James Franco, Seth Rogen and More Surprise High School Students by Starring in Their Short Film
Seth Rogen and longtime partner Evan Goldberg recently launched And Action!, a new high school program that offers young, aspiring filmmakers the chance to learn the business by making a short film. But it probably never occurred to 17-year-old director Eduardo Cho and his creative collaborator, 16-year-old Kimberly Carrillo, that Rogen himself would actually show up to set — and bring several of his famous friends with him to star in Cho’s short.
The Hollywood Reporter debuted the short, which you can watch in full above. Titled ‘Dumpster Diving,’ it stars Rogen and Michael Peña as a pair of high school kids who hide in a dumpster to escape a bully and bond over their shared antagonist. Not long after, they get mixed up with a gang and are taken to the leader, El Diablo, played by James Franco. The short also stars Nick Kroll and Hannah Simone.
‘Dumpster Diving’ is the first short to come out of the And Action! pilot program, which Rogen and Goldberg set up at John C. Fremont High School in Los Angeles and the Rene Gordon Health and Wellness Academy in Toronto. Both groups of aspiring filmmakers were asked to make projects with a message that could resonate with other kids. For the Los Angeles students, that was peer pressure; for the kids in Toronto, it was bullying. The Toronto students also made a short; titled ‘Robot Bullies,’ their film stars Jay Baruchel and depicts a dystopian future in which schools are populated by mean robots.