Michelle and Jim: Together at Last

On a sunny California beach day, we interviewed the young stars of the raunchy new comedy American Pie 2 on the grounds of the beautiful Malibu beach house that singer Olivia Newton John has put on the market for 20 million dollars! Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Alyson Hannigan (who plays Michelle, the band geek in the film) joined us first.....

Alyson: Wow, what a house!

Teenhollywood.com: Could you buy it?

Alyson: Uh, that would have to be after American Pie 12 or Buffy 87 or something.

Backstory: Earlier in the day a stray seagull had dive-bombed our small interview group and left large "deposits" on several journalists (luckily I wasn't one of them).

Jason Biggs joined us and the first thing he said was, "How's the bird shit?" I thought, oh my God, the "pooing" incident is now legendary! One of the journalists had a very fancy tape recorder/palm pilot/calculator/e-mail thingie and Jason kept examining and eyeing it.

Alyson: Did you know that he's a kleptomaniac? You might wanna put that away.

Teenhollywood.com: Alyson, you have more to do this time and you have a few really risque lines. Do you enjoy doing that?

Alyson: Hell, yeah! How do you think they picked me? This movie is definitely my sense of humor. If I weren't a part of it, I'd definitely be the first in line to see it. I think I could out-gross the boys.

Jason: It's true. Not so much me... well, a little.

Teenhollywood.com: What was it like for everyone to get back together this time?

Jason: We all sort of met the idea of a sequel with some hesitation. We were a little skeptical but it was a pleasantly surprising script, excellent script by Adam Herz and (knowing that) the whole cast was coming back, made it most appealing. So it was a great reunion of sorts. We've all gone off and been very busy the last couple of years. Some of us have been able to keep in touch, others haven't but we all came back and had so much fun.

Teenhollywood.com: Have some of you changed? Has stardom had an impact on the way you work this time around?

Alyson: I pointed out that today we were doing a photoshoot for Newsweek and the main difference is that if this was a photo shoot for the first movie there would be about 4 people standing around behind the photographer. Now, it's about 40.

Jason: A big crew of people. Hey, those are our people.

Alyson: Our huge entourage.

Jason: I don't think that we've all changed for the worse in the sense that we're coming now with egos and bringing a lot more annoyances to the table but rather we've grown up because of American Pie and its success. With all of us working so much now, we've grown up in the business and are a little more in tune to how the business works now so we've changed. We aren't as wet behind the ears, or as naïve.

Alyson: And with that comes stuff that we might not have seen in the first one. We're more aware of what this business is and people can do with that information what they want. They can take advantage of it and manipulate it or not. They can be complete divas...'okay, I want everybody to get me coffee right now' and we're all gonna wait. Or you can try to keep your head on straight and try to be normal.

Teenhollywood.com: Is there more pressure in a movie like this, Alyson, to do nude scenes or sexy scenes.

Alyson: Well, luckily my career is not based on my body. B-O-D-Y (not bawdy). I play the very quirky sidekicks, the off-beat characters. I'm not the "boobs" in the movie.

Jason: But how hot is she? She's hot.

Alyson: Thank you. The pressure's a lot less for me than somebody who would be typed in that role, the Shannon Elizabeth-type body. So I don't feel that pressure. I don't think, oh wow, I've really gotta do this love scene and bare all.

Jason: Plus she had a great leading man.

Teenhollywood.com: Jason, there is a lot of wild bumbling around, physical comedy in this film. Did you choreograph that or just make it up?

Jason: It just happened. I just did it.

Alyson: It comes naturally to him.

Jason: Physical comedy is my favorite thing in the world to do. In the first one, I got to be involved in some pretty outlandish scenes and I'd be lying to you if I said that on the day of filming the pie I wasn't nervous and scared and questioned a little of what I was about to do. Once I went for it and left my inhibitions aside and saw the success of not only the scene but the film as a whole, it made me more comfortable and eager this time around, to take it to a new level. Upon reading Adam's script and realizing that he did take it to a new level, and seeing the risks that I would take, I was excited. I was psyched. The crazy glue scene in particular, I'm most proud of that. (As far as choreographing that scene), I was given parameters of space and time pretty much. Where I needed to be. I just did it. J.B. Rogers (director) was great about letting me do my thing and it just took on a life of its own. I choreographed it.

Teenhollywood.com: Jason, you have to kiss Sean William Scott (as a joke). How was that?

Jason: (laughing) So amazing. He was soft...I'm sorry.

Teenhollywood.com: Who was better Sean or Alyson?

Jason: My kiss with Sean was not a real kiss. In the scene, I was making out with him as a guy who was just doing it to see naked chicks. So that's different than kissing Alyson which was obviously more emotional and heartfelt. Everyone: awwwwwww.

