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Seth Rogen Not Worried About North Korean Retaliation Over 'The Interview'

CAMBRIDGE (CBS) -- The North Korean government promised "merciless" retaliation against the United States if Seth Rogen released his new comedy that skewers leader Kim Jong-Un .

But Rogen told an audience at the Harvard Institute of Politics Tuesday that he's not very worried about the threats over his movie "The Interview," which will hit theaters on Christmas Day.

"Not really, no," Rogen said. "I would hope they have better things to do."

The movie stars Rogen and James Franco as journalists who get an interview with Kim Jong-Un, and then are ordered by the CIA to assassinate the North Korean leader. North Korea has called the movie an "act of war," and there was even speculation that the country could have been behind the recent hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

"As we did more and more looking into North Korea, learning more and more about it, we started to see that kind of crazy rhetoric is the name of their game," Rogen said. "We were just very fascinated with North Korea as a lot of people are, it's just kind of a bizarre place and the more you read about it, the more bizarre it is."

One person in the Harvard crowd asked Rogen if he would ever consider screening his film in North Korea if invited, and the actor said he'd do it if "magic exists."

"If there was like a magical spell they could put on us, and it was like you 100 percent will be OK, I would do it, just to see the reaction in person," Rogen said.

Rogen also said that some parts of the plot resemble former basketball star Dennis Rodman's highly publicized trips to North Korea where he hung out with Kim Jong-Un.

"We wrote the movie before [that] happened," Rogen said. "It makes a far-fetched story actually seem very plausible."

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