Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen turned a rare red carpet date night at the Toronto International Film Festival into a celebration of two movies closely connected to their own lives.
The couple stepped out together on September 12 for the world premiere of Babies, the new comedy Lauren wrote and directed with Seth starring opposite Anna Kendrick. The film takes on a question the Rogens have been asked for years: whether they ever plan to become parents.
They are also producers on Tangles, Leah Nelson’s hand drawn animated adaptation of Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir about a daughter watching Alzheimer’s disease transform her mother. Seth voices a character in the film, which has a particularly personal connection to the couple after Lauren spent years helping care for her mother, Adele, following an early onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
The two projects could hardly be more different in tone, but both grew from subjects the Rogens have discussed publicly for years. One examines their decision not to have children, while the other touches the illness that led them to become prominent Alzheimer’s advocates.
Babies Grew Out of a Question Lauren Heard for Years
Babies stars Seth and Kendrick as Aaron and Annie, a happily married couple who have never settled the question of whether they want children. Their comfortable uncertainty becomes harder to ignore when a close friend, played by Kate Berlant, separates from her husband and moves into their home with her young daughter.
Lauren told Vanity Fair that the screenplay grew partly from the years she spent fielding questions about when she and Seth would have a baby. The couple have been together for 21 years, and Lauren said the subject became something she thought about in therapy before deciding she had something of her own to add to the conversation.
One of the film’s central situations came directly from their home life. About 11 years ago, a friend and her toddler moved in with the Rogens for roughly a year, putting them closer to the routines of parenting than they had ever been without actually becoming parents themselves. Lauren began collecting ideas in a Notes document in 2021 before writing the screenplay between January and April 2025.
The child who lived with them did not convince the Rogens to remain child free, something Lauren was careful to make clear. Instead, the film uses that experience to let Aaron and Annie confront parenthood without turning their marriage into the source of the conflict. Kendrick said watching Seth and Lauren together helped her understand how to play a couple who face a difficult decision as a team rather than as opponents.
Tangles Connects to a More Painful Part of Their Marriage
The Rogens’ second film at TIFF reaches into a very different part of their family history. Directed by Leah Nelson, Tangles follows Sarah, an artist living in 1990s San Francisco who returns home as Alzheimer’s begins eroding the personality and independence of her mother, Midge.
Lauren immediately recognized elements of her own family’s experience in Sarah Leavitt’s story. Her mother, Adele, was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at 55 and died in 2020 at 68. Lauren and Seth later turned their experience as caregivers into years of advocacy through Hilarity for Charity, which they co-founded in 2012.
They also executive produced the 38 minute documentary Taking Care, which follows their family through Adele’s illness and the demands placed on caregivers. Lauren has said she related to the fear, denial and isolation depicted in Tangles because both her mother and Leavitt’s mother were teachers diagnosed unusually young.
Seth’s response to the completed movie made that connection especially visible at Cannes in May. After watching Tangles with a large audience for the first time, he told PEOPLE that he had been crying through much of the screening. Until then, he had primarily watched versions of the movie at home on a laptop with Lauren beside him.
TIFF Gives Lauren a Major Moment Behind the Camera
Although Seth is the more familiar face on the Babies red carpet, the film marks a major directing moment for Lauren. It is her second feature behind the camera after 2018’s Like Father, and Vanity Fair describes it as her most personal project yet.
Seth read different versions of the story as Lauren developed it, but Aaron is not intended as a literal recreation of him. Lauren wrote the role knowing her husband would likely play it, while Kendrick was specifically in her mind for Annie. The cast also includes Issa Rae, Dan Stevens, Kate Berlant, Zach Cherry, Ed Helms, Ashley Park, Sharon Stone and David Strathairn.
Tangles gives the couple a different role behind the scenes. They are among the producers of Nelson’s feature debut, with Seth also joining a voice cast led by Abbi Jacobson as Sarah, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Midge and Bryan Cranston as Sarah’s father, Rob. Beanie Feldstein, Samira Wiley, Sarah Silverman, Bowen Yang, Wanda Sykes and Pamela Adlon also appear.
Both films arrived in Toronto with distribution plans already taking shape. Roadside Attractions and Vertical acquired U.S. rights to Babies before its TIFF world premiere and plan a theatrical release in 2027. Tangles, which premiered at Cannes in May, makes its North American premiere at TIFF on September 13 before a qualifying theatrical run later this year and a wider release planned for early 2027.