Seth Green Interview

Emmanuel Itier: What have you been doing that’s so busy? It seems you’re always working.

Seth Green: Well…oh, man. How do I even detail it for you without making your head spin and taking up your entire interview? I make this show called Robot Chicken. We just, on Friday, wrapped up 23 weeks of writing. And then I made this movie, and I made this other movie. I’ve been doing guest spots all year.

EI: Why do you work so hard?

SG: I’m very driven. [Laughs] No, I just get opportunities to work on stuff that I think is cool or valuable to do, and I’m very discerning but I’m also fortunate and get huge opportunities often.

EI: You’ve been in the business since you were, like…

SG: Seven years old, yeah, working professionally… [Laughs]

EI: What’s the secret of longevity?

SG: I think you just don’t stop working. You’ve got to choose the right projects. I do feel like my career has been defined by the things that I’ve passed on as much as the things that I’ve done. I never really accept a “no” and I also pay very close attention to how the business works and what has happened, and who succeeds and what I personally need to do to continue to work.

EI: Which is what, exactly?

SG: It’s a lot of self-generation, at this point. I find that my own activities are valued over my agent’s activity.

EI: Creating your own vehicles?

SG: Creating your own things, the relationships that you make, your own interest in furthering your career… I’m incredibly active in developing material for myself and then finding ways to make it.

EI: What about this one [Sex Drive]?

SG: Every once in a while, luxurious opportunities present themselves. This was about two weeks worth of work for me with actors that I was really fond of and a writer-director that I just thought was great. Just great, great, great. Right off the bat, I wanted to be a part of this movie.

EI: The sarcasm in the character — was it in the script or did you help?

SG: We did a bunch of improv on set. You’d have to ask Sean [Anders] what they picked that was in the script. I don’t even remember at this point.

EI: Do you enjoy doing that part — the improving?

SG: I love improv, especially when you’re working with people that improv in character. Like, if you all are very clear on what it is that you’re playing and the relationships between yourselves, and then you improvise in a scene, you’ll get something that is [SNAP] — magic. It’s something that you couldn’t have gotten, had you tried to preplan it.

EI: What do you think sets apart this movie from other sort of sex road comedies?

SG: Well, it’s crass but without being gross, and it’s very, very sweet. And as naughty as it is, it’s very innocent. It’s very naïve. Don’t you feel there’s like a youth to it? There’s like a silly, “Oh my gosh, there’s boobies!” kind of quality to this movie.

EI: That’s what I enjoyed about it, was that it stayed away from, like, just trying to gross you out.

SG: Yeah, it’s not pubic hair in a wedding cake. Did anybody see American Wedding? The worst. Gosh, they should all be…

EI: Sean William Scott eats dog shit.

SG: I actually left the movie when they came up with a ten-minute set-up to figure out how to make Sean William Scott eat dog shit because I saw where it was going and it was so unrealistic. Nothing happened organically, and that’s what made the joke so unforgiveable. But this movie is just naughty and silly and goofy and fun. I think it’s very, very funny. I think that’s why people are reacting to it. And then the thing that Sean does so well is very authentically give you a romance in the middle of it. There’s a relationship that feels completely natural. You actually root for these kids to get together, and it’s sweetly done. You’ve got When Harry Met Sally and Road Trip mixed into one movie that functions seamlessly, I think.

EI: Are you into cars at all?

SG: I drive. [Laughs] That’s a pretty car.

EI: Yeah, that was a great car.

SG: I pulled it out of the garage and I was like, “Wow, I’d get killed in this car,” because I drive very fast. Very fast.

EI: What about Robot Chicken? What can fans of that expect? What do you tackle this time?

SG: Well, the end of the third season has actually begun airing already, and then our fourth season opener has guest appearances by Ron Moore, Joss Whedon, and Seth MacFarlane. It’s really funny! I’m so excited that they all did it. Basically, at the end of every season, we get cancelled one way or the other, and at the end of this season, it’s not really a spoiler, but we basically murder everyone in the cast and crew. It’s silly. So then, Matt and I are out of work looking for jobs and we hit up Ron Moore, Joss Whedon, and Seth MacFarlane for work. And MacFarlane’s like, “I hear you already have a job on my insanely popular show.” And I’m like, ”You expect me to live on hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? No.” So it’s very silly — I’m really excited about the season. We just finished writing all 20 episodes and I’m fucking happy with it, man! I’ve finally accepted the fact that this is not just my side project with other musicians. This is actually my job. I make this show.

EI: Does the writing process excite you more than anything else?

SG: I’m best in the booth, to tell you the truth. I’m on the other side of the glass whenever we have actors in, so that’s really where I think the full benefit of my skill comes in. I think I’m good at getting the sessions that we need from the actors that we bring in, but I do enjoy the writing process because it’s where we’re coming up with all this stuff. And that’s the spark of it. We just have excellent writers and so they come up with things that inspire the whole room to make it bigger and better, until we’ve got a sketch or a show.

