LET'S FACE IT: Matthew Lillard plays a good weirdo. Who can forget his goofy slasher in "Scream" or his dorky kid from "She's All That?" With his gangly body and elastic features, the 32-year-old Californian may not yet be a household name, but as the live-action remake of the 1970s cartoon "Scooby-Doo" hits the big screen, he sighs: "From now until eternity, I will forever be known as Shaggy." We recently spoke with him:
Who was your favorite Scooby character as a kid?
A: Shaggy. Of course, Shaggy. He was great! The relationship between Shaggy and Scooby was why I tuned in. Plus, as a kid, if you saw a big monster coming after you, you'd run, too, and that's why I think everyone related to him.
Is your Scooby Doo pretty true to the original?
A: Yeah. That was one of the concerns going in is that we didn't want to jeopardize the tradition of the cartoon. You know, when you are dealing with an icon, you certainly want to do the best you can in honoring what people loved for, what, 30 years? So we do a big version of Scooby-Doo.
What was it like working with Scooby, the animated actor?
A: Scooby is a two-dimensional Great Dane.
Hey, that's not very professional ...
A: They took the original Scooby-Doo drawing and morphed 200 pictures between Scooby and a real Great Dane. Somewhere in the middle they developed a character. I think a lot of it has to do with what they did with his eyes. I mean, Scooby Doo, the whole thing was through his eyes.
How'd you develop chemistry with a character ... not there?
A: So much of acting is getting something back and when there's nothing coming back . . . it's simply the hardest thing I've ever had to do. You just take a leap of faith. You say, "This is where I'm putting Scooby-Doo," and you commit to a mark or an X. And you just do the best darn job you can.
So you auditioned to dead air?
A: Oh yeah. That's a funny story. Shaggy's voice is all basically on his break. So early on, when I hadn't really figured out how to do the voice yet, the only way I could find my break was to scream myself hoarse. So I was at the audition on a Saturday afternoon, sitting in my car and screaming to myself, "Ahhhh ahhhhhhhh." And the director walks by and knocks on the door and says, "Are you OK?" In the end we figured out how to do it without doing that but it's a funny story. I'm like "Oh my God, this guy thinks I'm a total freak."
How'd you pull it off?
A: It's my Shaggy secret. But I can tell you that to break down the walk, all you do is imagine flippers, like fins, on your feet and you kick them up. You slouch down, and you put strings on the end of your wrists like somebody's pulling you up. And you put a pork chop on the opposite wall and you just walk with your mouth leading to a pork chop. Or actually, to be true to the character, Shaggy -- Norville, his real name is Norville Rodgers -- he's a vegetarian. So you actually have to put a piece of corn or something.
A: If you lived in a cartoon world, which Scooby-Doo girl would you pick: Velma or Daphne?
I'd pick the Velmster. I think she's hot. She's got a naughty-secretary thing going on.
But poor Shaggy was never lucky with the ladies.
Shaggy never got any play. That's why it's great, the live-action version, because Shaggy gets the ladies. Suddenly Shaggy's a ladies man, the action hero. Shaggy is a ladies man, the action hero. For the first time in my life, I get the chick, and Freddie [Prinze Jr., as Fred] doesn't ... which is about time.
You've had a lot of wacky roles. Is that a conscious choice?
A: Listen, I'm out there hustling, trying to get a job. Now I'm at a place where I can be a little more selective. Hopefully, I can be a little less lackey and a little more movie-star.
No, no -- I said "wacky" ...
A: Oh, I thought you said "lackey"! I was like, "Wow, that was so mean. I'm Freddie Prinze Jr.'s lackey!" I'm really glad we cleared that up. ... I want to be "the Guy." I don't want to be "the Lackey." When I was younger, I relied more on my energy than my ability. Now, I still have that energy but I think I understand now how to work with a movie much better than I did when I was in "Hackers" running around screaming my head off. I hope to have more responsibility in my films, to be able to carry the film.
What would be the best thing about being a cartoon?
A: You can eat whatever you want and stay skinny your whole life. I think that'd probably be the best thing.
But you are already skinny!
My wife's having our first baby, a baby girl, on June 30 (since this interview, his baby girl arrived on June 13), and I have a sympathy baby now. I'm sitting in this pool and I keep jumping in the water hoping nobody can see my love handles.
