Seth Green

Seth Green has played a cursed teenage werewolf on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a cursing Evil brat in the Austin Powers movies. Now he has beaten the kid-actor curse, and his latest venture, Without a Paddle, sends the diminutive comic actor off—with Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed costar Matthew Lillard and Punk’d’s Dax Shepard—on a white-water adventure that gets hairier around each bend. Funnier, too.

"I’m real particular about the work I do," Green proclaims, and the same can be said for the film buff’s moviegoing tastes, as you’re about to see.

You’re out in Middle of Nowhere, New Zealand, shooting a movie called Without a Paddle. How many days did it take before the "up s—t creek" jokes got old?

They still haven’t stopped. From the second I saw it, I said, "We’ve gotta beat that title." We never did.

You did most of your own paddling, didn’t you?

The laws are a little different, as far as what they’ll let you do, in New Zealand. All the stunt guys were like, "Aw, you can do that, mate," so we were, "We’re good!" And the stuff that we didn’t do, guys got really hurt doing. Like the guys who did the class-five rapids in the canoe got fractured skulls and blown-out eyeballs. It was really ugly.

You’ve got three action figures.

Yeah, and a fourth on the way. Listen, man, for a toy geek, getting yourself immortalized by one of the top-tier companies is better than winning a statue. It’s more impressive to the legions; you know what I mean? The other kids are like, "I can’t believe that you have an action figure. And you’re a dork like me. That’s not possible!" And I’m like, "Check it out, buddy. I wear sunglasses inside."

You must have your own idols. Learned anything from the comedy greats you’ve worked with?

Mike Myers gave me a good piece of advice when we were doing the second Austin Powers movie, and that was to not overthink it. The more you preplan, the worse off you’ll be. You have to trust yourself in the moment—and you don’t always hit. Sometimes you throw out a lot of s—t, and maybe just one piece of it sticks, like, That’s a good turd, I’m gonna put that in the movie. You know what I mean? You can’t censor yourself.

Let’s play guest critic for a minute. What made you laugh the most this summer? Without a Paddle excepted, please.

I thought Anchorman was really, really funny. Getting to see Will Ferrell be a big movie star is so gratifying. I feel guys like him are my peers, if I can be so bold as to claim that. I love seeing great work come out of my generation.

Favorite big summer action movie? Again, don’t say Without a Paddle.

I really loved Spider-Man 2. It was great. Everything that wasn’t great about it was made up for by how great everything that was great about it was. Does that make sense?

So, you rushed right out to Catwoman, too.

No. Catwoman has nothing to do with anything that happened in any comic book ever. Except for the fact it’s called Catwoman. I have no interest.

Anything coming up that you’re looking forward to?

I’m so in for AVP [Alien vs. Predator]. I love summer event movies. I’m always first in line, midnight screening, go with the crowd. That’s the crowd; you see the best stuff. People go bananas at those.

How about your old Buffy mate Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Japanese horror flick?

The Grudge. I’m all over it. We were in Tokyo at the same time. It just sounded supercool. And I trust her to make good decisions.

Let’s jump ahead to next summer. Is Revenge of the Sith a lame title for the last Star Wars movie?

Did you think Return of the Jedi was a good title? Now it’s awesome. Empire Strikes Back, didn’t that sound stupid? Now it’s awesome.

Looking into your own future, let’s see: You’ve been in one spy movie franchise; you do your own stunts...You’ve heard they’re looking for a new James Bond, haven’t you?

It’s not me. It’d be a different movie.