Seth Rogen Joins HBO Cast For Lisa Kudrow's ‘The Comeback’

Pineapple Express actor Seth Rogen is joining the cast of The Comeback, but there's a twist with his character. The first season of HBO's The Comeback, starred Lisa Kudrow as Valerie Cherish and in the reboot she is back, but not everything is the same as the first season.

In season one, Valerie was cast in a comedy called Room and Bored while being filmed simultaneously for a reality show about her comeback to TV. During the first season she deals with Paulie G (played by Lance Barber) as her main antagonist and the creator of Room and Bored.

In the new season, Paulie G. is back, but Seth Rogen is playing him. According to Buzzfeed, Seth will be "playing himself playing Mitch, the fictional Paulie G. (as well as Barber as the "real" Paulie G.)." In the reboot, Valerie will be starring in another show-within-a-show called Seeing Red, which will be filmed nine years after the first season of The Comeback took place.

"We didn't even want to hire a star to play a fictional star. We wanted a star to play a star. That was really important – the same way we want Lisa Vanderpump to play Lisa Vanderpump," co-creator Michael Patrick King told Buzzfeed about their casting selection of Seth.

"The Holy Grail would be to get Seth Rogen. He's the right everything. He's, first of all, ungettable. He's genuinely a superstar of movies. And he's a perfect translation, type-wise. And the other big trick is, Seth himself feels so real; it would feel real within a fictional situation, which is what we try to do with everybody we cast on The Comeback," he told the publication.

Seth and Lisa have worked together in the past when Lisa did a cameo in Neighbors. Even though Seth was not readily available to film he did sign on for role of Paulie G. without even seeing the script.  

As for Valerie's plot line, the show will pick up where it left off, but nine years later. "What you're going to see in the first episode is where Valerie's been for nine years and how desperate she's been, and what actually happened to her after The Comeback," King told Entertainment Weekly. "If you like reality TV and you like Valerie, the opening is kind of like crack cocaine. Like Comeback crack."

The Comeback returns to HBO on Sunday, Nov. 9.