Seth Rogen

Rogen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Ashkenazi Jewish parents. His mother worked as a social worker and his father held positions in nonprofit organizations. He attended Vancouver Talmud Torah, a Jewish day school, and began performing stand-up comedy at age thirteen, delivering his debut set on February 3, 1994, at The Lotus in Vancouver. He enrolled in a comedy workshop at twelve under instructor Mark Pooley.

During high school, Rogen participated in the Canadian Improv Games, the national high school improv competition that has served as an entry point for Canadian comedians since its founding in 1977. The competition provided his first structured exposure to improvisational performance.

By his mid-teens, Rogen was performing regularly at Vancouver comedy clubs including Yuk Yuk's. In 1998, at sixteen, he placed second in the Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest. He relocated to Los Angeles in 1999 at age seventeen after being cast in Judd Apatow's television series Freaks and Geeks, in which he played Ken Miller. The show ran for a single season (1999 to 2000) but became a cult classic and launched the careers of multiple performers including James Franco, Jason Segel, and Linda Cardellini.

Apatow became Rogen's mentor, casting him again in the sitcom Undeclared (2001 to 2002), where Rogen contributed scripts in addition to acting. The collaboration sharpened Rogen's improvisational skills within a scripted framework, with Apatow encouraging cast improvisation around written material.

Rogen's film breakthrough came in 2007 with the dual release of Knocked Up, in which he starred and which grossed over $219 million worldwide, and Superbad, which he co-wrote with Evan Goldberg based on a script they had begun developing as teenagers. Pineapple Express (2008) followed, cementing the comedic partnership between Rogen and Goldberg.

In 2011, Rogen and Goldberg co-founded Point Grey Pictures, a production company that became one of the most prolific comedy operations in Hollywood. Their productions include This Is the End (2013), Neighbors (2014), The Interview (2014), Sausage Party (2016), and the television series Preacher (2016 to 2019) and The Boys (2019 to present). Point Grey has grossed over $2.5 billion at the box office.

In 2025, Rogen's television series The Studio won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, with Rogen winning four individual Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor, Outstanding Writing, Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series, and an additional category. These were his first acting Emmy wins.