In the mid-2000s, Seth Rogen came into our lives as a guy with an immense talent for playing lovable screw-ups whose ability to make us laugh made up for much of their arrested development. But after spending much of the last decade or so stepping into the shoes of more competent figures like Steve Wozniak, and off-screen producing massive hits like Amazon’s The Boys, Rogen has returned to what might be considered his sweet spot on Apple TV’s Platonic. On the show, Rogen plays Will, a fortysomething brewmaster and recent divorcee, trying to rebuild his life while ducking as many responsibilities as possible. It’s this breakup that leads to the rekindling of his (yes, totally platonic) relationship with former bestie Sylvia ( Rose Byrne), a mom looking to break free from the mundanity of domestic life.
Much like the 2014 comedy Neighbors that featured them as a couple, Rogen and Byrne’s chemistry is the heart of Platonic. Yet as great as it is watching them get into hijinks like doing Ketamine in a bathroom stall or breaking into Will’s ex’s house to steal a pet lizard named Gandalf, the show also has a totally different appeal to a certain style-minded type: Will’s eccentric outfits.
Not only is Will older and more financially successful than some of the previous “man-children” Rogen has played, he’s noticeably more into the way he dresses and looks—a byproduct of having both disposable income and a deep-seated desire to stay youthful. During the show’s promotional run , Rogen posted a few of his favorite Will fits to Instagram, piquing the interest of those outside the typical romcom-adjacent demo through a series of colorblocked bucket hats, embroidered popover shirts, and brightly-colored socks. In the weeks since the show’s debut, screengrabs of Will have become meme fodder for menswear moodboard pages, who’ve turned him into something like the poster boy for a certain sect of well-off, tapped-in LA dudes who scoop up Bode knits and beaded necklaces with the passion others their age reserve for farmer’s market produce.
Will’s bonafides as a jawnz enthusiast also seem inspired by, or closely related to, Rogen’s own style glow-up over the last few years. Even among the recent crop of fashion-conscious funny men, Rogen stands apart as someone with a confident sense of style, someone who “gets it”—what clothes are trending, which brands are bubbling up, and how to freak an unexpectedly colorful suit on a red carpet. As such, he worked closely with costume designer Kameron Lennox to create Will’s look, but describes his own sartorial sense as essentially a very pared-down version of the character’s. (Rogen actually contractually negotiated being able to keep all of the character’s wardrobe after the show wrapped.)
GQ talked to Rogen about the show, the origins of Will’s style, and what it’s like to be regarded as one 2023’s best dressed men.
Seth Rogen: I think I’ve played a lot of, I guess, man-children over the years. But what’s really interesting to me is the connotation of that does greatly shift. As I get older, and I’m in my forties now, I see a lot of guys who are really still struggling to get their life together and it’s not as lighthearted as it was when we were in our twenties and they were acting like teenagers. Now it’s people who are in their forties acting like they’re in their twenties. It is very funny in some ways, but it’s also very sad in a way that it kind of isn’t when you’re younger. It’s annoying to be young and obnoxious, but it’s not inherently depressing.
That’s what was really funny about this guy who is my age but is obsessed with dressing young, hanging out with young people, and trying to engage in this young life and young world. He has a job that allows him to kind of live in this arrested state to some degree. Even when responsibility is a necessary part of that job, he tries to avoid it at all costs.
It’s a gray area that I’ve tread before, which is using things I genuinely like to make fun of myself. This Is the End was maybe my first real foray to that. We were designing the house that the movie’s set in, and the joke was that it was supposed to be a “douchey house.” But by the end of it I thought, “I love this house.” I accidentally made my dream home in a lot of ways.. So I was like, “I’m a douchebag.” It was a similar thing with this where it was all clothes I love, but I don’t necessarily have the desire to attempt to pull them off in my day-to-day life all the time. It was also an aggregate effect. It’s too much clothes, which was part of the philosophy for the character.
