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It Never Seemed Like That Much Of A Mystery Why Shows I Was Acted In Failed. When You're Doing A Show Called Freaks And Geeks About Young People In High School, And It's On Saturday Nights At 8 And There's No Promotion For It, It's Not Really Hard To Guess Why No One's Watching It. And When You're Doing A College Goofball Comedy That Premières Three Weeks After Sept. 11, It's Not That Hard To Piece Together Why That's Not The Most Important Thing On The Radar.

-Seth Rogen

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It Never Seemed Like

Seth Rogen

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It Never Seemed Like That Much Of A Mystery Why Shows I Was Acted In Failed. When You're Doing A Show Called Freaks And Geeks About Young People In High School, And It's On Saturday Nights At 8 And There's No Promotion For It, It's Not Really Hard To Guess Why No One's Watching It. And When You're Doing A College Goofball Comedy That Premières Three Weeks After Sept. 11, It's Not That Hard To Piece Together Why That's Not The Most Important Thing On The Radar.

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Oftentimes What Happens Actually Is People Say To Me, 'i Didn't Know If It Was You Or Not, And Then I Heard You Laugh, And Then Obviously I Could Tell It Was You.'

I Was Looking To Do A Comedy And Found A Group Of Guys That Were Really Supportive Of My Interests In It, Though It Was A Little Outside Of My Wheel House. Strangely, I Visited The Set Of Knocked Up And Met Seth [rogen] And Evan [goldberg] And Judd[apatow] And Shauna [robertson].

We Made The Song A Big Part Of The Story [sausage Party ] Itself, In That It's Kind Of Their Prayer That They Say Every Morning, Because We Found That Just To Have An Arbitrary Song Felt Too Unrealistic Within The Reality Of Our Talking Food Movie.

A Tv Show Is Constant Work, Which Is The Great Thing About It.

I'm Actually Way More Funny Now, Because I'm Hungry... If Comedy Comes From Pain, I Should Be Funnier Now Than I Ever Was.

It's The Weirdest Thing. Evan [goldberg] Was Just Telling Me How Weird It Is That We Won't Be Working On Sausage Party, To Which I Said, "hopefully, We'll Be Working On Sausage Party 2." It Was Almost Ten Years Ago When We Came Up With The Idea.

Are We Gonna Just Make Movies About Trying To Get Laid Over And Over Again Or Focus On Something That's More Relevant?

When We Grew Up In Vancouver Our Friends Were - I Don't Know If I'd Say Callous, But We Had A Very, You Know, Harsh Relationship With One Another; We'd Constantly Make Fun Of Each Other.

Luckily, Due To My Own Ego, Probably, I'm Always Quicker To Blame Other People.

Most People I Work With Are Older Than Me And The Main Thing I've Learnt Is That Everyone Is A Dumb As An 18-year-old.

It Was A Great Time. We Did Hurt Ourselves [on Pineapple Express Set]. [james] Franco Cracked His Face Open.[danny ] Mcbride Cracked The Back Of His Head Open. I Punched Amber[heard] In The Face Just To Get Her In The Mood For Things. 'welcome To The Set!' But It Was A Lot Of Fun. I Loved It.

People Don't Usually Wanna Kill Me For One Of My Movies Until After They've Paid 12 Bucks For It.

We Really Wanted It To Be An Action Movie. Those Are The Movies That We Love. We're Big Fans Of Like Shane Black Movies, When We Were Younger - Me And Evan [goldberg].

I Go To The Theater, All The Time. I'm Not One Of These Secret Movie, Watch A 35mm Print In My Living The Weekend It Comes Out Guys. I'm Not Jon Bon Jovi. I Go To The Arclight, Like A Regular Asshole.

People Make Fun Of What I'm Eating Because They Can Tell I Hate It. They Know I Am Not Happy Eating Healthy Food. I Look Miserable - I Look Like I Would Rather Be Eating Something Else.

Good Comedy Doesn't Have To Be A Comedy Idea.

I Read The Script [ Of 'steve Jobs' Movie ], And It Was Very, Very Good. I Wasn't Sure They Would Want Me To Be In The Movie, But I Auditioned For It. Which I Hadn't Done In A Few Years. But I Had Auditioned In The Previous Few Years For Another Movie That I Did Not Get The Part. And So My Track Record Wasn't Good. But I Really Wanted To Audition Because I Was Worried That I Was Going To Blow It, And I Wanted It To Be On Them For Choosing Me.

