It Seems Like Jay Baruchel Might Have Been Right About Jonah Hill in ‘This Is the End’
As Superbad star Jonah Hill publicly battles accusations of emotional abuse and assault, anyone whose opinion of the actor has soured in light of the tabloid firestorm should give credit when credit is due — hipster Jay Baruchel hated Hill before it was cool.
After Hill’s ex-girlfriend Sarah Brady posted a slew of screenshots from her supposed text conversation with Hill showing allegedly manipulative, controlling and consummately creepy behavior, Zoey 101 star Alexa Nichols publicly claimed that Hill “slammed me to the door and shoved his tongue down my throat” at a party when the actress was just 16 years old. Hill has publicly denied Nichols’ accusations and supposedly attempted to smooth things over with Brady in private, but his efforts to quell the fire of bad publicity haven’t stopped the flurry of tweets, posts and think pieces denouncing his alleged bad behavior.
Ten years ago, Jonah Hill played a pompous, manipulative version of himself to hilarious effect in the Seth Rogen-led apocalypse comedy This is the End. Today, many Twitter users are coming to a conclusion about the film that Baruchel already reached a decade ago — Hill wasn’t acting.
“when this is the end came out i was absolutely obsessed with jay baruchel for like 6 months,” user Yeetball Sub tweeted. “it was that fuck-jonah-hill aura i was really vibin’ with.” One tigerthebrutal said, “this is the end really had the right idea making jonah hill a straight up demon.”
In This is the End, Hill’s character begins the film as a performatively polite, insincere sycophant who Baruchel immediately distrusts and dislikes. The latter actor has since admitted that the friction between the two of them onscreen was mined from their own personal beef. “Jonah and I don’t get along super well, or at least didn’t back then,” Baruchel told The Last Laugh Podcast, and, when he was informed that the ire comes through onscreen, he snapped, “Yeah, no fucking shit it does!”
Baruchel didn’t describe exactly what led him and Hill to have such acrimony, only to say that the differences between them indeed led to some of the funniest moments in the film and improved the final product immensely. By that logic, Hill should make his next movie, This Is Really The End with the entirety of Twitter right now.
