Archive for March, 2010

Seann William Scott is best known the world over as Stifler in the American Pie series, and for me the only Sean(n) I’ve seen spell their name with 2 n’s, is that common in the States? I know me saying that sounds dumb but wtf, his parents butchered the name dictionary if there is one. It’s like spelling my name Mattheww, it just looks stupid. Enough random observations, Seann has also starred in Role Models (one of my favourite comedies of the last few years), Road Trip and Dude, Where’s My Car? You can also check out my Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan interview for Cop Out here.

Seann, how much did you actually use the script in this, your scenes are real fluid.

Seann William Scott: Oh, sweet.  Awesome.  Yeah, Kevin just encouraged improvising a lot.  I mean, the script was really funny, one of the funniest scripts I had ever read, and when I originally read it, I thought, “Oh, I don’t think I’m old enough to play one of the cops.”  And I forgot the Dave character.  Kevin got on board and he asked me to be in it, and I was like, “Oh, this is awesome.”  And then there was a lot of improvising.  Once I started to repeat Tracy, once I started, he said, “They’ll shoot you in the face.”  And I said, “I’ll shoot you in the face.”  Then we just kept doing that.  And, basically, Kevin would throw lines out.  He was so funny.  The little ideas that would help, but we’d build off of that.  And then, of course, Bruce is super funny.  He played so well off of what Tracy and I were doing.  And then Tracy was just great, because I would say, “Tracy, I’ve got an idea.”  He was like, “Don’t tell me, don’t tell me.”  And then we would just riff. One of my favorite scenes is that jail scene, which we improvised a lot and it came together well.  I liked it.

Are those the days when you have to kind of pinch yourself that this is what you’re being paid to do?

Seann William Scott: Yeah.  I do that anyways.  I just can’t believe my life.  But, yeah, I’d sit in the back of the car and see Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan; I see Kevin Smith in the car that’s towing us, I’m like, “I can’t believe this.”  And that’s kind of why I started to repeat them, because I forgot my lines.  So I was just repeating everything Tracy said.

Kevin Smith said that he just wanted your character to drop in from time to time, like a seasoning.  He wanted the audience to want to see more of you.  How did you feel about having this small but key part?

Seann William Scott: Yeah.  I mean, I just wanted to be a part of it, because I’m a huge fan of him and everybody in it.  But once we started having more fun with the character, I definitely was like, “I want more.  I want to keep doing this.”  There is this scene where I keep making fun of him because of his wife.  And then in that scene, all of a sudden I’m starting to whisper in his ear, like, “Little girls like little friends.”  We’re laughing at Bruce and stuff.  And I was like, “I want to see more of that.”

Did you do the scene where you fall from the train?  Was that you?

Seann William Scott: Oh, I didn’t do any stunts at all.  The only stunts I did is I ran five feet to the car.  And I was exhausted.  [Laughs]  And then I love the fact that the stunt double is like forty pounds lighter.  I was like, “Come on, guys.”

Do you find that when your working with actors you’ve admired that you have to kind of step up your game?

Seann William Scott: I don’t know if I’m getting better, but I’m constantly blown away.  All I do is sit around and watch movies, so you definitely know not to mess around.  Don’t waste time.  If I’m working with the guys from American Pie, it’s okay if we screw up a couple takes.  I don’t really want to do that with Bruce.  [Laughs]  You know what I mean?  I don’t want to make him mad.  I’m just like, “Get the lines right.  Make him laugh.  Be good.  Don’t screw it up.  Don’t ruin the movie.”

But, yeah, comedically too, I did feel like working with Tracy, he brought out a lot.  He’s just on a whole other universe with his comedic ability.  So, I really did feel like it was, “wow,” and he made me better with a lot of that.  It was pretty much mostly improvised.  A lot of it is because I had somebody to bounce off of like that.  Bruce as well.  But he and I were kind of playing the game.  So it was fun.

Did you bond with Bruce, Tracy and Kevin on this movie?

Seann William Scott:  Yeah.  This is one of those examples too, you have a movie like this and an experience like this and then you never know when you’re going to see the people again.  And it’s a bummer.  I’ve been telling everybody about this experience and I’m like, “No, I really did work with him.  Go on the computer.  And the movie’s coming out.”  [Laughs]  And now they’re finally believing me.  Like, “You really did know those people.  You really did.”  I’m like, “I told you.”  So, I’ve got such bragging rights now.  But it’s such a bummer because you have moments like this, and then I literally will go back and hang out with my dog and my cat and talk to my dog about the experience on Cop Out and he doesn’t believe me still.  [Laughs]  He told me he doesn’t believe me that I know these guys.  (Laughs)

Steven Spielberg – “the pictorial Shakespeare of our time”.

Martin Scorsese - “His influence on filmmakers throughout the entire world is so profound as to be almost incomparable.”

Francis Ford Coppola - “One thing that distinguishes Akira Kurosawa that he didn’t make a masterpiece or two masterpieces, he made, you know,eight masterpieces.”

Federico Fellini -”the greatest living example of what an author of the cinema should be.”

Sidney Lumet - “Kurosawa never affected me directly in terms of my own movie-making because I never would have presumed that I was capable of that perception and that vision.”

Sam Peckinpah – “I’d like to be able to make a Western like Kurosawa makes Westerns.”

Ingmar Bergman – “Now I want to make it plain that The Virgin Spring must be regarded as an aberration. It’s touristic, a lousy imitation of Kurosawa.”

John Woo -”I love Kurosawa’s movies, and I got so much inspiration from him. He is one of my idols and one of the great masters.”

Werner Herzog – “Of the film-makers with whom I feel some kinship Griffith, Murnau, Pudovkin, Buquel and Kurosawa come to mind. Everything these men did has the touch of greatness.”