and I love making an audience feel something.

And so whenever I pick roles, it's always in that pursuit.

If I read something that's particularly inspiring

or compelling, I chase it.

If I get it, it just means that I was the right guy for it.

And if I don't, then I just move on to the next one.

Hi, "Vanity Fair".

I'm Seth green and this is the timeline of my career.

[melancholy instrumental music]

- What was the bear's name?

- State of Maine.

- Mm-hmm, the bear was on his last legs.

- [Children] But they were the only legs he had.

- I got "The Hotel New Hampshire" by auditioning.

I was eight years old and auditioned in New York City.

I had been working for over a year living in Philadelphia

and taking the trains back and forth

to New York for auditions.

This was the first feature film that I got

and I was thrilled, thrilled to get it.

I actually don't remember the original audition,

but I remember the followup where my mom came into the room

with me and spoke with the director and the casting agent.

And they told her that they wanted me to play this part.

And when we left that room, we skipped down the stairs.

It was the most exciting thing ever.

- Hey bro, I'm only kidding.

I mean, who could beat a night of cards, chips, dips,

and dorks. [laughs]

- I was maybe 13.

I might've turned 14 while working on "Can't Buy Me Love".

The reason that that particular project was so significant

was it marked a change in the way my mom tried

to prepare me for auditions.

When I went to audition for it,

I had already memorized my lines and so in the waiting room,

I was kinda playing around

or hanging out with other kids that I knew.

And my mom saw other kids sitting in chairs

dutifully going over their sides with their parent,

and she felt a little irresponsible and tried to say,

"Well, we should be going over our lines."

And I was like, "I'm fine.

"I've already done all my prep

"and I'm ready to go in the room."

And so when I got that job,

it changed the way my mom thought about it

and she realized that we didn't have to do

what everybody else was doing

just because they were doing it.

Each person's process was gonna be their own process.

And from that point on, she kinda just let me approach

the work by my own design.

- Something stinks in suburbia.

[people chattering]

- Hi.

- Oh, that's what I was gonna say.

- Whatcha looking at?

- This cheerleading trophy.

It's like its eyes follow you wherever you go.

I like it.

- Well, I've really spent my whole career

playing guest stars or, you know,

coming in in a recurring way and that's a position I love.

That's something very comfortable for me.

And so I didn't look at coming onto "Buffy"

as something scary.

It was really exciting.

It was a great way to come into something

that was already well functioning and play a part

that seemed really organic to me.

And to get to do things I hadn't gotten to do

on film very often, like play guitar or kiss a girl.

But I knew both Sarah Geller and Alyson Hannigan

from having worked with them when we were much younger.

And then when I got to audition for it,

it was as Aly's potential boyfriend,

and since we'd already worked together a bunch of times

I thought, "Oh, this would be great.

"She's fantastic to work with and I'll bet we could play

"a pretty convincing couple."

But actually getting to make that show

over a couple of seasons

and really develop that character into something,

that was a thrill.

I love Oz and I'm so grateful for the chance

to have got to play him.

- You're trying to make your friend Xander jealous,

or even the score or something,

and that's on the empty side.

- It seems to tables have turned again, Dr. Evil.

- Not really.

Kill the little bastard, see what I care.

- But Dad, we just had a breakthrough in group.

- I had the group liquidated, you little shit.

They were insolent.

- I hate you, I hate you.

I wish I was never artificially created in a lab.

- I was working on a play in San Diego

and so I was very serious about acting

when I got that comedy project.

And my take on it was that Scott Evil is in a drama

while everyone around him is in a ridiculous comedy.

'Cause I'd been seeing so many angry, violent,

or outrageous teenagers on things like "Jerry Springer"

and they all seemed victim

of the same kind of parental apathy.

That, to me, was very funny to explore

when you have a character that is as bold and as silly

as Dr. Evil, who is trying as sincerely as he can

to form a relationship with his teenage son,

the notion of that teenage son being legitimately angry

or hurt [laughs] by the lack of participation

in his own upbringing,

that just struck me very funny.

And so that was how I approached it.

Instead of being a kid who's like, "I hate my dad.

"My dad's a dick."

I just thought it was funny to come from a place

of legitimate hurt or [laughs] deeply emotional pain

of trying to grow up and even understand myself

as a character with this malevolent dictator as a father.

The fun behind the scenes of that movie is incomparable.

I have had so few experiences that are as inclusive

and supportive and just fun as making "Austin Powers".

