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Producers Guild of America Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, and a Directors Guild of America Award.
Rogen started his career acting in Freaks and Geeks (1999), before writing for the final season of Da Ali G Show (2004), earning a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. After his film debut in Donnie Darko (2001), he solidified himself as a comedy star with The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Knocked Up (2007) and Funny People (2009). He also acted in Superbad (2007), Pineapple Express (2008), Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), The Green Hornet (2011), This Is the End (2013), The Interview (2014), Neighbors (2014), its 2016 sequel, The Disaster Artist (2017), and Long Shot (2019). He took dramatic roles in 50/50 (2011), Take This Waltz (2011), Steve Jobs (2015), The Fabelmans (2022), and The Invite (2026).
Rogen has co-developed the AMC television series Preacher (2016–2019), on which he also served as writer, executive producer and director. He has also executive produced the Amazon Prime Video superhero series The Boys from 2019 and its spin-offs The Boys Presents: Diabolical, Gen V, and Vought Rising, and Invincible from 2021. He also starred in the Hulu miniseries Pam & Tommy (2022) for which he received Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor nominations. He is currently starring in the critically acclaimed Apple TV+ satirical comedy series The Studio (2025–present), which he created, wrote, and directed alongside Goldberg, for which he earned four Primetime Emmy Awards for acting, producing, directing, and writing.
Rogen is also known for his voice roles in the animated films Shrek the Third (2007), Horton Hears a Who! (2008), the Kung Fu Panda series (2008–2024), The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008), Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), Sausage Party (2016), The Lion King (2019), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023), Animal Farm (2025) and Mufasa: The Lion King (2024).
Seth Aaron Rogen was born on April 15, 1982, in Vancouver, British Columbia, into a Jewish family of Ukrainian and Russian origin. His mother, Sandy Belogus, is a social worker, and his American father, Mark Rogen, worked for non-profit organizations and as an assistant director of the Workmen's Circle Jewish fraternal organization. Rogen is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States who once said "I definitely associate with being Canadian much more than being American" due to his upbringing in the former. He has described his parents, who met on kibbutz Beit Alfa in Israel, as "radical Jewish socialists". Rogen has an older sister named Danya. He attended Vancouver Talmud Torah Elementary School and Point Grey Secondary School, incorporating many of his classmates into his writing, and took up kyokushin karate for 10 years. He was also known for the stand-up comedy he performed at Camp Miriam, a Habonim Dror camp.
As a child, Rogen did not want to pursue any career other than comedy, stating, "As soon as I realized you could be funny as a job, that was the job I wanted." He got his start in show business at age 12 after enrolling in a comedy workshop taught by Mark Pooley. His early comedy routines involved jokes about his bar mitzvah, his grandparents and his camp counsellors. As a teenager, he would perform stand-up comedy routines at places like bar mitzvahs and small parties, later shifting to bars. A mohel paid him to write jokes. At the age of 13, he co-wrote a rough draft of Superbad with childhood friend Evan Goldberg, whom he had met at bar mitzvah classes. Based on their teenage experiences, Rogen and Goldberg spent the rest of their time in high school polishing the script. They initially worried that American Pie (1999) had beaten them to the idea for the movie, but they decided that the film "'managed to totally avoid all honest interaction between characters,' which is what we're going for."
His mother was supportive of his comic endeavours and would often drive him to stand-up gigs at the comedy club Yuk Yuk's. With his deadpan humour, he placed second in the Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest at 16 years old. Also when Rogen was 16, his father lost his job and his mother quit hers, forcing them to put their house up for sale and relocate to a significantly smaller apartment. Around this time, he landed a role on Judd Apatow's television show Freaks and Geeks after attending a local casting call. Rogen dropped out of high school, began working for Apatow and relocated with his family to Los Angeles. Rogen paid the bills and had become the main wage earner at just 16.
1999–2006: Early work and friendship with Judd Apatow
Rogen's acting debut was as Ken Miller, a cynical, acerbic "freak" in Freaks and Geeks, an eventual cult hit series first released in 1999. Revolving around a group of teenagers' lives, Freaks and Geeks first aired in 1999 and was well reviewed. The show was NBC's lowest-viewed program and was cancelled after one season due to poor ratings. Impressed with Rogen's improvisational skills, Apatow then chose him as the lead in another of his shows, Undeclared. Rogen was originally set to play a fairly popular college freshman, but the network did not think he was leading man material. Apatow opted not to go along with the show. Rogen also served as a staff writer to the short-lived production.
Following the show's cancellation in 2002, Rogen did not get many auditions, which was not upsetting to him, as he always thought he would achieve better success as a writer. He became part of Apatow's "frat pack", a close-knit group that included Steve Carell and Paul Rudd. Of the awkwardness of a grown man spending so much time with a teenaged Rogen, Apatow said, "I'm such a comedy fan that, even though he's 16, I know I'm hanging out with one of the guys who's going to be one of the great comics." To stimulate their creativity, Apatow gave Rogen and Goldberg unusual writing tasks, such as turning an idea of his into a movie in 10 days, and coming up with 100 one-page film ideas. Regarding Apatow's professional effect on him, Rogen said in 2009, "Obviously, I can't stress how important Judd's been to my career."
Rogen had roles in Donnie Darko (2001) and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004). A big career point for him was becoming a staff writer for Sacha Baron Cohen's last season of Da Ali G Show in 2004. Along with the show's other writers, Rogen received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. He became familiar to audiences as one of the main character's co-workers in Apatow's well-reviewed buddy comedy directorial debut feature The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), which Rogen also co-produced, and in which he improvised all his dialogue. "[Rogen] hadn't done any screen work that indicated he could carry as memorable and convincing a performance as he does with the character Cal," MTV's John Constantine wrote. The Boston Globe reviewer Wesley Morris wrote that Rogen, along with co-stars Rudd and Romany Malco, were each hilarious in their own right. The Orlando Sentinel's Roger Moore believed that Rogen "had his moments" in the film, whereas Moira Macdonald of The Seattle Times said the actor was "droopily deadpan". Rogen followed this with a small role in You, Me and Dupree (2006), a critically panned comedy featuring Matt Dillon, Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson.
2007–2009: Breakthrough as a leading man
Rogen's breakthrough came when Universal Studios green-lit him for the lead in yet another Apatow production, Knocked Up (2007), a romantic comedy that follows the repercussions of a drunken one-night stand between his slacker character and Katherine Heigl's just-promoted media personality that results in an unintended pregnancy. On completing The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Apatow had approached Rogen about potential starring roles, but the actor suggested many high-concept science fiction ideas. After Apatow insisted that he would work better in real-life situations, the two agreed on the accidental pregnancy concept of this production. Rogen called shooting sex scenes with Heigl "nerve-wracking" and was grateful for the supporting cast for shifting some of the film's focus away from him. Made on a $30 million budget and released on June 1, Knocked Up was a critical and commercial hit, garnering an approval rating of 90% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and grossing $219 million. Rogen also received favourable reviews. Later that year, he played a supporting part as an irresponsible police officer in Superbad, which he wrote with his writing partner, Evan Goldberg, and was co-produced by Apatow. Michael Cera and Jonah Hill originate the main roles, two teenage best friends whose party plans go wrong, based on them. Critics praised the film and its writing, finding it very authentic, and it topped the U.S. box office for two weeks. Rogen then made a vocal cameo appearance in the animated film Shrek the Third, also released in 2007, and hosted Saturday Night Live in October 2007.