Evan Goldberg makes loud comedies about people trying to hide how frightened they are. We recommend his work with Seth Rogen for its jokes and its care for those people, though that sympathy is not always shared out fairly.
Fi1m perspective
In Superbad (2007), the boys talk about sex because talking about their approaching separation would be harder. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s script allows them to be frightened and filthy in the same conversation. Under Greg Mottola’s direction, Jonah Hill and Michael Cera make the prospect of leaving for college matter. The writing works because the boys can be foolish without becoming people we want to abandon.
The care is unevenly distributed. Emma Stone’s Jules and Martha MacIsaac’s Becca get less help from the script, and the actresses make us notice how much more there might have been to write. Rogen and Goldberg understand what these boys fear about women better than they imagine what the women think. We can enjoy the company and still wish the conversation included someone else.
Goldberg’s directing debut, This Is the End (2013), made with Rogen, used actors playing versions of themselves. His subsequent work has taken in family animation as well as television, with fitting in still a recurring concern. In Jeff Rowe’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023), Goldberg shares screenplay credit with four other writers, and the teenage company is more appealing than the familiar outsiders-seeking-acceptance plot. Several pop-culture references are less funny than the writers seem to think.
The Studio (2025), which he creates, writes and directs with Rogen, gives the embarrassment a workplace and a hierarchy. Its executives love cinema, yet their enthusiasm keeps becoming an excuse to interfere. The scripts by Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck, Rogen, Goldberg and Frida Perez are good at showing why knowledge of films need not help anyone make a sensible decision. It is a funny, tightly performed programme, but its affection for these people also makes it too ready to forgive them.
Adam Newport-Berra’s long takes keep mistakes visible, while Eric Kissack’s editing preserves the pace without losing track of the confusion. Goldberg and Rogen let the trouble develop within the shot rather than cut away to someone else’s reaction. We laughed, then felt exhausted by the embarrassment, because the camera denied Matt Remick a moment to recover. Try The Studio if sustained social discomfort is your idea of a restful evening.
Biography
Evan Goldberg is a Canadian screenwriter, producer and director. Born on 15 September 1982 in Vancouver, he attended Point Grey Secondary School, where he met his frequent collaborator Seth Rogen. He began his career writing for Da Ali G Show in 2004 and co-founded the production company Point Grey Pictures with Rogen.
Goldberg has worked with Rogen on numerous films and series, including writing Superbad (2007), directing and writing This Is the End (2013) and The Interview (2014), and producing Sausage Party (2016). He contributed story, screenplay and production to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023). With Rogen he created, directed and wrote the Apple TV+ series The Studio (2025), for which they shared three Primetime Emmy Awards.
In 2019 Goldberg and Rogen launched the cannabis and lifestyle company Houseplant in Canada.
