EXCLUSIVE: Interview With ‘Neighbors’ Stars Seth Rogen & Zac Efron

Neighbors is a new comedy film about a young married couple, played by Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne, who are suffering from arrested development and are forced to live next to a fraternity house after the birth of their newborn daughter. Seth Rogen gets fed up with the fraternity, whose leader is played by Zac Efron. After attempts to ask their neighbors to “keep it down,” the couple soon find themselves at war with the fraternity.

Neighbors is written by Andrew J. Cohen and Brendan O’Brien and is directed by Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek). In addition to Seth Rogen, Zac Efron and Rose Byrne, the film co-stars Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Dave Franco, Ike Barinholtz and Lisa Kudrow.

During the filming of Neighbors in L.A., Heavy.com had the opportunity to have a chat with stars Seth Rogen and Zac Efron about the new comedy.

Here are the highlights.

HEAVY: How does being married in real life help you out with your new role?

Seth: It helps a lot, honestly. From an improvisational standpoint it helps. I’m very domesticated. My wife and I, we watch House of Cards and we don’t go out and drink anymore, but we both would like too. We both are constantly grappling with, “Do we go out to the club and hang out with our friends and stay out all night? Or do we just catch up on Game of Thrones and go to sleep?” I truly relate to that. That’s what the movie is about.

Zac: This is true. He never comes out with us.

Seth: But, I’m all caught up on Game of Thrones. [laughs]

HEAVY: Does playing a father role get you excited to want to create your own family and have kids?

Seth: In a way, it speaks to all my fears about it. The babies in this movie are great. The babies in this movie are our commercial for babies worldwide.

Zac: They are freaking cute babies.

Seth: The babies in this movie are so great they reduce everyone to blithering idiots. Like, whenever they are on set we are like “ah ga ga ga ga ga.” [Zac and Seth laugh]

Zac: There’s moments where you love babies and you’re like, “God, we are the reason they exist.” As soon as they start crying we’re like, “God! Jesus!”

Seth: When we’re on set, we’re like, “Someone get that baby out of here!” But, no, these babies are good. Some of the concerns the characters had was that we don’t want to have kids, because we’re afraid we won’t be able to go out on vacation anymore or hang out with our friends, and stay out late, and do the fun stuff that we like to do. The movie reaffirms how life changing having kids really are and how we are right for not having done that just yet.

HEAVY: Zac, this is something new for you. What’s it like having freedom and being able to say “f*ck” over and over again in a hard R movie?

Zac: It feels f*cking fantastic.

HEAVY: Did you only sign on for the amount of male nudity?

Seth: I did!

Zac: I knew I’d get to touch Seth’s bare chest. I signed on because I was always excited about the prospect of being in a R comedy and potentially finding the right one, but it just never came. I didn’t want to with anyone but Seth, you know? In a perfect world I thought I would be able to work with him. He’s always been in comedies that I really relate to and agree with, and it makes sense to me. It’s not like a jokey comedic thing, it’s just reacting to life in a very real way. That’s what I really appreciate about Seth’s comedies, is you really feel for him. So that’s why I was attracted to it.