I Eat Well, And I Exercise.

I Was Always Big. I Was Kind Of Around This Size, Like, Since I Went Into High School. I Played Rugby And Stuff Like That. So, People, You Know, Would Screw With Me, But I Never Got Into, Like, A Real Fight Or Anything Like That.

Sometimes What You Lose In The Time It Takes To Let An Actor Do Something That You Don't Like As A Director, You Gain In Not Shutting Them Down Creatively By Telling Them Their Idea Sucks.

I Did Meet Steve Wozniak On Several Occasions Leading Up To The Filming Of The Movie. It Wasn’t Really Written How He Is. So The Second I Met Him, It Almost Was A Relief, Because I Was Like, "ok, Good, The Real Steve Wozniak Is Like One Of The Least Confrontational People You Would Ever Meet In Your Entire Life."

It's Much More Painful To Bomb In Front Of A Group Of Yours Peers Than It Is To Not Win. Tons Of Assholes Ain't Winning Awards, But Only One Guy Will Be Bombing. So, That's Much More Nerve-wracking.

I'd Moved To L.a., And Everyone's Actors Here And Writers, They Were Like Super Emotional And Super In Touch With Their Feelings, And It Seemed Like Every Two Weeks One Of My Friend Just Coming To Me And, Like, You Hurt My Feelings The Other Day, Dude.

Claiming That Someone's Marriage Is Against Your Religion Is Like Being Angry At Someone For Eating A Donut Because You're On A Diet.

Angry At Someone

I Feel No Sympathy For My Food.

You Don't Have To Put Dresses In A Movie To Make Girls Like It.

My Characters Come From A Good Place.

Making [pineapple Express] Was A Blast. I'd Kind Of Gotten To The Point Professionally Where I Was Pretty Emotionally Exhausted From Making Dramatic Films.

It's Important To See Your Parents As Individuals. As A Son Or As A Daughter You Don't Stop And Think That Your Parents Might Have Their Own Expectations, Dreams Or Disappointments.

There's Something You Can Get Away With When You Know You're Only Going To Be On One Season. There's No Sense Of, "we Should Save That." It's Just Like, "use That! Get It Out There Now. They Could Shut Us Down Any Second!"

We Don't Have Any Changes In The Movie [pineapple Express] And So Picking The Right Outfit Was Fairly Important. So I Wasn't A Fan Of The Guatemalan Pants, But I Was Convinced That I Should Wear That. Then The T-shirt Is A Special Creation By David Gordon Green. It's A Kitten Sitting In A Shark's Mouth, But He's Happy About It.

I'm Intimidated Anytime I Work With Someone Who's Directly Outside My Very Insulated Group Of Friends.

Group Of Friends

I Remember When I Got My First Adam Sandler Cd And It Was The Funniest Thing I'd Ever Heard In My Entire Life, And Continues To Be.

The Original Idea [ Of The Pineapple Express] Came From Judd [apatow] Actually. He Just Kind Of Had The Loose Notion Of Like, 'what About A Weed Action Movie?'.

It Was Amazing How Much Their [seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Shauna Robertson] Process Seemed Familiar To Me, Translating That Into The Work That I Had Done And Giving Actors A Lot Of Freedom And Doing A Lot Of Improvisation And A Total Respect And Collaboration With All The Department Heads And All The Crews, And Just Really Making It An Enjoyable Industry Rather Than Just Clocking In And Doing A Job Which A Lot Of Movies Are.

For Me And My Wife...the Easiest Part Of My Life Is My Marriage. Like If Everything Was As Smooth And Easy And Fun As My Relationship With My Wife Then I Would Have A Much Easier Time Getting Through The Day. We Really Get Along And We Like The Same Stuff.

We Just Kind Of Wanted To Play With These Iconic Moments Of Action. There's A Really Small One That Always Makes Me Laugh Really Hard, Where There's A Big Shootout At The End, And The Moment My Gun Runs Out Of Bullets, I Turn And There's Just Another Gun Sitting There, And I'm, Like, Oh, Nice.