I generally come in with strong wardrobe takes. It helps me with the character because I think how people dress does say a lot about them. The idea was that this guy doesn’t want to grow up, and he kind of wants to be cool. He’s a downtown guy, so I pictured him as someone who probably makes a pretty good living yet has no real responsibility. It also spoke to what I saw as a real person who’s kind of plugged into their local commercial scene as far as retail shops. It became a way to show that there’s nothing funnier than a sad guy dressed in a really colorful outfit. It does speak to a sad clown a little bit—a guy who dresses in a way that is carefree, fun, and kind of exudes this joy, but he’s going through this terrible thing in his life.
I thought the guy should look kind of cool and dress well. They say people really respect a character who seems good at their job. It’s a writing convention where you can get away with a lot of bad shit if you actually seem like you’re good at your job. It’s why Don Draper is cool and why Tony Soprano is cool. So when I’m doing this truly terrible, stupid shit throughout the rest of the show, you’re more forgiving of me and more on my side.
I think hand-touched clothing seems to be something that is very cool now, especially among younger fashion-y people. Bode, and those kinds of brands, seem to bring in this hand-stitching and this crocheting, knitting, tie-dye…things like that. I think it’s all a reaction to fast fashion and brands just pumping out sweatshirts with a name emblazoned on them.
Bode was probably the first one that I really paid attention to. I’d never actually seen Story MFG, but some of those clothes kind of worked their way in, too. Supporting brands like Brain Dead and things that are in the neighborhood also felt like a thing. There are also some vintage Hawaiian shirts and cardigans, which all feels much more like what I was wearing in high school. Tie-dye was popular when I was in high school, and we went to thrift shops all the time. It was a huge part of how we dressed.
As for TikTok, honestly, I literally had to erase TikTok off my phone six months ago because I felt like, “Im getting addicted to this.” I am weak in comparison to what these people are throwing at me. Are kids talking about thrifting a lot? Is that happening on TikTok now?
Emily, the woman who plays Peyton is, like, 26, and she said, “Oh, this is what we do. This could not be more representative of how I would actually be spending my Saturday morning,” which was really funny.
The whole time I was thinking, “We’re all getting covered in bedbugs right now.” That’s how old I am.
I remember when I was in high school, I would wear ’70s shirts. I really liked Seinfeld and Kramer would kind of wear those ’50s kind of camp collar shirts with those zip up jackets. I was obsessed with them and it was all because of Kramer, honestly. My parents would see me and they would be like, “You’re dressed like a fucking nerd from our high school. It’s so weird that this stuff is cool now.” So it honestly makes perfect sense, and it all does come back.
That’s the grail. [Will] is like, “That’s a good thing?” When I was a kid, we wanted Led Zeppelin shirts and Pink Floyd shirts. I would wear a Blondie T-shirt, so yeah, it’s exactly the same thing.
I kept almost all the clothes. It’s harder to keep the clothes from a show or movie than you’d think. They [the studios] want them for their archives. You can steal them, but they really don’t like that. This was actually one of the first times that, as soon as I started doing wardrobe, I said, “I want to contractually negotiate that I get to keep all of the wardrobe on the show.” But whereas Will would wear a bright hat and a bright shirt and bright shorts and bright slides, I’ll wear one of those things. The cumulative effect of the wardrobe on the show is one of the things that makes it, for me personally, a little loud. But every individual piece of clothing is really lovely.
My clothes became a big topic of conversation on the set, and there was always a running conversation of what the favorite Will wardrobe was. There was one vintage Missoni shirt that I wore in one or two of the episodes. Every time I wore it, everyone on set was, like, “That.” But I didn’t get to keep it, because it was from the archives already and it was actually from 30 years ago or something.
