theguardian.com - Ben Child - Thursday 27 November 2014 11.34 GMT
Seth Rogen invites fans to ‘get baked’ with him at Colorado screening
Star of The Interview invites his 2.34 million Twitter followers to smoke weed with him in one of the few US states that has legalised marijuana
Seth Rogen on the promo trail for his new film, The Interview. Photograph: Action Press/Rex
He made his name playing lovable stoner types in comedy fare such as Knocked Up and Pineapple Express. Now Seth Rogen is out to show fans his trademark cannabis-consuming screen persona is not just for show, after tweeting an invitation to “get baked” with him during a Colorado screening of new movie The Interview.
It’s not known if the comedy, in which Rogen and James Franco star as a TV producer and talk-show host charged by the CIA with assassinating North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, features a notable cannabis theme. Rogen may simply be taking advantage of Colorado’s recent legalisation of the drug, though the screening would have to take place in a private, age-restricted cinema in order to be legal. It is illegal to smoke cannabis in a public place in the state.
Tweeted Rogen: We are going to do a screening of #TheInterviewMovie in Colorado where I get baked with everyone first, and we can smoke weed in the theater.” He later added: “Hey Denver! Wanna get baked with ME and then watch my new movie The Interview?! You can on Dec 8th! Email RSVPTheInterviewDenver@gmail.com.
The Interview, which also stars Lizzy Caplan and Randall Park, has attracted attention for a scene in which Kim Jong-un’s face is shown melting off – though it is only a controversy in North Korea, whose authorities complained to the United Nations in July that the film might promote terrorism against the authoritarian state. “To allow the production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent head of a sovereign state should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism, as well as an act of war,” North Korean ambassador Ja Song Nam told UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon in a letter. “The United States authorities should take immediate and appropriate actions to ban the production and distribution of the aforementioned film; otherwise, it will be fully responsible for encouraging and sponsoring terrorism.”
The Interview is in US cinemas on Christmas Day and in the UK on 6 February."