Seth Rogen's greatest piece of career advice was "less semen, more emotion".
The 40-year-old actor, writer and director admitted the tip from his friend and mentor Judd Apatow sounds "crude" but there is a "lot of depth" to it, and it is something he has gone back to time and time again over the years.
In a career-spanning talk at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Variety reports he said: "[This] is going to sound crude at face value, but there’s actually a lot of depth to the advice.
“At one time, when we were shooting Knocked Up, we would improvise a lot, and we were improvising and Judd screamed from the other room, ‘Less semen, more emotion!’
“And honestly, as I’ve gone on to make films, it’s amazing how much I come back to ‘Less semen, more emotion,’ and how many times I’m writing with my friends and we’re making ourselves laugh and then we stop and go, ‘You know what? Less semen, more emotion.’
"[They gave me] that understanding of how to balance humour and emotion and reality and comedy and how to navigate tone.”
When it comes to the worst piece of advice he ever received, the Babies star cited a former acting teacher he had as a youngster.
He recalled she told him: “Your voice is terrible. You should change your voice because you’ll never have a career sounding like that."
The Studio star has "no fear" when it comes to his career after years of working and believes his continued passion for his profession is the biggest reason why he has continued to be so productive.
He said: “I mean, I love what I do, so it’s not hard to motivate yourself when you really enjoy what you do.
“And it’s just what I do. If I’m sitting around on a weekend and there’s a thing I’m working on, I work on it, because I want to work on it, not because I have, like, an obligation to work on it.
“When you love what you do, it’s easier to motivate yourself. I know a lot of people who love what they do and they do get in their own way creatively. I started so young and I’ve written so much that I don’t pressurise the act of writing. I have no fear — the blank page does not intimidate me. I’m sometimes excited by the blank page.”
