Seth Rogen defends film labelled ‘act of war’ by North Korea

Actor-director Seth Rogen defended the choice to parody North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in raunchy comedy The Interview, the movie that sparked a real-life threat from the country and is suspected as the possible cause of a damaging cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Rogen, who wrote, produced and directed The Interview with filmmaking partner Evan Goldberg, told ABC show Good Morning America that he had not anticipated the media storm surrounding the film.

“I don’t know if the hacking honestly is because of our movie, definitively or not. I know that it has been the centre of a lot of media attention lately,” Rogen said.

“The movie itself is very silly and wasn’t meant to be controversial in any way,” he added.

In November, Sony Pictures’ computer network was crippled by an attack by hackers who stole and released five films, employee data and internal emails. Reuters has not been able to confirm the documents’ authenticity.

People close to the investigation have told Reuters that North Korea is a principal suspect, but a North Korean diplomat has denied his country was involved. Pyongyang denounced The Interview in June as “undisguised sponsoring of terrorism, as well as an act of war”.

Rogen said on Monday the film goes to great lengths to separate the regime ruling North Korea from the North Korean people themselves, saying they are “victims of a horrible situation”.

Emails released by the hackers shed light on Sony’s internal debate about the film, showing that Sony Corp Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai ordered that the movie be toned down after North Korea complained. Rogen objected but complied before the cyber attack.