Let’s face it; high school reunions are a drag. You’re forced to interact with people you’ve long fallen out of touch with, many of them for good reason, and somehow you still feel the incessant need to impress them.
But one of the worst aspects of any high school reunion is the “What Have You Been Doing Since Graduation” game everyone plays. In fact, the only place high school reunions present any measure of entertainment value is in the movies. To wit, Universal is returning to the American Pie universe with the fourth film in the franchise: American Reunion. In preparation for this reunion, we thought it would be fun to check in and see what the students of East Great Falls class of 1999 have been doing since graduation. Given that they’re all movie stars, we’re assured their stories will be far more interesting than that of your salutatorian and his hardware store.
Ah, our beloved Jim. When he wasn’t making time with baked goods or horrendously misusing super adhesives, actor Jason Biggs managed to snag a pair of leading roles in 2000 that saw him reteam with his American Pie co-stars. He appeared alongside band geek Alyson Hannigan, as well as Freddie Prinze Jr., in Boys and Girls, and in Loser with Mena Suvari. Biggs then turned up in Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl co-starring with Ben Affleck and the late, great George Carlin. From that point on, he dotted a string of direct-to-video comedies with turns in such films as Eight Below and Over Her Dead Body.
Alyson Hannigan forever changed the way we would look at flautists, and not because of her musical talents. Outside of the American Pie franchise, Alyson Hannigan enjoyed a monumental level of success on television. She became an icon to an entirely different legion of geeks when she portrayed Willow on the Joss Whedon-created TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, based on the 1992 film. Currently, Hannigan stars on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, now in its seventh season.
Proving that some jocks do have a sensitive side, Chris Klein played the lovable Oz in the American Pie series. In addition to appearing in American Pie 1 & 2, his presence was sorely lacking in American Wedding, Klein starred in action flicks Rollerball and We Were Soldiers. In all honesty, my favorite Chris Klein roles were in films he landed both before and after his previous American Pie outings. His turn in Election, matching wits with a very perky, to the point of sociopathic, Reese Witherspoon was utterly hilarious. He also appeared in the 2006 American Idol-skewering farce American Dreamz from Pie director Paul Weitz.
The walking, talking, unchecked id of the American Pie franchise, Stifler (alias Seann William Scott) has had easily the most promising film career of any of his fellow East Great Falls alumni. His post-American Pie string of hits began with the his role in the first in another film franchise, Final Destination, and was followed by the stoner cult hit Dude, Where’s My Car?. He also scored big when he teamed up/butted heads with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the 2003 action comedy The Rundown. He’s also joined the still thriving Ice Age film series; voicing the rambunctious Crash. He recently starred in the hockey comedy Goon, which is generating a goodly amount of critical praise, and David Wain’s Role Models, which paired him with actor Paul Rudd.
Adorable, elfish Mena Suvari, who returns as Heather for this fourth installment, has been amassing a very interesting catalog of work since the first film in the franchise. In 1999, for example, American Pie wasn’t the only “American” film in which she appeared. She also played the haunting cheerleader in Sam Mendes’ Oscar-winning film American Beauty. She also co-starred with James Franco in the Nicolas Cage-directed Sonny as well as a very powerful seven-episode stint on Six Feet Under. Recently, in keeping with this particular theme, she also turned up in a couple episodes of American Horror Story.
