Seann William Scott has been making us laugh in iconic TV shows and movies for nearly three decades now, and he has no plans of stopping anytime soon.
In anticipation of the second season of Shifting Gears, the ABC sitcom Scott stars in alongside Tim Allen and Kat Dennings, the American Pie actor sat down with DECIDER to chat about his role in the show and how it has completely reshaped his vision of the industry.
“I just had really no idea how much fun it was going to be,” he said of his initial hesitancy to take the series. “Going to work now — I don’t even want to call it work — not only do we just go in and have fun and laugh, but then I’m going to be done in time to go see my daughter at school. I mean, that’s such a gift.”
In the series — which follows Riley (Dennings) and her two children as they move in with her conservative father, Matt (Allen), following her divorce — Scott plays Gabe, a mechanic at Matt’s Los Angeles-based auto body shop. Gabe also happens to be one of Riley’s best friends — and perhaps more as the Season 1 finale saw him confessing he has feelings for her — and is constantly navigating being in the middle of the feuding father and daughter.
For Scott, a sitcom was not exactly on his list of bucket list projects, but it was the cast of The Righteous Gemstones that convinced him to go for it. In the fourth and final season of the Danny McBride HBO comedy, Scott appeared as Corey Milsap, the childhood friend of the Gemstones and son of Lori Milsap (Megan Mullally), whose storyline takes a wild turn in the series finale. No spoilers on The Righteous Gemstones ending, but we can say the cast is at least partially responsible for getting Scott to take part in the ABC comedy.
“My agent called me and said, ‘Hey, there’s a sitcom shooting in LA,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve never thought about a sitcom,’ and then he was like, ‘It’s with Tim Allen,’ and I was like, ‘Okay, I love Tim Allen, he’s a legend,'” he said.
Scott also added that it was the approval from McBride, Edi Patterson, and the rest of the Gemstones clan — including The Conners and Roseanne alum John Goodman –that served as the final kick in the butt he needed to sign onto Shifting Gears.
“The cast on Gemstones, I was like, ‘Hey, this thing, this amazing show came around,’ They were like, ‘Do it, you’ve got to do. If you want to be a dad, you want to, like, have time with your kid, it’s the best,” he said.
Well, the rest is history. Except for whatever’s going on with Gabe and Riley in Season 2 of Shifting Gears, that’s pure chemistry. While Season 1 ended with things left hanging in the air between them, Season 2 could see the two crazy kids exploring something more than friendship, even if it does put their solid core at risk.
Fans will just have to tune into Shifting Gears Season 2 to see if anything comes of the confession and if this friendship blossoms into something not so platonic.
Shifting Gears Season 2 premieres Wednesday, Oct. 1 at 8 p.m. ET. Episodes stream the next day on Hulu.
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