Vancouver-born Seth Rogen to receive TIFF’s Norman Jewison career achievement award

Vancouver-born actor, writer and producer Seth Rogen will receive TIFF’s 2026 Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award on Sept. 13.

Photo: TIFF

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Vancouver-born actor, writer and producer Seth Rogen will receive one of the Toronto International Film Festival’s major Canadian career honours next month, during a festival where he will also appear in two films and take part in a separate industry event.

TIFF announced Aug. 25 that Rogen will receive the Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award at the festival’s Tribute Awards gala on Sept. 13 at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto.

Introduced in 2023, the award recognizes Canadians in the film industry whose careers have made a global impact. Previous recipients are filmmaker and producer Shawn Levy, director David Cronenberg and actor Catherine O’Hara.

For Rogen, the honour comes decades after he began performing stand-up comedy as a teenager in Vancouver.

Rogen grew up in Vancouver and began performing while still in his teens. He and longtime collaborator Evan Goldberg met when they were about 12 and began writing what would eventually become Superbad the following year.

His television breakthrough came with Freaks and Geeks, followed by a career that moved between acting, writing, directing and producing. His film credits have included Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, 50/50, The Interview, Neighbors and The Disaster Artist, while he and Goldberg co-founded Point Grey Pictures in 2011.

More recently, Rogen co-created and starred in the Apple TV+ comedy The Studio, playing Matt Remick, the newly appointed head of the embattled Continental Studios. The series won 13 Emmy Awards in 2025, including Outstanding Comedy Series. Rogen also won for lead actor and shared wins for writing and directing.

His connection to this year’s TIFF goes well beyond the Tribute Awards.

Rogen stars with Anna Kendrick in Babies, the new comedy written and directed by his wife, Lauren Miller Rogen. The film will have its world premiere as a TIFF Gala Presentation on Sept. 12 at Roy Thomson Hall.

Kendrick and Rogen play a long-term couple who have spent years avoiding a firm decision about whether to have children. That question becomes harder to ignore when a recently divorced friend and her daughter move into their home.

The cast also includes Issa Rae, Dan Stevens, Kate Berlant, Zach Cherry, Ed Helms, Ashley Park, Sharon Stone and David Strathairn.

Rogen is also involved with Canadian animated feature Tangles, directed by Leah Nelson and adapted from Vancouver artist Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir about her mother’s early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Rogen serves as a producer and is part of a voice cast that includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Abbi Jacobson, Bryan Cranston, Beanie Feldstein and Samira Wiley.

TIFF has also scheduled a Sept. 13 Visionaries conversation with Rogen at the John W. H. Bassett Theatre, giving festival audiences a separate opportunity to hear him discuss his career and work in the film industry.

Rogen was one of five final recipients added to this year’s TIFF Tribute Awards. Helen Mirren will receive the Share Her Journey Groundbreaker Award, cinematographer Adam Pietkiewicz will receive the Variety Artisan Award, filmmaker Bassam Tariq will receive the Rising Talent Award and actor and producer Fan Bingbing will receive a Special Tribute Award.

They join previously announced honourees Penélope Cruz, Lee Chang-dong, Rosalind Eleazar, Siân Heder and Isabelle Huppert.

The Tribute Awards are now in their eighth year and serve as TIFF’s largest annual fundraiser, with proceeds supporting access to cinema, artist development, industry leadership, community engagement and year-round cultural initiatives.