Biography for
Seth Green More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

8 February 1974, Overbrook Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Birth Name

Seth Benjamin Gesshel-Green

Height

5' 4" (1.63 m)

Mini Biography

Seth was raised in Overbrook Park by his parents; Herb, a math teacher, and Barbara, an artist. He attended public school and played soccer. Seth decided to make acting his career at age six after appearing in a summer camp performance of "Hello, Dolly!"

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Trivia

Jodie Foster's production company, Egg Pictures, is named after Green's character in The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), in which she also starred.

Has an older sister, Kaela Green.

He had a part filmed for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992); the part was left on the cutting room floor, but a still from the scene appeared on the read or the commercial release videocassette box. Seth eventually got to be in Buffy, though, on the TV series.

At 13-years-old he played Alyson Hannigan's boyfriend 'Fred' in My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988). Ten years later, at the age of 23, he played her boyfriend again when he landed the role of 'Oz' on the TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997).

Seth is thanked in the sleeve notes of Blink 182's "Enema of the State". Blink also thanks Idle Hands (1999) and Can't Hardly Wait (1998) -- both movies featuring a Blink 182 song and coincidentally both have Seth Green in them. Seth also had an uncredited role in Enemy of the State (1997).

Shares a birthday with Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil, his The Trumpet of the Swan (2001) co-star Mary Steenburgen, James Dean and Ethan Phillips.

Was once room-mates with crooner Brian Evans in California. In Macleans Magazine (Canada), Evans called the experience "Unfortunate for Seth", adding that "I wasn't stable enough to live alone, never mind have a roommate."

Named #7 of the Top Ten Sexiest Men of the Buffy / Angel universe in a fan poll by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanzine (2004).

Not many people know that he was responsible for one of the most overused catchphrases of the 1990s. In 1992 he appeared in a commercial for Rally's Burgers as an obnoxious drive-thru cashier who kept repeating the line "Cha-CHING!!" over and over again and the line entered the popular culture.

Based the gravelly voice of Chris Griffin in "Family Guy" (1999) on the Buffalo Bill character from The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

He played Lyle in The Italian Job (2003). His Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) co-star Michael Caine appeared in the original The Italian Job (1969).

Has made his entrance in two separate films to two separate Clay Aiken songs. They are "Invisible" in Without a Paddle (2004) and "The Way" in Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004).

Was among the guests at Jessica Simpson's 25th birthday party.

Revealed in a 2005 "Fresh Air with Terry Gross" interview that he had auditioned for the American Beauty (1999) role that eventually went to Wes Bentley, and he was the runner-up for the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) role that went to Elijah Wood.

Seth is not related to Bruce Seth Green, who directed some episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997). On occasion, some sources confuse the two and have credited Seth as the director.

In the movie Mallrats (1995), the studio had prepared to replace Jason Mewes with Seth Green to play the character of "Jay". Director Kevin Smith insisted that Mewes reprise his part from Clerks. (1994) so the studio had Green on stand-by and ready to fly to the mall where they were filming while they viewed Mewes' first scene. In the end, all parties agreed to Mewes keeping the part.

1998: Named on Entertainment Weekly's "It List" of the 100 Most Creative People in Entertainment.

In his free time enjoys playing pool and seeing as many films as possible.

Graduated high school with honors.

He is an avid fan of the NFL team, the New Orleans Saints.

Attended the same middle school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as pop artist Eve.

Has been long time friends with actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, and has collaborated with her quite a few times. They can be found together in Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997) and "Robot Chicken" (2005).

Personal Quotes

There are two kinds of people in this world: Michael Jackson fans and losers.

"Doing something because it's quote-unquote a good career move doesn't really appeal to me. There's never a surefire good career move except doing good work." [May 30, 2003]

[of being famous:] "It's a period of adjustment. I've gotten a lot better at it. After working for 18 years, all of a sudden I became successful on a level where other people knew it. It's not a cat you can put back in the bag."

[about being a child star:] "My childhood success came and went real fast. Between 12 and 16, I grew -- as much as I was going to, anyway -- and no longer looked the same. Like most child actors, I found it a difficult adjustment. Still, I've done so many things that I wasn't associated with one thing. I'm an actor, not a celebrity. When recognition became an issue a few years ago, part of me felt undeserving. Desperate to maintain my popularity, I was performing all the time. Then, I caught a glimpse of myself at the MTV Music Awards -- dressed in leather, grasping for jokes -- and set about changing my habits. Now that I've stopped trying so hard, I'm more comfortable in my skin."

[on improvising:] "... three movies with Mike Myers certainly loosened me up. He told me that there's a switch in your brain that censors you, makes you second- guess. You have to turn it off, shut out the fear of being embarrassed and making a mistake. Being a good improvisational actor is all about being in the scene, getting out of your head. Conan O'Brien is my favorite interviewer because he pays attention and has no game plan."

[of his character Lyle in The Italian Job (2003):] "There's no greater way to gain an audience's sympathy than by being unfortunate. My main goal was to not make him this mono-dimensional computer guy. There had to be a reason this guy could hang with this tough crew. I didn't want him to be dorky, but a little unfortunate and a little embittered, the kind of guy who has this massive motorcycle he can't even ride."

[on his character Lyle in The Italian Job (2003) (who speaks a lot of technical jargon:] "I don't believe in e-mail. I rarely use a cell phone and I don't have a fax. But part of the reason I got this job is that I'm good at making complicated technical terms sound normal. It sounds obnoxious, but I compare it to doing Shakespeare. You just figure out the emotional content of the line and go with that. It doesn't matter what you're saying if you come from an honest place. Though most people don't know half the words, you don't have to dumb down. I hate when they show a policeman saying "I've got a 3-U at Baker Street ... breaking and entering." No one talks like that."

