Sitting lakeside at a scenic Boy Scout campground in Baton Rouge with Seann William Scott might have seemed a little too “band camp”-ish of a setting to meet with the guy who hit it big as American Pie‘s Steve Stifler. Except for the fact that I’d just watch Scott tear up the camp’s roads behind the wheel of The Dukes of Hazzard‘s legendary Dodge Charger, the General Lee, which placed the setting soundly in Hazzard County. Scott showed off his impressive driving abilities, then was aided by a stunt driver who controlled the car from the rooftop while the cameras inside the car captured Scott in the driver’s seat as Bo Duke.
Taking a break from spin-outs and 360s, Scott grabbed a bench alongside the lake and gave Hollywood.com the scoop on his much-anticipated new film.
You really wanted to play this part. What was it about it that appealed to you?
Seann William Scott: “It wasn’t that I was a big fan of the show, I mean I was, I just thought it would make for a really cool movie. It wasn’t like a buddy comedy, but about two guys who are good friends and I like that they were best friends from the beginning and crazy. I thought it could make a really cool movie set in the South with family. The crew was very familiar with these characters and as long as long as it wasn’t tongue and cheek, they really went for it, and they expressed to me that they wanted it to be like Smokey & The Bandit and The Blues Brothers. A more Southern rock, cool movie.”
Did you have a “Holy s**t!” moment, where you went a little too far driving the General Lee?
Scott: “Yeah, when I was training with it. It’s a whole different thing and I didn’t have any experience with it, which was a good thing, because I didn’t develop any bad habits. I didn’t think I was really good or anything so I started at ground zero and took it very seriously, which in fact was the approach to this film–the driving. If you have all this great stuff and can’t see anyone do it, it’s just not the same. I was training with Bobby Ore, who teaches the Department of Defense how to drive, and I would finish the day drenched in sweat because I’m not used to putting my body in those types of situations. Going that fast and putting the car in a 360. Those were the ‘Holy s**t!’ moments for me, but now I pretty much know how to work the car.”
Bo has a very personal relationship with the General Lee, including talking directly to the car?
Scott: “Who doesn’t talk to their car? Have you ever seen the Pimp My Ride show on MTV? These guys are in love with their cars. It’s like ET and Elliot.”
Did you have a model of the General Lee when you were a kid? Or a Catherine Bach poster?
Scott: “No, I don’t think I had a Catherine Bach poster but I know a lot of my friends desecrated those. Jay’s got a good story if you see him. It’s actually quite disturbing, I don’t think you could put it on your Web site. But I had the shirts and maybe the lunch box. I was just obsessed with the show. That was one of the shows I watched every Friday at 8:30. I was a huge fan, but I don’t think I’m funny like John Schneider.”
What makes Bo Duke different from Luke?
Scott: “At first, there was really no difference when it was written and that was a problem. I really wanted to drive the car because I thought it would be really fun. And I wasn’t going to do the movie without Johnny. The studio suggested a couple of people and I had never met Johnny but I thought he would be perfect. The team clicked for this movie because we’re both a little unpredictable, we haven’t really haven’t done things in the same genre, well Johnny has a bit. I just thought this would be cool if they did this right–really fun and wild and crazy.”
Is Johnny really as crazy as his image leads you to believe? Any pranks on set thus far?
Scott: “No, no. He’s a really great guy. I didn’t know anything about him before, probably the same stuff any other guy knew. But he’s a really, really good guy and really smart and funny. He knows that his audience likes to see him do stunts, and he does them well, so he did all of his stunts. There were only a couple of things the studio wouldn’t let him do, but he fought it. Pranks? In the very beginning he threw a salt shaker at my b***s, and that was pretty much it. When I’m getting into the General Lee, he’ll always stick something near my ass and then I can feel it and he goes ‘You owe me.'”
And tell us about working Jessica.
Scott: “She’s a great girl. We don’t have many scenes together, but she’s a really good girl. She’s really sweet and is doing a great job and she’s a total natural. I guess I underestimated the amount of attention with her during this movie because I didn’t know her very well. but it’s exciting, once we started and realized she had such a huge audience. What she brings to this film and she’s just a really good girl.”
You also work with some bona fide legends: Willie Nelson and Burt Reynolds.
Scott: “The director did an amazing job in casting this film. Willie’s the nicest guy on the planet and just exudes kindness. He just stands there and smiles. I’m sometimes afraid to say anything to him because he’s so nice. Burt’s the same way, but he’s really surreal because I grew up watching his films. He’s a really nice guy and has so many great stories. Especially playing Boss Hogg. People that love the show will not be disappointed at all. They will be blown away. I’ve never been so excited about a film I’ve done. I think everything we’ve done is just spot on and I think it’s going to be huge. With Burt Reynolds playing Boss Hogg, he’s that villain that’s cool, weird and hip.”
American Pie‘s Stifler has become an iconic idiot for an entire generation. Do people ever come to you and start quoting Stifler-isms to you?
Scott: “It’s weird, I think. It’s a nice compliment because it makes me feel as if I did my job. It’s interesting because coming here outside of L.A., especially in college towns, you understand how big that franchise was and what a great opportunity it was. I never looked at it negative thing, because if I thought that was all I can do then I guess I would be in trouble, but the advantage is that I had that audience to go see it. I think this role as Bo is a little more off than the American Pie guy. People come up to me all the time and do the dance from ‘American Wedding.’ And I always hope I wasn’t too disturbing.”
