Smut is the great equalizer, but people love to keep it in the closet. Good thing Seth Rogen and Kevin Smith, star and director of Zack and Miri Make a Porno, have the testicular fortitude to talk about it.

Story by Justin Monroe; Photography by Mark Mann

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(STYLING) LAWREN SAMPLE FOR MARGARET MALDONADO; (GROOMER, SETH & KEVIN) TARRA DAY; (HAIR & MAKEUP, MODEL) SARAH SULLIVAN FOR MARGARETMALDONADO.COM; (SET DESIGN) KENDALL FAETH. (PHOTOS) HOUSTON 620: AVAILABLE AT GOFLIX.COM;SIFFREDI: WIREIMAGE; HOLMES: AP PHOTO

You can tell a lot about a man by the porn he watches. you can tell even more by the porn he makes. But what about the movie he makes about the platonic slacker friends who decide to shoot an amateur skin flick because rent is due and money is low? In the case of Kevin Smith, who wrote and directed Zack and Miri Make a Porno, the raunchy comedy with equal parts hump and heart, and Seth Rogen, who stars as the film’s swinging dick, you can tell they love making people laugh as much as they love watching people make love.

Though Smith and Rogen represent two distinct comedy crews, their coming together seems as biologically fated as sperm meeting egg. Rogen, 26, who became a leading man in the smash baby-mama dramedy Knocked Up, has long been a fan of Smith, 38, who introduced viewers to his View Askewniverse (a world of recurring characters from New Jersey) with 1994’s Clerks. Smith saw Rogen for the first time in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and immediately wanted him to star in his next film—then wrote the role of Zack with Rogen in mind. While Smith favors dense, hyper-articulate dialogue, and Rogen’s posse leans heavily on improv, both like to find a happy ending by sifting through as much nastiness as their twisted minds can conjure. And as Complex learned when it sat with the comedic stars to discuss the adult arts, there’s no shortage of filth for them to draw upon.

So when did you first encounter pornography?

Kevin Smith: The first time I ever saw one, my mom, my dad, and I watched it together. [Rogen laughs.] No, my mom and my dad were at a family friend’s house and they went out to eat, and I stayed behind to watch TV. I went through her videotape collection and found a tape that looked like a professional tape, but in a regular VHS sleeve that you get at the store for your own recording purposes. There was something about it—the label was peeled off, but it was calling. I popped it in and I watched it with one eye on the TV and one on the door, one ear on the driveway. Seth Rogen: How old were you? Kevin Smith: I was 14 at the time. Seth Rogen: Nice. Kevin Smith: There was no Internet, and most of the adult magazines at the time, like Playboy, and even Hustler, never showed penetration. They would always show like a face or a mouth getting tantalizingly close to a cock. As it progressed in years, the tongue would inch out and always be a centimeter from the tip. Seth Rogen: In Canada, Penthouse had full penetration. Kevin Smith: Did they really? Goddamned Canadians. Seth Rogen: We go right for the penetration. Kevin Smith: But the biggest impression it made on me was the soundtrack done entirely on a kazoo. [Rogen laughs.] So, to me, the soundtrack of sex was a kazoo. Seth Rogen: Every time you hear a kazoo now… Kevin Smith: I’m like, “Oh my god, I gotta fuck!” Seth Rogen: I initially thought you were going to say it was your family friend’s homemade porn. [Both laugh.] Kevin Smith: I wish, man. Circa ’84, I don’t think anybody was hip to the idea of “let’s videotape ourselves fucking.” Home // CELEBRITIES // COVER STORY // Seth Rogen & Kevin Smith