Seth Rogen has long been known for his comedic roles in films like Superbad, Knocked Up, and Pineapple Express, where his infectious laugh and laid-back persona have made him a household name. While he has occasionally ventured into more serious or dramatic roles, such as in Steve Jobs and his award-nominated turn in Pam & Tommy, his performances often still include his trademark comedic style. This has made Seth Rogen a beloved figure in Hollywood but has also sometimes limited the types of roles audiences find him believable in.

When Rogen takes on characters in industries outside of comedy—like his role inspired by Steven Spielberg’s uncle in The Fabelmans—his performances can sometimes be met with skepticism. The actor’s comedic reputation precedes him, making it difficult for some to separate his dramatic foyer from his more outlandish, stoner-comedy origins. This potential typecasting has led to criticism regarding one of his latest roles in a financial drama based on a true story.

Dumb Money Falls Short Despite Getting Some Details Right

The $20M Box Office Disappointment Struggles With A Casting Choice

The 2023 box-office flop Dumb Money, which chronicles the 2021 GameStop stock short squeeze, received a mixed review from a former Wall Street expert. Directed by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya), the biographical dramedy follows the grᴀssroots movement of retail investors who took on Wall Street hedge funds through the r/WallStreetBets subreddit, led by the financial analyst and YouTuber Keith Gill. Clad in cat shirts and a red headband, Paul Dano stars in Dumb Money as Gill alongside a star-studded cast including Pete Davidson, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Sebastian Stan, Shailene Woodley, and Seth Rogen.

In Insider’s How Real Is It? series, former Wall Street trader Jared Dillian unpacks the true story behind Dumb Money with one particular casting critique standing out. Dillian, who rated the film’s realism a 6 out of 10, expressed skepticism about Rogen’s ability to convincingly portray Gabe Plotkin, a high-powered, stressed-out fund manager struggling to control the fallout of his firm’s multi-billion-dollar loss. Here’s what he had to say:

I don’t think Seth Rogan should play a hedge fund manager. It’s too much Pineapple Express. I just — I don’t know. It’s not credible.

Despite the criticism of Seth Rogan’s performance, Dillian acknowledged that Dumb Money effectively captures the essential elements of the GameStop saga:

Aside from that, I mean, it gets all the basics right of what happened. GameStop was a company that was probably going to go out of business at some point in the future. This is a company that sold physical video games when everybody was downloading them from the internet.

Having said that, if you are a long-short hedge fund manager, when you short a stock, you don’t necessarily want it to go out of business, you’re not betting that it’s going to zero. What they care about is that their longs [long-short equity] go up more than their shorts.

They were really surprised. GameStop was around 15 bucks, and all of a sudden, it trades up to 500 bucks. You do not expect that at all.

The hedge funds were heavily impacted by the short squeeze, with Dillian pointing out the magnitude of Melvin Capital’s losses, the company that Gabe Plotkin founded:

You can lose, theoretically, an infinite amount of money. I think Melvin was a $10 billion hedge fund, and I think they lost $6.8 billion on GameStop. It’s not common. This was a once-in-a-100-year event. Crazy stuff happens in the stock market.

On the insтιтutional level, I think, if you’re a long-short hedge fund, you have to take a really close look at your shorts and evaluate them as if they are candidates for a squeeze for something like this. People will never look at long-short investing the same way again.

While Dumb Money captures the essence of the GameStop squeeze, Dillian notes it does take some dramatic liberties:

They had some chart where the stock was going up very quickly. It doesn’t really work like that—it’s a lot slower.

Our Take On Dumb Money’s Casting Choices

Did Seth Rogen Really Miss the Mark?

Rogen’s role in Dumb Money was far from unbelievable. His presence brought a sense of Wall Street panic to a story defined by high-stakes financial drama and an underdog battle that had fascinated audiences long before the film’s release. Despite Dumb Money‘s box office bomb, the film was well-received, praised for making the complexities of Wall Street more accessible while delivering strong performances from its ensemble cast.

For Wall Street traders, having a hedge fund manager responsible for billions of dollars be played by an actor known for stoner comedies might feel like a misstep. But for general audiences, Rogen’s casting wasn’t necessarily a bad choice. His familiar face helped make an otherwise convoluted financial crisis more accessible, offering a relatable entry point into a world dominated by numbers, charts, and financial jargon.

Source: Insider/YouTube