Anyone who's watched movies and TV shows in the last 24 years will know Green from the memorable characters he's played since the acting bug bit him at age six with a summer camp production of Hello Dolly. At eight, Green landed his first film assignment; a co-starring role in Hotel New Hampshire with Jodie Foster. And at 12, Green landed a leading role in Woody Allen's Radio Days. His acting credits steadily grew with roles in such films as Can't Buy Me Love, My Stepmother is an Alien, Pump Up the Volume, It, To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, Can't Hardly Wait, Josie and the Pussycats, America's Sweethearts, Rat Race, Knockaround Guys, Party Monster, The Italian Job, Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed and Without a Paddle. Most notably, Green impressed fans with his ongoing role as Dr. Evil's son Scott in the Austin Powers movies.
When he wasn't on the big screen, Green made a steady stream of guest appearances on such TV shows as "The Wonder Years," "Beverly Hills, 90210," "Mad About You," "The Drew Carey Show," "The X-Files," "That '70s Show," and "Will & Grace." Green soon became a fan favorite starring in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as Daniel "Oz" Osborne -- an indie rocker high school student by day and a teenage werewolf by night. Green also starred as one of the few human characters in the puppet comedy "Greg the Bunny." Most recently Green can be seen starring in NBC's "Four Kings." Green also lent his voice to such shows as "Batman: The Animated Series," "Crank Yankers," and currently as Chris Griffin in the animated show that refuses to be cancelled -- "Family Guy." Green and Matthew Senreich are also co-exec producing/directing/writing (with Green doing 35-60 voices each week) the hysterically funny stop-motion animated show, "Robot Chicken" on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim (Season One DVD available on March 28).
And if that wasn't enough, Green, with his childhood friend Hugh Sterbakov, created the comic book Freshmen for Top Cow Productions, which debuted, and sold out the first day of, the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con International, as well as selling out across the country the week of its debut. The complete collection of Freshmen debuts this April.
Green's first memory of being whisked to a galaxy far, far away happened not to long before he became a child actor. "I remember vividly being a four-year-old kid and being taken to the movie theater in 1978 and seeing all the desert scenes for Tatooine, and then I saw C-3PO and Artoo and thinking they were the most amazing things I'd ever seen," Green says. "I was so excited that there were toys of them so I could carry them in my pocket wherever I went. A New Hope was the first one I'd seen and of course I had never seen anything like that before. And when I saw The Empire Strikes Back, I was in for good."
"It was amazing storytelling, and it's a great movie that still holds up today," Green continues. "And it made me love everything about it. I just didn't connect with other kinds of movies like I did with Star Wars. Here was this fantastic adventure with all these aliens -- and not to mention the spaceships, and fighting with electric swords -- which are all the things a boy loves. Plus the film has good guys having to do crazy stuff to resist an ultimate evil. It's all really fun and appealing especially when you're a kid."
The films alone weren't the only muse for Green's young imagination. "I was totally the kind of kid who played with Star Wars toys. In fact, the way I learned all the names of the different characters happened by playing with the toys. That's why I know the characters that aren't even mentioned in the movies. The first toys that I got were R2-D2 and C-3PO, but I was super excited when I got my Boba Fett in the mail; then being really confused and furious when I got that letter that his rocket pack didn't fire because some kid shot himself in the face, though it wasn't exactly worded that way. I was so mad. At first, I thought it I was the only one who got that letter, so I called all my friends to complain about it."
"I think the original Boba Fett that I got as a kid is still my favorite," Green smiles. "I mean there were like six different versions of him that came out on different cards, but the very first one from the mail away was special. I still have one of those and I love it. I have a whole shelf of stuff that people can play with -- it's not all mint in the box like a museum or anything. I feel like toys are meant to be played with. I scope out other people's toy shelves too. You're supposed to do that in strangers' houses, right?"
Even though the bounty hunter is Green's pride and joy item, he does admit that other comic book and film characters caught his eye when he was a kid. "Star Wars was the bulk of my collection and then I got into the G.I. Joe line which was awesome to have something of compatible scale with my other action figures, so they all interacted," Green says. "My friends and I had really vivid imaginations and we would let a character be something other than it was, and make your own adventure."