EI: Do you make fun of Dark Knight at all?

SG: We did a couple, yeah, because that movie is so great and it made such a cultural impact that…we pick on a couple of things in it.

EI: There’s been this whole slate of disaster movies and all that crap.  Do you guys see them doing a bit in that, and be like, “No, we can’t go there.”

SG: Are you talking about, like, Epic Movie and things like that? To tell you the truth, that kind of parody has been around forever, whether it’s Airplane or Top Secret or Naked Gun. But what I’ve found is that there’s a little less effort put forth in a lot of these movies, where instead of making a joke about something, they are simply recreating a moment from something popular. If you look at…gosh, what was that movie? I can’t even remember what it was, but when it ended, it had an Owen Wilson look-alike in a tuxedo go, “Hey, I’m here to crash this wedding,” and that’s meant to be a joke. Or they’ve got someone dressed as Napoleon Dynamite who’s like, “I can’t believe you did that. Gosh,” and that’s in place of a joke. Whereas if you’re doing authentic parody, like Hot Shots – that’s a parody movie. So I find those movies…not all of them, because a movie like Not Another Teen Movie is an excellent example of how to authentically parody a genre, and they went everywhere from Varsity Blues to The Breakfast Club. They were all over the place and yet it was very well-constructed, funny, thoughtful, subtle, and bombastic at the same time. And these other films, whether it’s Epic Movie or even the later Scary Movies, they’re more recreating popular concepts than they are coming up with a clever commentary on it.

EI: Do you want to direct a movie yourself?

SG: I’m gonna direct The Freshmen, which is a comic book that my friend Hugh Sterbakov and I created. We have two graphic novels in the marketplace, and we conceived it as a feature. But that’ll be the movie that I direct.

EI: What is the basic status and the premise?

SG: Well, the premise is very simple. It’s Revenge of the Nerds meets X-Men. It’s kids in their first days of college, leaving the nest for the first time, awkwardly discovering their own identifies, and trying to cast off all the things that have been placed on them throughout their scholastic career. And because of the overflow of the enrollment, they’re put into the science building where they don’t even have permanent housing. Now this is a makeshift group they’re supposed to be best friends with, and they find themselves at a fraternity party where they are the butt of every joke and humiliated beyond their imagination. And then they go back to the dorm and kind of mull over the notion of being trapped in this place for the next four years, and then they are the victims of a scientific event which gives them borderline useless superpowers. So now, in addition to being these outcasts of the outcasts, they are additionally alienated with a physical deformity.

EI: And the status of this is…?

SG: We are writing the feature and we’re gonna make it when it’s ready.

EI: In a studio, or are you gonna finance it?

SG: It’ll probably need a studio for release. My estimation is to make this movie the way we want to make it, we’ll need independent financing, but the nice thing about independent financing is a small-budget film is $35 million these days, and that’s about what we’d need to make it.

EI: Would you be in it?

SG: No, it’s younger than I am. But more than anything, I’m just gonna helm this thing. My buddy and I made this up and I feel, quite arrogantly, the best to translate it. 

EI: I could find this in a comic store?

SG: You can find both of our books, yeah. Freshmen 1 and 2.

EI: Online as well?

SG: I’m sure it’s on Amazon, yeah.

EI: Is there a reason why you have a beard?

SG: I’m doing a bit on Heroes.

EI: As…? Can you talk about what you’re doing on that?

SG: No, not really. But Breckin Meyer and I are doing it together, which is awesome, because Breck and I have known each other forever and get to work together a lot but rarely on-camera. So all our scenes are together and it’s great.

EI: Is it a comic sort of thing?

SG: It is a little bit, sort of. I guess so. I mean, I don’t know how funny it is.

EI: What’s your relationship together?

SG: We are old friends in the show.

EI: Is it a multi-arc?

SG: It’s a few episodes, yeah. It’s an open-ended thing.

EI: So that’s another reason why you’ve been so busy.

SG: I work a lot, man. Yeah, I did an episode of Earl. I did just another bit on Entourage…

EI: Talk about Entourage.

SG: Apparently people took me too seriously the last time we did Entourage and they thought that was my actual personality instead of a parody of a celebrity personality, so we took it just a little bit further.

EI: You’re playing yourself.

SG: Yeah, I’m playing myself on it, but I play myself as an absolute cocksucker. Just an unbearable…

EI: And people thought that was you in real life?

SG: Well, that’s what’s so fun, ’cause I think I’ve got a reputation as an exceedingly nice guy.

EI: Right. Not as a cocksucker.