What do you most want to steal from this set when you leave?
Scott: “The car, man! I’m driving it back. They can afford it, I’m driving it home. I might paint the American flag on top and drive it home.”
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Big City Bo After the Film
Seann William Scott knows what he’s in for. Sure, he’s going to get asked the usual Dukes of Hazzard questions, about what it was like to work with Jessica Simpson, how many stunts did he really do, did he love the original show, and on and on like that. But after seeing the film’s blooper reel end credits, he also knows that one topic is almost sure to come up: the frequent guest appearances of Johnny Knoxville’s testicles. But we’ll get to that…
Did you get to share any of Knoxville’s imported Kentucky moonshine?
Scott: “Of course Knoxville thinks of giving moonshine as a wrap gift. Like a moron I take a huge gulp of it. I think I was drunk for a week. It tastes–there’s girls here–but I was going to say it tastes like ass. Just awful, like fire. If you run out of gasoline you can use moonshine to run your car. It’s hard core.”
How much of the driving in the final film ended up being you?
Scott: “I did a lot. I’m not going to say I did it all. Not going to say I did the jumps. Bobby Ore, the NASCAR car driver, he was the guy who actually put the car on two wheels in our film…One of the trickier things to do is to drive the car fast on a dirt road. Because of the gravel you’re just constantly fishtailing, and if you lose control of the car you’re going to crash into a tree. I think it works really well. You can see pieces of me doing it, and that combined with the great stunt drivers was great.”
Did you get any stunt tips from Burt “The Bandit” Reynolds?
Scott: “Did Johnny tell you this yet? Burt is the kind of guy…At some point he had a bad injury, and he blew out his eardrums, maybe one eardrum. So he had told us he had to be in his house in Florida and have all the windows blackened because he’s so sensitive to light and sound, and now, when he tells a story, he starts to talk normally and eventually he’s like [whispers inaudibly]. And Johnny and I would be concerned. [whispers] ‘Johnny, what’s he saying?’ ‘I don’t know. What’s he saying?’ And then Burt’s like ‘So what do you think?’ And I’m like ‘Ah, that’s hilarious. So good.’ And he’s like ‘I was telling you about how my grandma died.’ [Seann makes a horrified face]. And then he’s like ‘Gotcha.’ Oh man, Burt!”
Any mishaps jumping into the car window?
Scott: “Yeah, I did. It’s a small window. Did John Schneider get hurt? It was really hard. I only jumped into the car once, because I banged my knee up, my shin. The first time I slid on the hood, they’d greased it all up and I just slid past and fell on my ass. That was embarrassing. So then I got that down, but jumping into that little window? That was awful. All I could think was ‘I’ve gotta do yoga after this.’ I just didn’t do it very well, but Johnny was good at it.”
Did you ever get your own General Lee to drive back to L.A.–?
Scott: [annoyed] “I didn’t get one. Isn’t that lame?”
If you reach a certain gross at the box office, can’t you demand one?
Scott: “If this movie does well, then I’m gonna be pissed. But then I thought ‘I don’t know where I’m gonna drive it. I don’t want to drive it around. I don’t know how good of an idea it’s gonna be. It’s a cool car. And if I had it, I’d put the American flag on it. But still, it’s such a nice car, if I had it, it’d get ripped off. Hey, I’d steal it from somebody.”
Do you think of yourself as a comedian?
Scott: “Unh-uh. I don’t really think of myself as funny at all. I didn’t hate the funny kids in high school because they got the girls, but it certainly bugged me because I couldn’t tell a joke to save my life. I always wanted to do something like ‘Chopper,’ and when I started out in comedy I was like I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I’m just gonna use people and experiences. I think I can do drama a lot better.”
You are usually the butt of your own jokes.
Scott: “I don’t really like comedy that puts other people down, even though the American Pie guy was like that. What I thought worked was that the guy who put down was kind of insecure, and made fun of himself. Like The Office on the BBC. It’s one of my favorite things. That guy is my favorite actor in the world. What he did was so great. That was a guy who could have said really inappropriate things, but deep down really made fun of himself. That’s the kind of thing I really find endearing.”
From the blooper reel, we see that Johnny showed you his b***s.
Scott: “A lot.”
And he sexually assaulted you while you were hanging upside down?
Scott: “A lot.”
What else did he subject you to?
Scott: “Just nudity. A lot of nudity. I was working out quite a bit so I think he wasn’t too into doing something physical to me, but he always showed his testicles to me. And he’d switch it up: sometimes he’d have the right one out, and sometimes he’d have the left one out. I’d literally be driving the General Lee and just thinking ‘Okay we’ve got this big stunt we’ve got to do, and if I screw this up I’m smashing this car into a camera, a person, another car, a tree…’ And he’d be like ‘Seann…lookee here’ [mimes showing his testicles], and I’d be like ‘Johnny, I’m trying to focus here, man.’ He’d say ‘I was just trying to see if you looked, and you looked.’ It would be like every day, he would do something like that.”
Do you do anything to get him back?
Scott: “Nothing. That guy’s had everything happen to him. You don’t want to start that game with Johnny Knoxville. He’s been electrocuted, he’s been shot, cut. Everything. What could I do that hasn’t happened to him yet?”
