Seth Green talks ‘Holidays’, ‘It’, ‘Buffy’ & ‘Howard the Duck’ in our exclusive interview

Holidays arrives on DVD this week in the UK. The film is the latest horror anthology movie, though this time rather than concentrating purely on Halloween like many others, it instead gives all our favourite holidays a macabre makeover. Directors include Starry Eyes duo Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kölsch as well as Some Kind of Hate‘s Adam Egypt Mortimer and Kevin Smith. Smith’s daughter Harley Quinn Smith, actress Clare Grant and her husband Seth Green form the on-screen talent.

Seth Green has been acting since childhood and has, unlike some of his peers, managed to maintain a healthy working career. He’s probably best known for his stint as werewolf Oz in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but one of his first credits is in TV series It. He also played Scott Evil in the Austin Powers franchise and has voiced Family Guy‘s Chris Griffin for years. Not content to keep himself confined to the actor box, he’s also a writer, director and producer, co-running his own animation studio. The studio is responsible for such shows as Robot Chicken and SuperMansion.

In Holidays, Green pops up in the Christmas segment. He plays Pete Gunderson, a desperate father who goes to extreme lengths to get the must-have virtual reality device for his son. Once unwrapped, he finds himself haunted by the device, which seems determined to expose his dastardly deed. Much like the rest of the stories his segment offers an interesting dark spin on one of our favourite holidays. We were lucky enough to speak with Seth earlier this week and he shared all about the project. We also chatted about everyone’s favourite holiday – Halloween, the forthcoming It movie, his Buffy days, and whether we’ll get a solo Howard the Duck film.

What was it about the Holidays project that interested you?

Well I’ve always loved anthologies from Creepshow to Twilight Zone. I’ve always liked when different filmmakers put a spin on a similar theme and compile it into a single project. This was an easy way to have a small commitment to something and yet still be a big part of it.

There have been a few anthology films recently, but they all focus on Halloween, was it the chance to mess with the other dates that hooked you? 

Well I love things that are culturally effective. I think you get the best kind of drama, or horror, or comedy, from things that are real and relate-able. The concept of Holidays is rarely exploited for horror or suspense. It feels like this was an interesting and unique idea. Also, the specific bit that I got to do was just really fun and toyed with the way that people are outwardly, versus their inward desires.

Your onscreen wife is played by your actual wife, was that fun to play?

It is. We’ve gotten to work together in other things, but not anything like this. I always enjoy working with her, I think Clare’s terrific.

Please tell me that the dynamic at home is different to your characters in the film… 

(Laughs) Yeah, neither one of us are actually like those characters. That made it even more fun to play.

Which holiday is your favourite? 

Halloween. I look forward to it all year. I really enjoy the run up to it and all the decorating. I also love, it’s this strange balance between being scared or unsafe, and still feeling safe, because its all a put on and not real. We as a culture get to explore our monster sides without it actually being dangerous or violent.

So what’s your costume of choice? 

It’s different every year. If I’m just handing out candy I’ll dress in something that’s really frightening. Like you can’t distinguish whether its a man or a woman, a child or an adult, just something that is off putting (chuckles) so people feel conflicted taking candy from me.

And your go to Halloween movie..?

Well there’s a lot of really great Halloween movies. My friend Mike Dougherty made the quintessential Halloween movie Trick ‘R Treat. We like to watch that. But you could always go for Halloween or The Exorcist. You can go classic like Creepshow.

Your character leaves it until the last minute to get a gift, is that something that you can relate to?

I try to think ahead in my life. I usually get gifts for people as I see them and then save them for whatever the occasion is rather than trying to hunt when the occasion comes.

Other than your own, which segment did you enjoy most?

Oh God, that horrible one with the little girls, the women in the masks. It was just creepy. It almost reminded me of a Harmony Korine movie. It just felt dirty and scary. (Laughs) I didn’t read any of the other segments when we had agreed to do it. Then after I’d shot the first day I was reading the other segments and I was just thinking ‘Oh my God! This is so insane!’

That Easter Bunny…

Yeah that Bunny is like… did you ever see Eraserhead? The movie Eraserhead, so just the way the creature’s in that are like ‘what am I even witnessing?’ I felt the same way (laughs) I like that. I like when people’s imaginations are let loose and they put it on film. Because whether or not you enjoy it you get to experience something that you couldn’t possibly have thought of.

Buffy ended thirteen years ago but it’s still talked about heavily, why do you think it still has so much resonance?