God is, to me, pretty much an idea. God is, to me, pretty much a myth created over time to deny the idea that we're all responsible for our own actions.

[on improvising dialogue as Scott Evil in scenes with Mike Myers in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997):] "[Dr. Evil's] whole shhh! thing was made up on the spot. It's a testament to Mike Myers' brilliance. They just keep going after the written scene is over, and fucking magic happens." (May 14, 1999)

[on playing the character Oz in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997):] "The script that wooed me was for the episode where I first turn into a werewolf. Before I signed, Joss said, 'Read this. This is what we're thinking.' It had all this metaphorical stuff and gave strong shades to the character. I said, 'Yeah, I want to be a part of this.'" (May 14, 1999)

I've met him a bunch and hung out a handful of times. He's great, very smart and knowledgeable about world history and politics. Always fun to be around. - on Marilyn Manson.

(On Macaulay Culkin) He had kind of a stratospheric success at a young age, whereas I just kind of plodded along successfully without becoming famous until much later. But we really related to each other as far as disposition and shared experience, and just our opinions about people in the business. I think very highly of him; he's an excellent, excellent friend.

(Joking about his breakthrough role) Oh gosh, "Third Youth at Hot Dog Stand," in White Man's Burden, I think was really a defining moment for me. It was a time when I knew that I was really making it as an actor.

(On his brief role in Sesame Street) I called them up to see if I could get on the show. I was like, "Am I famous enough that I can call and ask to be on Sesame Street yet?" And I guess I was. So they were like "What do you want to do?" And I'm like, "Anything, just put me on with some Muppets, please!" And I actually flew to do Sesame Street immediately after filming Without A Paddle. I flew back from New Zealand, I was in Los Angeles for less than four hours, then I flew to New York and got in at midnight for a 7 a.m. call. That's why I look so haggard on it. But it was a really incredible experience. They pulled a bunch of the old Muppets out of storage and let me play with them, so I got to meet Grover and Oscar, and Big Bird and Cookie Monster, and the Count and Bert and Ernie. It was the greatest.

(On making Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed) Really fun. It was one of those movies where you get that offer, and it's like, "Is this gonna hurt or help me? Or neither? Is it just something I get to do?" And I had a great conversation with a friend of mine. We just determined that it wasn't anything that would hurt me, career-wise. It was a fun opportunity to work with friends of mine, to do a really fun kids' movie that was iconic in pop culture. You know, it was an easy job. It was a blast, too. I got to wear glasses and be a museum curator.

Four Kings was a tremendous amount of potential, I thought. I was very excited to do that show with the guys who created Will & Grace. I loved the cast that got put together, and it unfortunately was at a time when NBC was really unclear as to what kind of shows they wanted to be making. And here was a show about lifelong best friends that was supposed to be how these guys look out for each other, and how your best friends are the people that know you the best and can shit on you the worst. Instead, at least once an episode, one of us said to another, "I just don't know if we can be friends any more" over some kind of ridiculous conflict. So instead of it being a show celebrating friendship, it became a show about these bizarre conflicts between us that were somehow making us not interested in being friends.

Without A Paddle is one of the best experiences I've had making a movie, but also the hardest movie I've ever made, because it was so physical. And cold. And exhausting. And everything in that movie is us in our underwear in some kind of unforgiving environment. But three months isolated in different areas of New Zealand with Matt Lillard and Dax Shepard - I couldn't have been happier. We just had fun every day. It was a really, really great experience.

Knockaround Guys is the movie that I essentially left Buffy to do. This was an incredible opportunity that got presented to me. The guys that had written Rounders were directing their first feature. Lawrence Bender was producing it, a relatively unknown Vin Diesel was starring in it. Barry Pepper and Andy Davoli, and then Tom Noonan, John Malkovich, and Dennis Hopper. So it was a great opportunity for me to play something that I'd never played before: a darker, more complicated, kind of tragic character. And that movie, it just got tied up in politics. New Line was going to release it, and they had had a string of failures leading up to it, and were kind of bottoming out their distribution budget and focusing everything on starting Lord Of The Rings. They were about to put all their money into developing and producing three back-to-back movies, and as a result, a ton of pictures got shelved until they could figure out what to do with them. Some were going directly to DVD, some were gonna get released on cable, some were still being held out for theatrical, and they felt like Knockaround Guys was a theatrical release. So it got held for a while, and unfortunately, that wound up looking like... It got held long enough that Vin Diesel became a big star and got paid $20 million to do XXX, and then the marketing people thought "Well, we should just wait until XXX comes out to release this movie, as opposed to trying to put it out beforehand." And what that looked like was an opportunistic release, leading people to believe that the movie was no good and that they were just trying to capitalize on the success of XXX and Vin becoming a bigger star. It was just unfortunate, because I really loved the movie, and I don't think it ever got seen by anyone, and there was kind of a stigma around it that it was shelved for a lack of quality, which just wasn't the case.

Family Guy's one of the best jobs I've ever had. Ever. It's a show I love to watch, so it's a thrill to get to be on it. It's a fairly easy job to do, and I have a lot of fun. And the fact that fans are responding, too, it blows my mind. I mean, it's exciting that people like it. It makes me feel like there's a similarity in consciousness... No, that's not a good way to explain it. I feel like there's a similar sense of humor. It's nice to feel like I'm not crazy for thinking the show is funny. Know what I mean?

Where Are They Now

(October 2003) In Wellington, New Zealand, filming Without a Paddle (2004)

(November 2006) Currently working on his show Robot Chicken.

(July 2009) Was the guest host on WWE Monday Night Raw (July 13th)

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