American Pie is one of the most successful comedy movies of all time. But actor Seann William Scott was paid extremely low for his role as Steve Stifler.
In 1999, Seann William Scott landed his most successful role yet as Steve Stifler in American Pie.
The star was at the top of his game — skyrocketing into the public eye.
His role in the American Pie series became firmly cemented.
It was one of the most iconic in pop culture.
Since then, Seann seemed to have fallen off the face of the Earth.
Where is he now?
In 1996, he made his first on-screen appearance as Moondoggie on The WB’s sitcom Unhappily Ever After.
It created the launchpad for much bigger things.
American Pie…
Seann bagged the supporting role of Steve Stifler in the first movie of what would become a hugely successful franchise.
The movie grossed $235 million worldwide in revenue. That’s some major bucks!
Seann reprised his infamous role once again.
American Pie 2 came in 2001…
Followed by American Wedding in 2003, which finally saw Stifler get his own back on Finch.
He didn’t just enjoy success with American Pie.
Throughout the ’00s, Seann became something of a big-screen native.
The Minnesota native starred in the cult classic Final Destination…
As well as starring alongside Ashton Kutcher in Dude, Where’s My Car?
His notable success was in Role Models alongside Paul Rudd.
Seann then faded into the background.
The once-prolific actor slowed things down a lot in the ’10s.
And work seemed to dry up for the star.
However, the actor made some of his own confessions about why this is…
The actor tried numerous times to get away from his “funnyman” style character and prove his serious acting credentials.
For instance, in 2014, he appeared in Courteney Cox’s directorial debut, Just Before I Go.
Unfortunately for Seann, critics weren’t so kind, with Variety describing the movie as a “dismal, tonally disastrous small-town farce.”
Many credit Seann’s lack of success following American Pie as being typecast.
At his peak, Seann was cast as the goofy heartthrob high schooler, party boy, or college jock, despite being in his late 20s and 30s when he took most of those roles.
He has struggled to get away from that persona.
In 2010, he told MTV News that his role as Steve Stifler may have hindered his career: “I had so much fun and loved the character, [but] I don’t want to be known as that character forever.”
Sadly, it can be hard to get Hollywood to take you seriously once you’ve been pigeonholed, so to speak.
Since then, Seann has become an increasingly private person.
For example, he’s one of the few Hollywood stars without an Instagram profile.
In March 2011, the actor entered rehab.
According to TMZ, the actor voluntarily entered a treatment facility for unspecified health and personal issues.
He stayed for thirty days before heading off to film the final installment of American Pie.
While promoting sequel Goon: Last of the Enforcers in 2017…
The actor was asked by Yahoo Movies why it had taken 3 years for him to appear in front of the cameras again.
“I’m not a guy who’s ever had tons of offers. I’ve always had to fight for an opportunity. And so it’s a risk,” he said
“Sometimes you go, ‘OK, there’s a lot of potential for this to be good. I just have to go in and try to do the best that I can.’ And that’s all you do. But I also don’t want to do a bunch of movies that I know are gonna suck,” he said.
“In the beginning of my career, they were making way more comedies, there was a real appetite for comedy.
“Recently, there have been a lot of really good comedies that have come out, but they’re just not doing [well] at the box office. They’re not making as many as they did at the beginning of my career … I had more opportunities,” Seann said.
If a fifth American Pie was to ever be greenlit, the actor told Movieweb in 2019: “I love those guys so much. And like, obviously, if I was worried about being typecast, I wouldn’t have done four of those movies.
“I just think it’s always funny to see Stifler at different stages of his life. So to see him in his mid-forties just sounds really funny to me.”
As for whether that would actually happen?
He said: “I don’t know. I haven’t really heard anything.”
It has been recently revealed what Seann’s cheque for the original American Pie movie looked like.
LADbible reports that the actor was paid only $8,000 for his starring role, which was very low considering how much it cost for the movie to be made and how much it made at the box office.
The movie reportedly cost $11M to make and made $235M dollars at the box office.
Speaking to Rick Eisen, Seann, who worked only 6 days on the movie, thought $8,000 was a lot of money at the time.
The forty-six-year-old actor said: “That was a lot of money at the time for me. Ch-ching!”
He added: “Afterward, I bought a used Thunderbird for like $5,000, or maybe $6k. I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, baby.'”
“I don’t know what happened to the other $2k, because then I ended up having to work at the LA Zoo as a churros guy. So maybe it was even less than $8k.”
Luckily for Seann, the movie was an instant success, and 3 sequels came out after.