We Don't Often Have The Luxury Of Time [in Steve Jobs Movie ]to Have These Conversations Where You Just Literally Get To Sit Around For Day And Days And Analyze Every Line Of Dialogue.

We Kind Of Have Some Ideas For Sequels. The Movie [sausage Party] Ends In A Way That Implies A Next Chapter.

If You Ask Most High Schoolers Who Bruce Lee Is, They Will Say That It Someone They Sit Next To In English Class.

We Originally Actually Wrote Franco's Part [in The Pineapple Express] For Me And The Part I Ultimately Played Just For Someone Else In General. Then When We Got Franco Involved We Thought It Was A Good Idea To Switch The Roles. I Think It Worked Really Well.

To Me Arthur And James Bond Aren't The Same Because They Both Drink. So I Would Kind Of Equate It To That. They're Different Guys Who Both Have A Similar Habit. To Me They're Very Different Guys Though.

One Of The Big Things That We Wanted To Do Was Trying To Kick Out A Car Window As You're Driving After It's Been Shattered Obstructing Your View. I Mean, That's - I Can't Count How Many Movies I've Seen That In, And We Just Thought, You Know, Like, It Could Be Funny If It Just Kind Of Goes Wrong And This Foot Just Kind Of Punctures Through The Window And Gets Stuck.

I'll Vote For Whoever Is The Democrat. That's All I Need To Know.

Steve Wozniak Admittedly Would Never Like Say The Things He Said To Steve Jobs [in The Movie] In The Context That He Said Them.

Please Don't Wear Skinny Jeans If You Don't Have Skinny Genes.

I Think People Do Get Better As The Movies Go On Sometimes, And I'm Always Happy That We're Shooting Out Of Order, So It's Kind Of Scattered Throughout The Movie, And There Isn't Like A Clear Build In Everyone Finding Their Characters.

To Me, When There's Movies That Are About, You Know, Guys Named Hell Boy, And You Know, The Issue That They Have With Our Movie That She Doesn't Get An Abortion, I Mean, I Think There's Greater Suspensions Of Disbelief.

You Want To Create An Environment Where We're Fostering Ideas, Not Rejecting Them.

Every Once In A While You Definitely Have To Film Someone For Half An Hour Saying Something That You Do Not Think Is Funny Because For The Previous Two Hours They Said A Bunch Of Stuff That You Think Is Really Funny.

I Watched A Lot Of Pot Movies Before We Did This [pineapple Express]. My Favorites Were Always The Characters In Movies That Weren't Necessarily In Stoner Movies.

It's Just Kind Of Seemed Like A Funny Way To Explore Action Movies, I Guess. I Mean, I'm A Big Fan Of Them Always. It's Always People Who Are Very Equipped To Deal With The Situations That They're Thrown In. So, The Notion Just Seemed Funny, Because It's, Like, Basically Stoners Are Kind Of The Last Guys In The World Who Are Equipped To Deal With That. And The Humor Possibilities Just Seemed Somewhat Endless.

I Don't Weigh Myself.

To Me It's A Mystery That You Can Show The Horrific Things In The Movies, But Not Some Sexual Stuff Which Everyone Does.

I Honestly Don't Love The Cheech And Chong Movies, I've Got To Say.

Maybe It's Just L.a., But [high School Girls] Look Like Men, Like They Would Have Kids And S - T.

I Think That, Honestly, People's Censorship Issues Are Personal But I Disagree With Most Of Those Personal Choices That I See Others Make. You Know, I Watch Television And There's A Grotesque Amount Of Violence On Almost Every Show That You Would Watch That Comes On Past 8:00 Pm. And I Think My Dirty Brand Of Humor Is Far Less Destructive To A Child's Mentality.

Most Comedy Comes Out Of Misery.

For A Jewish Mother, Having A Country Wage War On Your Son Is The Worst. If Kim Jong-un Only Knew What He Was Doing To My Mother!

We Live In A World Where In The Movie You Can Disembowel Someone In A Youth Hostel In Romania, But You Can't Show People Having Sex. I Think It's Weird.

All My Friends Are Talented Enough To Get Nominated For Awards. I Just Am Always Surprised When Things And People I Like Are Also Liked By Things Like The Oscars.