SG: Well, I play an unbearable bastard on Entourage. So we just took it even further. The first time you see me, it’s 9:00 in the morning and I’m having a pool party at my mountain mansion estate, and I’m smoking the biggest joint you’ve ever seen while getting my back rubbed by a bikini girl, just in case anyone thinks it’s happening in the real world. So Kevin Connelly and I, basically, are nemeses on the show. So we just take that a little bit further.

EI: With how busy you are, how do you have time for a life outside of the business?

SG: You’re looking at it. [Laughs]

EI: So you have no personal life?

SG: I have degrees of personal life. My friends are all very understanding, as I am of them.

EI: They must be married — like, Breckin’s got a child, and… Is that some way you want to go?

SG: Well, I hire Breckin all the time just so I can take him away from his wife and family and insist that he stay with me all day. [Laughs] I just locked him in for five weeks of writing and then I’m putting him on our show all the time. Is that something that I look… Of course, I think every human being inherently longs for a partner and a family, and I’ve yet to find it. So in the meantime, I’ve got nieces, which is great.

EI: What are you doing immediately next then?

SG: Well, we’re shooting the show right now, which we’re already waist-high in — just finished writing. We’ve recorded about ten episodes. That’s not true — we’ve recorded, like, 15. Oh my gosh, we only have five more to record. I put things in place. I’ve got a creative director on the floor who’s directing all the on-set stuff so I don’t have to do that this year, which is a huge relief because I did that the first three seasons and it’s very taxing. And we shot our second Star Wars special that I directed, which was two solid weeks of coming in before 7:00 in the morning and leaving at 8:30 at night, just putting that show together. But I love it. And I’m single right now, so it’s totally acceptable. [Laughs]

EI: How long does it take to do 24 episodes?

SG: Eleven months. It’s 20 episodes. The entire production process is 11 months. We’ll write and get into pre-production. We’ll start getting our legal approvals at the same time that we’re recording, doing storyboards, and then there’s a period of, like, two months where everything overlaps, where we’re still writing and editing and mixing the show at the same time — just an assembly line of episodes. It’s a brutal schedule.

EI: When does the new season come out?

SG: Well, the third season is gonna be on the air — it’s actually already begun. The end of the third season is on — they broke it up into two parts just so we would have less of a gap between original episodes. The new stuff will probably be on in March, but the second Star Wars will be out in November.

EI: Could you identify with your character in Sex Drive?

SG: I did a tremendous amount of research on the Amish people. I watched Witness and I watched Kingpin.

EI: I can see parallels between Witness and Sex Drive.

SG: I studied Randy Quaid in Kingpin, and I really just wanted this to be authentic. I met with Daniel Day Lewis and commissioned him to cobble me a pair of shoes and discussed with him what a sarcastic Amish person would be like.

EI: In fact, did you get into the character the same way Daniel Day Lewis gets into character?

SG: I did. Here’s the funny thing. In all reality, the clothes that I’m wearing in this movie are authentic Mennonite clothing. I don’t know if you guys know the materials of fashion in the Mennonite community. It’s double-knit polyester bib pants with riveted front. It’s a rivet. You pop `em all down to go to the bathroom. And then the shirt is unprocessed denim. You ever been in a sack race? Potato sack? It’s that only stiffer and itchier. Here’s the really funny part. None of those clothes breathe…at all, and we were filming in Florida. It was 92 degrees, with 88 percent humidity.

EI: It was quite baggy. You had lots of room.

SG: I sweat off my beard a couple of times. It was really, really hot.

EI: The things one does for one’s art, though, really…

SG: Well, nah. It was fun, though!

EI: Who else do you have a burning desire to work with?

SG: Lots of people, really. You know who I really want to make a movie with that I’ve gotten to know is Phil Joanou. I just got to screen Three O’Clock High and State of Grace at the New Beverly, and Phil came and did a Q&A, as well as Richard Tyson who, by the way, is so fucking underrated that it’s criminal. Richard Tyson takes such a bad rap ’cause he’s a handsome guy and ’cause he did Two Moon Junction. But if you watch his performance in Three O’Clock High or you watch his performance in Kindergarten Cop, that guy is so measured and so authentic. He pulls off performances that are very, very difficult. And he said he’s doing Shakespeare in Topanga. I’m gonna go check him out. But Phil Joanou is making a movie that I’m woefully wrong for. We met about it and we talked for two hours, and I’m like, “Man, I just want to make a movie with you so bad,” and he’s like, “Let’s work together.” I’m like, “You’re making a movie right now that you could hire me for.” And we both agreed, “Nah, you’re not right for it.” You know, you are or you aren’t. And you’ve got to know that and adhere to that or else you wind up like Michael J. Fox in Casualties of War. Great actor, great movie — not right for that part. It worked to the detriment of him being taken seriously and of the movie being considered seriously. You’ve got to find where you fit.

EI: At least you acknowledge it and you recognize it.

SG: Well, it’s hard. When people give you a chance to do something and then they tell you that it’s possible, you believe it and you want to do it.