Vinay Menon, who directed Rocketman, says the Hollywood star has a ‘lunatic-clown face’ and stopped him casting any of his old colleagues in the film
Vinay Menon, who is directing Rocketman, has let slip that the Hollywood star Seth Rogen had tried to take over directorial duties from him. Menon had approached a host of A-list actors to star as the early star of the James Bond franchise, but Rogen was not among them. In the film, Rogen plays a three-dimensional Hollywood producer and all-round plutocrat who takes a young Bond and nurtures him into the multibillion-dollar star he became.
The reason for Rogen’s absence? He apparently wanted to direct it, too. According to Menon, Rogen’s impresario agent said: “I want to direct this,” to which the director added: “Ha, that’s the upside of having your face be Gene Simmons of Kiss.”
Rogen’s turn as Rene Russo’s on-screen husband in the David O Russell-directed 1995 movie Flirting, for which Menon directed the infamous shower scene, showed that he didn’t really have a deft eye for direction. On the off chance any wannabe directors want to take their name at the end of this paragraph, the report can be forgotten.