To Me, Always Just - That Scene Is, Like, So Convenient. They Never Run Out Of Bullets In Action Movies, Unless It's At The Most Dramatic Time Possible.

The Current Babe Ruth Of Improv? Sacha Baron Cohen. He's Pretty Amazing.

[ I Watched ] Spicoli In Fast Times, Which Isn't Exactly A Stoner Movie, Or The Big Lebowski, Which I Think Is More Than A Stoner Movie Or Brad Pitt In True Romance.

I Was, Like, A Brown Belt, Which Is Pretty Good. I Entered A Tournament Once, And I Punched The Guy In The Throat And Got Disqualified. I Realized - I Don't Know If You're Familiar With "karate Kid," But The Bad Guys In That Are Called Cobra Kai, And They're, Like, The Evil Karate Guys. And Then When I Went To The Tournament, I Realized That's What We Were; We Were Like The Cobra Kai Of The Jewish Karate Community.

I Don't Even Have A Stalker. I'm Just Not The Guy That People Stalk.

Shutting People Down Creatively Often Doesn't Get The Best Performance Out Of Them.

Best Performance

There Was A Year Straight Where Every Weekend, I Went To At Least One Bar Mitzvah Or Bat Mitzvah, And We Would All Go, And It Was A Lot Of Fun. We Sneak Some Beer; We'd Hang Out; We Would Try To Get With Girls And Not. And Usually We'd Just End Up Hanging Out Together Alone.

You Can Actually Improvise A Lot As A Voice Actor. It's Not That Entirely Different Than Shooting A Live Action Movie; The Characters Mouths Are Quite Easy To Manipulate Once All The Information Is Built Into The Computer. So You Can Improvise A Lot And It Doesn't Matter Really How Far Along They Are In The Process They Can Really Just Make The Character Say Something Different.

Some Of My Friends Would Lie To Girls To Get Them, Or Do Things That - You Know, They Would Cheat On Girls. I Was Just Never In The Realm Of What, You Know, What's Instilled To Me, You Know? Yeah, I Mean, My Mom's A Social Worker, For God's Sakes.

I Liked Actions Movies. Jean-claude Van Damme Was A Major Influence On Me At That Point In My Life.

I Am Lazy, But For Some Reason, I Am So Paranoid That I End Up Working Hard.

I Did Karate For A Really Long Time, Almost 10 Years When I Was Younger.

I’m Very Curious In Regards To "the Hateful Eight" Specifically About The Blocking Of The Movie. Because In Comedies, We Don’t Block. We Basically Like Have To Position The Actors’ Bodies In The Way That Is Most Conducive To Filming Both Of Them Simultaneously.

Like Toy Story, The Joke Is All About Exploring The Secret World Of These Various Everyday Objects.

Everyday Objects

I Would Only Date A 15 Year Old High School Girl.

I Grew Up In Vancouver, Man. That's Where More Than Half Of My Style Comes From.

We [with Judd Apatow] Started Talking About Ideas And He Said, 'well, I'm Going To Do This Movie Knocked Up With Seth [rogen], But After That You Guys Should Do A Movie Together.' I Read It And Thought That It Was Very Funny.

The Great Thing About Reading For Quentin [tarantino] Is You're Not Reading For Him, He's Reading With You. So He Sits Right Next To You.

I Work Under The Assumption That, Generally Speaking, My Taste And The Taste Of The Oscar Voters Are Not One In The Same.

I Knew I Just Loved Comedy, And I Think It Was My Parents Who Initially Brought Up The Notion Of Me Trying To Do Stand-up. I Think I Actually Tried Writing Jokes Just At Home, Just Kind Of Sitting Around. But It Seemed Like A Very Real Way To Step Into The World Of Comedy.

I Don't Make The Best Movies In The World, But At Times, I Do Feel Like I'm Adding Something To The Cinematic Community.

I Was Pretty Young. I Guess I Was In High School, So I Was Probably 13 Years Old. It Was Crazy. I Remember It Very Vividly. I Remember - It Was Actually Kind Of Horrifying, Because One Of My Friends - We Smoked Out Of A Bong, And One Of My Friends - This Was So Stupid - He Didn't Want To Bring - It Was After School On A Friday, And He Didn't - We Smoked Weed In This Park Called The Ravine That Was Across The Street From My High School.

