Censoring North Korea in The Interview seemed wrong: Seth Rogen

Rogen and Goldberg said that it “seemed wrong” to back away from depicting Kim Jong-un in the movie.

In an interview in Vanity Fair, Seth Rogen and his production company partner, Evan Goldberg, revealed the internal debate about naming North Korea in The Interview. Rogen and Goldberg took the script, which was originally titled Kill Kim Jong Un, to a team of comedians and actors including Jonah Hill and Sacha Baron Cohen for an outside opinion. They asked if it would be a good idea to name the movie’s dictator Kim Jong-un, “and the consensus was that it would make the movie funnier and more interesting,” they said.

Rogen and Goldberg said that it “seemed wrong” to back away from depicting Kim Jong-un in the movie.

“That would be like saying, ‘Don’t make fun of Hitler because it’ll piss off Hitler.’ Because Hitler’s power comes from people being too afraid of Hitler to stop Hitler from being such a Hitler. And instead of our film looking back on past events, it could actually tackle something current.”

The two also explained their surprise when Sony pulled the movie (pictured below) from release after the hackers threatened a more extreme response. “For a moment it truly seemed possible that our movie might just cease to exist,” they said. “It seemed like a rash decision born out of fear.”

The two also described President Obama’s public disapproval of pulling the movie as “surreal and thrilling. It gave Sony the momentum they needed to get the movie out there.”