Seth Rogen

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. Of his dual citizenship, Rogen has stated, "I definitely associate with being Canadian much more than being American" because he grew up in Canada. 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.