Matthew Lillard

Scooby-Doo

Interviewed by Jamie Russell

Do you eat as much as Shaggy?

Can anyone possibly eat as much as Shaggy? I don't actually because here's the secret, I'm 32 and I'm getting fat as I get older. My metabolism is not the same as it used to be and I don't have the luxury of running away from ghosts the whole time. The older I get the more worried about my ghost figure I become.

How did you get the part in the movie?

I begged. There's only so many tall, skinny, gangly funny guys in Hollywood! It just so happens that I was at a great time in my career when this movie came along. Freddie Prinze Jr and I had just started on "Summer Catch" and the executive was telling Freddie about what the summer slate for next year was and he said, "you know we're doing "Scooby-Doo"?" and Freddie leaned over this big table full of big scene people and said, "Dude, well that's Shaggy right there!"

Was it a family affair then, since you all knew each other?

Actually it was a great experience. So much of Hollywood is about who the people you work with are, and we'd kind of gone through all of that and so there was no attitude, no arrogance, no star-stuff. Just come and do the work.

Was it difficult playing a character who was already established?

It was a backwards way to go. In order to pay homage to the cartoon we had to find a way to create the cartoon in a three-dimensional form and yet stay true to the original.

What was your favourite stunt in the movie?

I'd never ridden a quad bike before so I got out there and they taught me how to do that. Actually the scariest thing about riding a quad bike was having Isla Fisher on your back screaming - she was so terrified of the bad guy chasing us. She's such a wuss.

Did you watch Scooby-Doo on TV when you were a kid?

Yep, my mom and dad both worked so I'd come home from school like any normal American kid and sit down with a bag of Doritos and turn on the TV. So I had a relationship with the cartoon, I kind of grew up with it. It's kids' first look at storytelling and mysteries and ghost stories.