Alyson: Plus he had kissed Sean so many times before we shot that...it wasn't that special. We would walk in the make-up trailer every morning and they were making out. No, no, no. This is part of the work. (kidding).

Teenhollywood.com: How do you think your characters have grown in this new film?

Jason: Thematically the movie centers around growing and learning. Our relationship grew very nicely in this one.

Alyson: Yeah, that was the big draw for me.

Teenhollywood.com: All the girls were rooting for you, Alyson.

Alyson: Yea!!! That's what got me back. (At first) I didn't see a reason for my character to come back and then when I saw the development of their relationship (Jim and Michelle), it touched me.

Teenhollywood.com: The relationship between Jim and his dad is touching as well as being kind of bizarre. Did you work on that?

Jason: It was really there in the script. It's more Adam (the writer) and Eugene (Levy) than me. Yeah, that relationship was really well developed. In the first one it was just sort of sweet but more about dad walking in and finding Jim in awkward positions. An awkward father/son relationship. This time we get to talk about it and there's a great scene when he takes me home from the hospital. It's such a great moment. Jim says, I don't know why I keep getting into these messes but you've been cool. (Then dad breaks the "moment" with a great one-liner....)

Teenhollywood.com: Was it great working with someone like Eugene Levy as your dad?

Jason: He is a comedic genius. The guy is master of timing and facial expressions and delivery and he's definitely taught me so much. And combined, first and second movies, we only worked together maybe 6 or 7 days but one of my toughest jobs in the movie was keeping a straight face around him and just trying to hold my own with him because he's amazing.

Teenhollywood.com: A "Buffy" question. What about the show changing TV networks, how has that been, Alyson?

Alyson: I'm very happy with it. It's given us so much more energy and it sort of feels as if we're starting a new show after 100 episodes. That's a gift.

Teenhollywood.com: How are you going to explain the show's finale?

Alyson: There's always a way to bring somebody back. That was planned whether we changed networks or not.

Jason: Who died?

Alyson: Buffy.

Jason: Buffy died? I'm sorry, she knows. I don't really watch the show. I'm sorry.

Alyson: He can't handle our show.

Jason: I can't watch it. I get too excited if I see Alyson. Drives me nuts.

Alyson: It feels as if we're starting over. We went to a press junket for UPN and it was like we haven't done this since the first season. We've been picked up for 2 years and we're all under contract for that long. If it stays a quality show, I'll stay with it.

Teenhollywood.com: Is Willow still a witch discovering her sexuality?

Alyson: She's discovered it. She's in there. That's a relationship!

Teenhollywood.com: Jason, you said you were nervous with the original pie scene. Is it in your contract that you will only do or show so much?

Jason: No. The pie had it's own contract. I pride myself in being a comedic actor who'll do just about anything for a laugh. If it's funny, I'll do it, whatever....it's my (butt). If it works, if people laugh at it, if I agree with it, I'll do it. If I don't agree with it, even if it's just a line reading I'll say something. I'm pretty open-minded. On this movie, the creative team, we all work so closely together. We knew our characters so well and coming back, I felt like we had a lot more freedom this time around because we know everyone so well. Our advice and opinions were listened to and often heeded.

Teenhollywood.com: Jason, some of your films haven't been as successful...

Jason: You can say it. Go ahead...tanked....

Teenhollywood.com: Do you get bothered or just go on?

Jason: You can't help but be bothered, of course, not to the point where I really let it get to me but you don't go into a game to lose. When you don't win it's upsetting but if you played well, you should be happy. The most important things I look at is did I have fun making the movie and am I proud of my performance. I'm proud of my performance on everything I've done.

Teenhollywood.com: You're doing something really dramatic now, Prozac Nation.

Jason: It was great, a nice change for me. It was hard. I felt more self-imposed pressure on that because it was different for me. I feel like I'm establishing myself well in comedies and this is hopefully going to be big for me and open up windows of opportunity. It was tough but fun.

Teenhollywood.com: Were either of you geeks in high school?

Alyson: I think everyone is a geek at heart really. Most people are. I play them in movies. I don't fit into a mold. In high school I did not fit in. I was friends with a lot of different cliques but I wasn't part of any one of them. I think you can label it "geek" but I call it individuality.

Jason: The first two years of high school I was working so my social life was relatively non-existent so that kinda sucked and made me an outcast. But the latter part of high school...my unemployed part of high school, I reaped the benefits socially a little bit more than I did early on. It was a small high school, 99 people in my graduating class so it wasn't like there were cliques. It all evens out.

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Interviewer and writer Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.