In "superbad," I Carry A Gun, But I Didn't Get To Shoot It That Much.

I Feel Like If I Won An Award And I Was Giving My Speech And The Music Started, That's All I'd Remember, The Humiliation I Felt When The Music Started. It Would Mar The Entire Experience For Me.

We Started When We're Around 13 Writing It - Maybe 14. I'm A Little Older Than Evan Goldberg Is, Like, Only Like Six Months. But Like, I Would Say, Like, The General Structure Of The Movie, Like, The Series Of Events Is Very Similar To What It Was When We First Wrote It.

After Every Single Take, I Laugh. It's My Own Awkwardness And Discomfort About Being An Actor.

I Have Become A Giant Fan Of The Testing Process, Especially With A Comedy. I Mean, They Tell You What's Funny. It's Almost Tailor-made For People Who Shoot The Way We Shoot, Trying A Million Different Options And Versions Of Things. Because The Audience Doesn't Laugh At A Joke, We Put In Another Joke. If They Don't Laugh At The Next Joke, We Put In Another Joke. You Just Keep Doing Them And You Can Get The Movie To The Point Where Every Joke Is Funny, If You Have Enough Options In The Can.

I Always Thought Realistic Was A Better Way To Explain Things That Were "dramedies" Because Life Is Like That. It's Funny, It's Dramatic And To Me That's How I See It.

It Never Seemed Like That Much Of A Mystery Why Shows I Was Acted In Failed. When You're Doing A Show Called Freaks And Geeks About Young People In High School, And It's On Saturday Nights At 8 And There's No Promotion For It, It's Not Really Hard To Guess Why No One's Watching It. And When You're Doing A College Goofball Comedy That Premières Three Weeks After Sept. 11, It's Not That Hard To Piece Together Why That's Not The Most Important Thing On The Radar.

I Knew I Just Loved Comedy, And I Think It Was My Parents Who Initially Brought Up The Notion Of Me Trying To Do Stand-up. I Think I Actually Tried Writing Jokes Just At Home, Just Kind Of Sitting Around. But It Seemed Like A Very Real Way To Step Into The World Of Comedy. I Felt I Could Do It, So Why Not?

It's Definitely Not True What They Say About Women Wanting A Guy With A Sense Of Humour. What Women Mean Is That They Want A Guy With A Sense Of Humour Who Is Really Handsome. If A Girl Had A Choice Between Brad Pitt Or Me, She'd Pick Brad Pitt. And I'm A Lot Funnier Than He Is.

I Hadn't Really Done A Comedy Other Than The Ape Since Freaks And Geeks.

Really, If I'm Honest, Sci-fi Is Where My Sensibility Instinctively Goes - I'm A Big Comic-book Fan.

When It Came To, Like, Appropriate Behavior Towards One Another, It Was - I Was Well-versed.

Appropriate Behavior

I Mean, I Love Comic-con.

I Hadn't Done A Comedy For A While. I Had Directed A Very Low Budget Movie Called The Ape And It Was Playing At A Festival In Austin. Judd [apatow] Was There And He Came And Saw It And It's Kind Of Funny.

It Always Seems Crazy To Tell People What To Expect. That Never Works! So, I Don't Know What To Say, Other Than That They Can Expect Me.

It's Not Dying You Need To Be Afraid Of, It's Never Having Lived In The First Place.

I Don't Smoke Weed On Set All Day. I Just Want To Say That, You Know, Not All Day. After Lunch You Get Tired. What Can You Do? To Me, The Fact That A Character Smokes Weed Isn't Really What I Hang My Hat On Necessarily.

It's Always Funny To Find What People's Button Is.

Those Are The Movies That We [with Evan Goldberg] Always Wanted To Make. Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, The Kind Of Movies Where Violence And Comedy And Characters Kind Of Work Together Really Well.

Working Together

To Me, What Separates A Funny Movie From A Good Movie Is Something Personal.

If I Were Directing A Movie, It Would Scare Me.

