Exclusive: Before Their Feud, Entourage Creator Considered Seth Rogen for Show

Imagine if this was the lineup on Entourage: Vince, E, Ari, Drama and... Seth Rogen?

In a twist in his recent war of words with Rogen, Entourage executive producer Doug Ellin had only nice things to say about the Knocked Up star in an interview with TVGuide.com — including that he once considered him for a part on the HBO show.

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"I'm a fan of Rogen's," Ellin says. "I had seen him in Undeclared, and I said to our casting director, 'There's a Midwestern kind of guy who I think would be funny for this show.' But then we found Jerry [Ferrara, who plays Turtle], so we went that way."

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It wasn't always so civil. To recap: After Rogen suggested that Entourage wasn't funny in an August 2008 GQ profile, Ellin wrote an episode in which Turtle says that Rogen's "ugliness is oddly fascinating," and questions whether Rogen and Knocked Up co-star Katherine Heigl would ever hook up in real life. Movieline recalled a subsequent interview Rogen gave on E!'s Daily 10 program in which he called Ellin a moron and an a--hole.

Ellin now acknowledges the storyline was payback. "If he's going to say the show sucks, I'm going to say he's ugly."

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Calls to Rogen's rep were not immediately returned.

Entourage's seventh season debuts Sunday at 10:30/9:30c on HBO.