Great Scott

Truth be told, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to Goon. Sure, writers Evan Goldberg and Jay Baruchel are Apatow alumni, but frankly the trailers look like every other balls-out, brash sports comedy of the past decade. And, let’s face it, Stifler - I mean, Seann William Scott? The American Pie star isn’t exactly a critical or Academy favourite.

So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that not only is Goon hilarious and surprisingly sweet, but Scott is irresistibly charming. As a dim-witted bouncer who is recruited as an enforcer for a local ice-hockey team, Scott’s sweet, warm performance is easily the best of his career.
The modest actor feigns shock.
“What, you thought it was even better than Dude, Where’s My Car? Impossible!” he jokes. “I thought I was going to get nominated for an Academy Award for that, can’t believe I got snubbed! But yeah, I played a pretty rounded, three-dimensional character in The Promotion. Other than that it’s been a lot of fratboy action types, so it was nice to actually act for a change.”
And to be working, full stop. Before his Role Models co-star Paul Rudd recommended Scott for the lead role in Goon, the chatty and unaffected actor’s optimism had been waning, and he admits that he had prepared himself to be offered fewer and fewer roles as he got older.
“To be honest, I was just thrilled they even considered me for Goon. You see the guys from The Hangover and stuff doing so well, and you think that your chance to be a comic star is past, that the generation that found you funny in American Pie are now in their twenties and thirties and so you’re bowing out to a new generation of actors for a new generation of audience. I thought I might have been done.”
But not only did director Michael Dowse and the writers trust Scott to take the lead in Goon, which Dowse describes as “an ice-hockey film for football hooligans” – they even trusted him with their women. Jay Baruchel and Goon’s leading lady Alison Pill (who recently shone as Zelda Fitzgerald in Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris) fell in love onset, and are now engaged. Lovely for them, but with Baruchel always on set, surely it made Scott’s onscreen romance with Pill ever so slightly awkward?
“Yeah, Jay made sure he was on set for the kiss scenes, watching me like a hawk! But hey, I was just excited to kiss a girl in a movie for once, I’ve been kissing a lot of dudes!” Scott laughs. “Like Jason Biggs in American Pie 2, Ashton Kutcher in Dude, Where’s My Car? Most actors have a theme to their career, a defining moment at the start - you know Brad Pitt’s going ‘Yeah, Legends Of The Fall, I’m that guy on a horse.’ Me, well, I’m the guy who drinks semen in American Pie, and I never really got away from that!”
But despite his jokes about being typecast as Stifler forever, the character was obviously never far from Scott’s mind – how could it be, when it’s constantly shouted at him in the street? (“And people shout ‘Stifler’s Mom!’ a lot, which is even weirder!”) So it was perhaps inevitable that he would recant on previous statements that suggested he was done with the franchise.
“The last time we did an American Pie film was 2004, and I think back then I was just more anxious, saying ‘I want to do all kinds of films, I want to do indie films and dramas’ and all that. But then seven years go by and frankly you’re just happy to have a career. So I actually rang up the studios and pitched the idea of an American Pie reunion where everyone comes back, a little bit older but none the wiser! And it was really fun to be back working with everyone and it’s turned out great. It doesn’t feel cheap, it’s got a lot of heart.”
But as for future aspirations, Scott’s couldn’t lie further from the crude, mainstream comedy, and the actor shocks me by enthusiastically expressing a desire to play Jack Skellington in a musical of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Say what?!
“I would love that! I just feel it’d be such a great Broadway musical. And I have a little hidden talent, I can sing about as well as I can act - which isn’t really saying much, is it?” he jokes. “But I can sing a bit like Danny Elfman in that movie so I want to get it going. Though something tells me Tim Burton never really considered me for that role!”
You never know, his performance in Goon surprised the hell out of me. And with some apparent tricks up his sleeve, Seann William Scott may well be able to leave the legacy of Stifler behind him. Well, after American Reunion comes out this year, I mean...

Check out Goon in your local cinema now.