Seth Rogen was so ‘traumatised’ by 'The Interview' scandal that he quit directing films

Seth Rogen says that he and his directing partner Evan Goldberg were so “traumatised” by the hacking scandal surrounding the release of 2014’s The Interview that they moved to the small-screen.

Rogen recently admitted as much to Cinemablend, although he did say that the pair have been “writing a film that [they] would hopefully direct throughout this time,” which they’ve actually been working on for “years and years and years and years.”

It was at this point, though, that Rogen admitted, “Truthfully, after The Interview we were a little traumatised, I think. The idea of going into television and directing a lot of TV shows and pilots, it just was a very educational experience to us.”

Just ahead of the release of The Interview, which saw the CIA enlist James Franco’s TV host and his producer, played by Rogen, to assassinate Kim Jong-un, the emails of thousands of Sony employees were hacked and released.

Read more: An American Pickle: Seth Rogen was happy to star opposite himself as 'other actors stress me out'

The hackers demanded that The Interview wasn’t released into cinemas, so instead Sony put it on streaming services instead.

Since then, Rogen and Goldberg have directed episodes of Preacher, Future Man, and Black Monday, while executive producing The Boys, too.

“We wanted to try a lot of different things as directors, and work with different cinematographers, different actors, different tones, different styles,” Rogen said of these experiences. “And it was actually an incredible learning experience for us.”

Read more: Seth Rogen reveals why 'Pineapple Express 2' didn't happen

Rogen then teased, “And after years of doing that, we feel like we were ready to go back into directing a film basically.”

We still don’t know what Rogen and Goldberg’s next film as directors will be. However it was recently announced that the pair have written a film based on the documentary Scotty And The Secret History Of Hollywood, which tells the story of pimp Scotty Bowers, and will be directed by Call Me By Your Name’s Luca Guadagnino.