And what I found was the more serious and more committed

I was to the genuine pain of Scott Evil,

the funnier any of those scenes became.

'Cause none of those other characters care

about my character's feelings.

They are all just ridiculous

and in pursuit of world domination through

whatever idiotic means they're enacting.

And so from my perspective,

the more realistically I was hurt by [laughs],

the funnier any of those seeds became.

- Why make trillions when we could make

[dramatic instrumental music]

billions.

- A trillion is more than a million, numbnuts.

- All right, zip it.

- You can't even-

- Zip it.

Zip.

- Look, all-

- Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit A.

- Ugh.

[upbeat instrumental music]

- Yo Jana, you wanna dance?

- I'm allergic.

- Allergic?

To dancing?

- Yeah.

- I grew up loving John Hughes movies,

R-rated teen comedies, or PG-13 teen comedies,

and when that script came up, I knew the writers personally.

My friend Breckin Meyer had originally been cast

in the role that I played, Kenny Fisher.

The role was actually written for him,

but he got an opportunity to do a different movie,

a far more high profile drama and couldn't do it.

So I, just like everything else, had to audition

for this part.

But I wanted it so bad.

I really loved this script.

I loved this idea and I especially loved this character,

this incredibly insecure character who is full of bravado

and outward demonstrations of his lack of fear

while he is crippled by his worry

of what other people will think of him.

And so that's a great place to come from.

And I just wanted to bring honesty to that.

I wanted him to not just be a fool,

but a fool that you could sympathize with.

And I wanted to justify all of his fashion choices

or conversation choices, all of his intent,

I wanted that to be justified under all of this deep sadness

and insecurity that I think everyone feels

when you're teenage.

I liked playing underdogs

and challenging the audience to like them.

And then I love bringing a humanity to the character

that makes people feel empathy

for someone who is ridiculous.

Kenny Fisher gets a lot of love, and I appreciate that.

- Why y'all gotta waste my flavor? Damn.

- I've never seen this man before in my life.

Principal Shepherd, what are you doing here?

- Getting to make "Can't Hardly Wait" was a thrill

just because I got to work with so many people

who I knew personally,

and also getting to meet people who I had admired

for some time but never gotten to work with,

like Charlie Korsmo.

And Charlie and I became a really good friends

over the course of making that.

He came to L.A. to do the press junket for the movie.

He stayed with me in my apartment and we hung out all week

going to KFC and reading all of our terrible reviews

and highlighting the more severe comparisons

between us and some kind of undesirable woodland creature.

But while Charlie and I were spending that week together,

we just got into this riff of impersonating Ted Levine's

character in "The Silence of the Lambs", Buffalo Bill,

that character who has such a distinct voice

and physical persona and such an uncomfortable presence,

and we set about just applying it to comedy.

Like where was Buffalo Bill working?

How did Buffalo Bill make money?

Is he a telemarketer?

Like, is he trying to sell you Amway?

What is it that he does?

And at one point we started imagining him working

the drive-through and you hearing on the squawk box,

[clicks] "What, what can I get you?"

"Can I get a two-piece meal with mashed potatoes?"

"Ah, you want the two-piece, mashed potatoes.

"Do you want on a piece of corn for an extra 50 cents?"

And that just made us laugh all week.

And so when I got the audition for "Family Guy",

I read that script and I just loved it.

It was so funny.

I had never felt more seen than reading that script.

And I just wanted that job so much.

So I went in and they showed me the character,

and you know, if you look at Chris Griffin,

he's got that blonde hair and an earing and a hat

and kind of looks like a surfer kid.

And so that was the voice that I had even thought.

He was like, "What's up, dad?

Fight, the machine, dad, meh."

I did it like that and they were like,

"Okay, great, great, thanks."

And I said, "Hey, can I try something?"

And as an actor, I always advocate this.

If you have something, try it.

It's your audition.

If you say, "Ah, I wanna start again,"

do it, it's your audition.

Own that space.

And so I took a really silly risk and said,

"My buddy and I've been doing this voice all week,

"and I just feel like it's applicable somewhere.

"So what if this kid sounded like this?"

And I did that deeply, bass-y, grotesquely,

disturbing performance but in this animated comedy dialogue.

And they said, "Oh, can you make it a little bit younger?"

And so I raised the pitch up just slightly

but kept all the same details to it.

And then I wound up getting that job, which is bananas.

That's insane.

But they said the reason that I got it

was because I did something so different.

And if you really think about it,

that's the same reason that I got "Austin Powers".