Seth Rogen Surprised By Toronto Career Achievement Award at 44: “You Got a Letter From My Doctor?”

Canadian comedy actor, producer and writer Seth Rogen on Sunday night declared it “ominous” to receive a career achievement award from the Toronto Film Festival at 44 years of age.

“Does TIFF know something I don’t know? You got a letter from my doctors?” he questioned while on stage at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. Rogen received a Career Achievement honor at the Tribute Awards at TIFF while in town to tout two movies — Babies , directed by his wife Lauren Miller Rogen, and Tangles , an animated film which Rogen and Miller Rogen produced. Related Stories Movies 'Prima Facie' Review: Cynthia Erivo Stars as a Lawyer Who Becomes a Rape Victim in This Misfire of an Adaptation Movies Chris Rock Reveals Paul Thomas Anderson Gave Notes on 'Misty Green': "A Tweak Here or There"

Rogen thanked his wife for allowing him to piggy back on her success in bringing her film to TIFF in which he stars alongside Anna Kendrick. “Thank you all, you can go home now,” he finished off.

Oscar-winner Helen Mirren was also on hand to receive a Groundbreaker Award as she brings the thriller A Talent For Murder to Toronto for a world premiere. She paid tribute to the late Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem after their recent passing is still in the news. “It’s so hard to change culture, but these two women did that. And I dedicate this Groundbreaking Award to them,” Mirren said to wide applause.

Also Sunday night, Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong picked up the Ebert Director Award as his latest film, Possible Love, his first in eight years, arrived in Toronto after a rapturous world premiere in Venice. “People sometimes think I’m a younger filmmaker than I actually am, possibly because I haven’t made very many films and, as you can see, my hair is still quite black. But the truth is, I’m quite old,” the Korean director insisted.

Chang-dong added he should make films more often, “as people will think I’m a younger filmmaker.” Netflix has set a theatrical release in Korea, U.S. and other select territories for Possible Love.

Oscar–winning actor Penelope Cruz , accepting a Special Tribute Award as she is on the ground touting two movies in Toronto, the Spanish drama epic La Bola Negra by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, and Florian Zeller’s Bunker, both of which premiered in Cannes.

Cruz cited Bunker for “looking at the shocking inequalities, the individualism, the fear of others, the temptation to retreat into ourselves, and the growing anxiety for the future of our planet.” She also praised La Bola Negra for being about “humanity, about empathy, about seeing the other person as a human being and not as an enemy. It’s also a love letter to cinema, poetry and art.”

French screen icon Isabelle Huppert was presented with another Performer Award on Sunday night as she stars in director Marc Fitoussi’s All About Corrine , which has a North American premiere in Toronto on Monday. “My films for many years, their beauty, their history, their cruelty sometimes, have had an extraordinary attention to human beings,” she told the TIFF audience.