Yeah, I have a ton of suits that are elastic waist and structureless, so they literally feel no different than wearing any pants and jacket I would normally be wearing anyway. I think the palette of that green suit is not one I would ultimately casually wear, but the silhouette and general idea of it is exactly something that I would wear. I spent a lot of time in the first episode in that outfit, and whenever that kind of thing is happening, a lot of scrutiny and a lot of conversation goes into that piece of costume. With Apple, Sony and all that, it actually took some convincing. I believe, from my recollection, that I had to get on the phone with someone and explain why I thought this would work and why it is a comical way for someone to look. Apple literally did not believe that at first. They were like, “People don’t dress like this.” I was like, “They do. Actually, a lot of people do.”
Yes. If that happens, I just won’t wear it. There’ve been some close calls, but she’s steered me away from outfits. Last year was my first full-on awards season that I’ve been invited to participate in any capacity. It’s a lot of black tie and tuxedos, which I’m not usually wearing 15 of in a year. With tuxedos I try to go for color, and there was a green silk tuxedo I almost wore that I was pretty excited about. She said to me, “You just look like a waiter in a restaurant.”
I sure did. You know what I looked like in the green silk tuxedo? Almost the worst thing of all—a magician. That’s what you don’t want to look like at a big awards show. Like you’re going to pull a fucking dove out of your sleeve.
I’ve always liked clothes. I’ve been with my wife now for 18 years. She went to FIT, and talks about how when we first started dating, I had Diesel jeans on and that’s how she knew I was into clothes. She will say, “I never knew a guy who had the thought to spend more than $20 on jeans before.”
I also think it goes back to skateboarding. I skateboarded as a kid and I spent a lot of time in skate shops. I bought a lot of shoes because of that, and T-shirts were a big part of skate culture, so I think it probably started around then when I was young. As I got older, I realized an interesting part of being an actor is you get to wear a lot of different clothes for the work you’re doing. But it took me a long time to get successful enough that really high-end designers started to want me to wear their clothes.
It was great, but it wasn’t for lack of wanting those clothes. I used to buy my own suits for premieres. Back then, there was just an amount of money I was willing to spend and had no help. So getting Wendi and Nicole to style me for press and events was so wonderful and helpful. It introduced me to a lot of brands that I would then buy casual everyday clothes from.
They would bring me clothes to try on for a press junket, and there’d be a Corridor jacket in there so I’d be like, “Oh, I love this jacket. I’ll start wearing this.” Same for Bode. The first time I saw Bode was when Wendi and Nicole had a sweater for a fitting. When that happens I’ll write it down and take a picture of the tag and then go on the website or go to the store. It’s a lovely way to learn about all of these different new companies.
It’s nice. This is a deep cut, but I was and still am a huge Ben Stiller fan. When I was younger, they did these, like, VH1 Style Awards, and Ben Stiller won the most stylish man of the year or something. I thought it was so cool that while he was a comedian, he was willing to dress cool and wear fashionable clothes. As a comedian, so much of your job is humiliating yourself and truly making yourself look like a buffoon. That mentality does kind of permeate into every aspect of your life, so the idea of being self-deprecating is hard to shake sometimes.
It’s also the photo shoots. I assume GQ is guilty of it. You show up as a comedian to these photo shoots—you finally get to do the cover of GQ or Vanity Fair or Rolling Stone—but you get there and they’re like, “Here’s the plan. We’re going to make you look like a fucking idiot.” I’m like, “Where do you want me to shove what?” It took me years to be like, “Maybe I could just look like all the other guys that you put on the cover of GQ?”
Definitely. But I honestly had other comedians come to me and say, “How did you do that? What did you do? Did you tell them to stop making you look like an idiot?” I was like, “Kind of, yeah!” And they’re like, “You can do that?”
Not often though. Unless I’m walking into Jimmy Kimmel or I’m on the set of something, months go by where there’s no photo of me in my day-to-day life. And that’s fine with me. Just know I look fantastic every day. Every day you’re not seeing a picture, assume it’s the best outfit I’ve ever worn.