Well I’ve always just thought the show was brilliantly written. I thought the way that they demonstrated parables of being a teenager and growing up against mythological things. You have a girl losing her virginity that is played against the concept of the boy changing the second you have sex with him, instead he turns into an actual vampire. The cause and effect of your teenage choices are reflected in these incredibly unbelievable circumstances. It doesn’t feel like a Lifetime movie teaching you a lesson about life, and yet there are all these very delicate explorations of what it is to be young and what it is to grow up. To feel out of place but to find your family of friends. Then we’re in a day and age where technology allows us to watch things that were made fifty years ago as if they’ve just come out, and to enjoy them with a social circle regardless of how old you are or when you access it. I think that people always reflect on quality and I’ve always been very proud to be a part of that show because I think it’s just so good.

There have been a lot of books and comics continuing the lives of the characters, have you been keeping up with Oz? 

It’s been a minute since I read the comics. I was really excited with that season that they wrote immediately after the show ended. I learned about all of these places were my character went after he left Sunnydale. It’s been a while though, so I’m not up to date.

The last I heard he had a wife and kid in Tibet…

I always expected that Oz was going to go somewhere and study Eastern philosophy. It was really all about meditating, so him living in Tibet made a ton of sense for me. I was happy to have got married, he felt the type of guy that doesn’t always wanna be alone.

Everything’s getting a reunion show these days, would you be up for a return to Buffy? 

I’ve told Joss (Whedon) over and over again I’d work with him any time, any place on any thing. He’s one of those people that is not just a friend, I trust him implicitly with these kind of things. As an actor you just hope that you can really give yourself over to whoever you’re working with and trust them so you don’t have to think about what you look like, or what you sound like, you just allow them to govern everything under their vision. Whether it was Buffy or something else, I’d follow him anywhere.

You voiced Howard the Duck in Guardians of the Galaxy, is there any plan for that character to come back, maybe in his own film?  

There’s no plan for that now, and I would remind people that a lot of times a side character, a peripheral character assault if you will, is sometimes more satisfying in short form than in long form. Just to reflect on that I’d point everybody to each time – The Hulk, who is a phenomenal ensemble character, was attempted to be spun out into it’s own singular feature. The Hulk worked really well in an ongoing series that could explore the man not the monster. Whereas the movies were always trying to make The Hulk the star of the movie as the monster. The Hulk is so well served in a movie like The Avengers where it’s in short doses and you can really explore the character and how he interacts with the other characters. I don’t know if the same is true for Howard the Duck, but it’s hard to even compare, the last time Howard was in a movie, movies were so fundamentally different that you almost can’t even make the comparison between that movies success and whether or not a movie could work now. What I’m really getting at is I think Howard the Duck is a side character. I’m over the moon to get it in whatever form it takes, but I wouldn’t have any expectation of him having a stand alone feature. Maybe there’s some Marvel team-up where Howard and Rocket go on some adventures. That’s more likely I guess.

Like a space road movie…

Well you know that’s what the Howard comics were all about. Howard living in the city, and Howard off on insane galactic adventures, but it was always with other people.

It must be pretty cool having a Marvel film on the CV?

It was really cool. I think I was just in the right place at the right time. I’ve known James Gunn for a long time. The tag on that movie wasn’t obligated to connect to any of the other Marvel movies, and Disney had recently acquired the whole property as a result of buying Lucasfilm – they had access to Howard the Duck. It was just one of those funny things that I was in the right place at the right time. Gunn was like ‘Hey I’ve got this thing, do you wanna come do a line in the movie?’ and I was like ‘of course I do!’

Are you looking forwards to the IT film?

Yeah. I think people misunderstand it. When we shot the original it was a two-part mini-series. Each of those parts was almost two hours in itself. What they’re doing with the new film is this first movie they’re making is the entire saga of the kids. The adults don’t appear in it at all. My presumption is that they’ll make a second one that is the second story and all the adults. I love that book. It’s an incredible piece, it’s a great story. I’m very excited to see this new movie and what they’ve done with it. Things have changed so much in film-making in general in the last twenty years. The opportunity to see some things through a different lens with different actors, it’s like Shakespeare being performed over and over by different companies.

Why should viewers pick Holidays for their Halloween scare?

I think the movie is really scary. I think it is well twisted. There are a variety of stories in it and each one of them, whilst along the same kind of themes, are very different from each other. I don’t think anybody will be disappointed by this movie. You’ll get a good fright, you’ll get some psychological disturbance and so amazing visuals.

What have you got coming up next?

I guess nothing that’s ready to talk about. I’m a partner in an animation studio in the US. We’re producing things like Robot Chicken and SuperMansion. We’re developing a ton of stuff, but this year I’m developing projects that I can perform in and not just produce. I’m also really interested in focusing on acting.

You have done a lot of voice work and producing in the last few years, is it time to get back in front of the camera?

It didn’t even seem to me in my head like I was favouring one over the other. You just pursue the things you’re passionate about. Then you suddenly realise that you’d like to be passionate in another direction for a minute.

Holidays is out to buy and digitally download now.