Back in 2013, some of the biggest names in Hollywood came together to make the apocalyptic comedy blockbuster This Is The End.
Every actor in the movie plays themselves, with cameos from everybody from Rihanna to Emma Watson to Channing Tatum.
The six core cast members are James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, and Jay Baruchel, who get trapped in James’s house together when the apocalypse comes.
One of the key storylines in the movie is Jay’s hatred for Jonah, who he believes is faking being a nice guy and fooling the other stars.
In one of the first scenes, Seth tells Jay that Jonah will be at James’s party as he tries to convince him to attend. Jay replies: “Can’t stand him, he can’t stand me.”
“He’s like the nicest guy in the world,” Seth argues. “He likes you so much. He specifically talks about how he likes you, out of nowhere he just says: ‘Yknow what, Jay is an inspiration.’”
“There’s no way he said that,” Jay responds. “Also, just can’t stand him.”
But true to Seth’s word, when the characters do cross paths Jonah appears to be an overly nice person who is incredibly empathetic to everybody else, and remains impressively calm and collected during stressful or rage-inducing situations.
Jonah is constantly complimenting the other characters and detailing the charitable good deeds that he has carried out — with all but Jay convinced that he is a saint.
When Seth tells Jonah that he and Jay spent the day doing drugs, Jonah earnestly replies: “I would have been there in a heartbeat but I actually just adopted this incompetent spaniel, she’s a really beautiful soul.”
In addition, he clearly has a high opinion of himself and his level of fame — telling the other actors that he would be among the first to get rescued amid the apocalypse.
Despite the way that Jonah outwardly presents himself in the movie, there are signs that Jay is actually right about his character from the beginning.
Jonah is seen discreetly pushing Jay into a sinkhole while everyone else is running away from it, manipulatively volunteers Jay to risk his life to get the rest of the group water, and even accidentally throws a knife into Jay’s thigh.
And the truth behind his nice guy act is exposed in the second half of the film, when he prays to god to kill Jay. He says: “I hate Jay so, so fucking much. I think he might be the worst person you’ve ever created, I don’t want to judge you but what’s up? What were you thinking that day?”
“Just do me one favor, god, just kill Jay,” Jonah adds. “That’d be so tight.”
Jay’s hatred for Jonah is obvious throughout the movie, and comes to a head when he punches him in the face. But after This Is The End’s release, Jay openly admitted that he wasn’t acting in the film and genuinely felt that way about his costar.
During a 2017 interview, Larry King asked Jay what his relationship with Jonah was like. Jay looked uncomfortable before bluntly saying: “Erm, yeah there is one I guess. I know the man.”
Larry questioned: “You don’t like him?” to which Jay seemingly referenced the phrase “better the devil you know” as he explained: “I wouldn’t say that at this point… It was contentious once upon a time, but I think now we’re each the devil the other one knows.”
And in an appearance on the Last Laugh podcast earlier this year, Jay confirmed that This Is The End had utilized “personal shit” for the sake of the storyline, and admitted that he was “real crabby” throughout filming because of his tense relationship with Jonah.
“Jonah and I don’t get along super well, or at least we didn’t back then,” he said.
The host replied: “Which comes through on screen,” and Jay curtly retorted: “No fucking shit it does, no fucking shit.”
“It was like this weird thing of mining personal shit, but not for catharsis. Mining it just for comedy,” Jay went on. “In the most commoditized, capitalist way of, like, we’re going to dig up real personal shit, but nobody’s going to go home feeling better about it. We’re just going to turn it into a fucking product.”
Jay even went so far as to confess that while filming This Is The End he was convinced that it would be a “shitty” movie, and he only accepted that the final product was actually funny when he found himself laughing at Jonah’s performance — despite his personal disdain for his costar.
“That’s when I knew it was a good movie; when I was laughing at Jonah’s shit that I never once found funny on set. And then in the movie I actually found myself laughing,” he said.
And many people are reflecting on Jay’s past comments this week after Jonah was branded “emotionally abusive” by his ex girlfriend Sarah Brady.
Sarah shared a series of screenshots from text conversations with somebody that is saved in her phone as “Jonah,” with the sender making a list of demands that included his expectation that the semi-professional surfer should delete any photos and videos of herself in swimwear from Instagram if she wanted to continue dating him.
The sender also shared a list of his “boundaries” that Sarah had to adhere to to remain in a “romantic partnership” with him. These included her not surfing with men, not having “boundaryless inappropriate friendships with men,” not modeling, and not having “friendships with women who are in unstable places” unless it’s limited to “getting a lunch or coffee or something respectful.”
The messages caused an immediate stir online, and Jonah seemingly calling his alleged demands of Sarah his “boundaries” sparked an important conversation about weaponizing “therapy talk.”
It was also noted that throughout the alleged text exchanges, Jonah repeatedly brags about what a good partner he is to Sarah, and after they split he constantly reiterates how well he treated her.
One text reads: “I love how your therapist thinks I suck I literally am the best boyfriend On earth.”
Another says that he went to say goodbye to Sarah before she moved to Hawaii post-break up “as a super kind gesture,” and that he had handled the end of their relationship “with utmost love and respect.”
One more text then warns: “Don’t ruin all the kindness You’re better than that.”
When Sarah says that she felt gaslighted by his actions, a reply reads: “To say you feel gaslit when I was being nice is absurd.”
“You have not been gaslit,” the messages go on. “You have been treated in fact incredibly both emotionally and financially.”
“I have treated you beautifully,” another text that Jonah allegedly sent Sarah reads. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
So it’s perhaps unsurprising that Jonah’s This Is The End character has been referenced amid the social media discourse surrounding Sarah’s exposé. One person tweeted: “wasn’t the whole joke in the movie ‘this is the end’ that Jonah Hill appears to be a nice guy but actually sucks as a person lol”
“Just remembering that recent interview with Jay Baruchel where he admits he wasn’t really acting in This Is The End and truly does hate Jonah Hill,” someone else wrote. Others mused that Jay could be feeling “validated” amid the latest reports.
Jonah has not publicly addressed Sarah’s allegations and his representatives have not responded to BuzzFeed’s request for comment.