Seth Rogen is a respected Hollywood actor and filmmaker. His latest offering, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem generated plenty of social media conversation and news articles. However, it probably wasn’t what he wanted because a huge bulk of those publishings were centered on the alleged race swap of April O’Neil. In light of the current tidal wave of criticisms the Canadian actor is receiving, he has revealed that he has trouble dealing with critical evaluation of his projects.
Seth Rogen Hates Critics Commenting On His Projects
While appearing on the 227th episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast, hosted by Steven Bartlett, Seth Rogen elaborated on how critical reviews affected him negatively. The Canadian actor said:
“It’s funny, I was saying to someone I work with the other day, I’m at the point in my career where not a lot of people are in a position to yell at me in my job, but the New York Times will publish an entire article saying I suck at my job. And so like, that’s the trade-off. I’ve worked my way up to not having to deal with that much personal conflict and face-to-face conflict, but I will have a cultural institution tell everyone that I suck. That will add self-doubt, things like that.”
The host then questioned him if he takes such criticisms personally, and replied that it’s devastating and hurts him deeply. The filmmaker even said that some actors never recover from those harsh words. As per Rogen:
“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. It’s devastating. I know people who never recover from it, honestly, years, decades of being hurt. It’s very personal. It is devastating when you are being institutionally told that your personal expression was bad. That is like, devastating, and something that people carry with them, literally, their entire lives. And I get why – It f–king sucks.”
As for how Rogen dealt with bad reviews on his project, the actor mentioned his flop 2011 Green Hornet film and said that he hated it because everyone was seemingly taking joy in disliking it. He explained:
“The reviews were coming out and it was pretty bad, and people just kind of like, hated it. It seemed like a thing that people were taking joy in just disliking a lot, you know what I mean? But it opened to like $35 million, which was I think at the time the biggest opening weekend I had ever been associated with in any capacity! So, it did pretty well! That’s what’s nice sometimes. You can grasp for some sense of success at times.”
Rogan mentions that the film wasn’t a creative failure but rather a conceptual one, because superhero films weren’t as mammoth as they are now. However, the actor explains that he knows how to deal with the jarring reviews.
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Seth Rogen Explains How He Deals With Poor Reviews
During the conversation, Seth Rogen revealed that the way he deals with criticisms is by simply not holding onto them. The producer of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem said:
“I’ve gotten much better at dealing with it as well. I think when I was younger, I really like did not have as much perspective as I do, and now, I do not carry it with me as much as I used to. In general, from my experience, I would say that applies to creative people, self doubt. For me, it comes in waves, y’know? You make a thing every one likes, it gets a little better. You make a thing everyone hates, it gets a little worse. And that’s a part of doing what I do. For me, it’s something that’s present, but I try not to let it stop me from doing the things that I think are interesting and the things that I would enjoy watching.”
Rogen’s words are inspiring and it gives fans a peek into his mind at a time when social media is intensely critical of the changes he has made to the beloved character of April O’Neil. Perhaps knowing that he has made the right change since originally the character was of mixed race will let him absorb the criticisms better.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem in theaters on August 4th, 2023.
Source: YouTube
