Still funny! Jonah Hill, Emma Stone and more Superbad stars have continued with their thriving careers since the comedy film’s 2007 premiere.
The coming-of-age movie, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, was based on the duo’s experience growing up in Vancouver, Canada. The onscreen besties — played by Hill and Michael Cera — embarked on a series of hilarious escapades that involved partying, romance and more teen tropes.
The creative team behind the film initially feared the content would be too much for some viewers. “I thought that when we showed Superbad to audiences, we would start an ongoing debate about how dirty should the movie be,” producer Judd Apatow told Entertainment Weekly in August 2007. “And at the very first screening, nobody in the audience had any issue with anything in the movie in the numbers that would make you change it. I couldn’t believe it. I thought we would be debating so many set pieces and language and cutting things. And there was nothing.”
Hill recalled that he and Cera “weren’t allowed to go to the first test screening in case something went horribly wrong.” The Moneyball star added: “I remember the second everyone called me and emailed me at the same time. Judd sent me a few emails, one being like, ‘It’s crazy, it’s awesome. Everyone loved it.’”
The actors were encouraged to improvise on the set — after much preparation. “We did rehearsals for a month beforehand where we’d hang out at Seth’s house and we did a bunch of table reads,” Cera explained. “I felt like I knew it really well, and we were so comfortable around each other.”
Hill, for his part, leaned into the opportunity despite the pressure. “I think a lot of it is being so scared not to do it, you just do it,” he said. “If someone put you in that position and there’s cameras around and you didn’t do it, you’d feel so s—tty.”
In sharing more behind-the-scenes secrets years later, Apatow credited the film for Stone’s iconic red hair color, which she has sported various shades of over the years. “There was a concern that [Stone] had the same color hair as Martha MacIsaac‘s,” he revealed to Vanity Fair in August 2022. “And I said, “Well, maybe it could be like red or something.” So we dyed her hair red, which I think she had never done before. And since then, she has cursed me because now people love her with red hair and she’s had to live with that for a lot of her adult life.”
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Scroll through the gallery below to find out what the cast of Superbad has been up to since the movie’s release (hint: they’re killing it after all these years)!