Steve Wozniak Literally One Of The Sweetest Guys. And That Was Kind Of The Thing I Had To Reconcile: How Do I Try To Do This Guy's Sweetness Justice In Some Capacity When Most Of The Things I'm Doing In The Movie Are Pretty Confrontational, And Pretty Argumentative.

When I Was 13 And 14, There Were A Lot Of Jokes About My Bar Mitzvah And My Grandparents, And Then When I Got Older, It Became More About Touching Boobs And Trying To Get Liquor, You Know? I Kind Of Ran The Gamut Of Infantile Behavior... And I Haven't Moved One Step Forward Since.

I Remember, When I Was An Up-and-coming Comic, How Annoyed I Would Be When The Famous Guys Would Show Up And Just Take Everyone's Spots.

It Was Really Fun [on Set Of The Pineapple Express]. I Mean, How Could I Not Have Fun? It Was Exactly What You Think It Would Be.

I've Never Had Something - Like, You Know, Drunk People Have Tried To Do That To Me, And I Instantly Shut It Off. I Say, Don't To This, Dude; You'll Feel Terrible About This Later. It'll Be - I'll Bring It Up All The Time; I'll Make Fun Of You. Just Save Yourself The Embarrassment And Don't Do It.

If There Was Any Drug That Was To Symbolize The People That Ate Our Heroes, It Seems Like Bath Salts Was A Good Idea. It's Also A Drug That, I Think, Is Still Funny To A Lot Of People.

Vegans Are Murderers, Just Like Everyone Else.

[i Like] Die Hard And Paul Verhoeven Movies. S - T Like That.

This S - T [smoked On Scenes] Called Wizard Smoke. I Didn't Like It. [james] Franco Didn't Have That Hard Of A Time With It. Franco Will Smoke Anything.

The Good Thing About L.a. Is That There's Always Someone More Famous 100 Yards Away From Me.

We Were Really Fortunate To Work [on Pineapple Express] With A Studio That Was Really Supportive Of These Guys. It Was Before Superbad And Knocked Up Had Even Come Out, But Everyone Just Felt Really Great About Them And The Energy Surrounding Seth [rogen] And Evan [goldberg] And Judd [apatow] - All Of These Guys - And The Idea Of Getting Franco Back Into Comedy As Well.

Years And Years Of Talking And Writing Versions Of The Script [sausage Party] And Looking At Various Versions Of The Animations - I Mean, It's Really A Lot Of Workshopping And Trying Different Things, And Using The Cast To Try Different Voices And Characters. And That's The Good Thing About Animation. Because It Takes So Long, It Allows You To Explore In A Way That You Can't In Live-action Movies.

They [seth Rogen And Evan Goldberg] Thought Of This Brilliant Pot, Or Whatever, Movie [pineapple Express], An Action Movie And I Guess They Figured In A Small Role For A Blonde. And They Say That I Did My Part Well. I Added Tears To The Movie.

I Didn't Think I'd Ever Be An Actor.

People Constantly Make Pop-culture References. That's Why It's Called Popular Culture, Because People Are Aware Of It And Reference It Constantly.

I Think Around That Time I Met David [gordon Green] Or, Well, We All Met At Superbad And Judd [apatow] Said, 'i'm Thinking About Having Him Direct [ Knocked Up].' Sounded Like A Good Idea.

I Don't Think That Any Scene [in Pineapple Express] Is Word For Word How You'd Find It In The Script. Some Of It Was Much More Loose Than Others. The Last Scene With Me, Danny [mcbride] And James [franko] In The Diner - There Was Never Even A Script For That Scene. Usually We Write Something, But For That Scene We Literally Wrote Nothing.

I Was In High School When Will Ferrell Was First On 'saturday Night Live', And I Remember Thinking, 'man, That Guy Is The Funniest Guy Ever.'

I Think I Was Just So Ecstatic That I Was Working, And Then As It Went On, You Know, I Started To Really Appreciate That It ["freaks And Geeks"] Was Good And That We Were Doing Something A Little Different And That, You Know, Everyone Was Really Cool To Work With And That It Was Really Talented Group Of People, And It Was Just When I Was Realizing That, That It Got Canceled.

Just Always Be Extremely Respectful, Was Something That Was Drilled Into Me, Which I Think Probably Prevented Me From Having Sex For A Good Seven Years Longer Than It Should Have.

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