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Seth Green's work on TV is nothing short of prolific, however, his role as Buffy the Vampire Slayer's werewolf Oz is perhaps remembered as one of his most iconic. That said, it was also one of the longest gigs in his very storied career, so as you can imagine, it was difficult scheduling filming it in between everything else he was doing. In fact, says Green, there was one schedule dispute that made it all the way up to WB legal.

Green is the guest on the most recent episode of Buffy co-star Charisma Carpenter's podcast, The Bitch is Back, which dropped February 24. During the discussion (which you can hear on the linked Patreon above), the co-stars recounted the extremely long, "12 to 17" hour days that filming Buffy required, as well as the fact that they were "absurdly underpaid," because of WB being a "threadbare offshoot" of a "defined cable outlet."

Naturally, Green wanted to do more with his acting career, but that was a lot easier said than done.

"I called Joss [Whedon, series creator] at the end of that second season," explained Green, "And said, 'Hey man, I got offered these two movies. I got offered Knockaround Guys - which is this movie I got to do with Barry Pepper and Vin Diesel and John Malkovich and Dennis Hopper - and it was a big deal. It was the guys that wrote Rounders were directing their first movie. And the script was incredible. They wanted me to play this [...]  fuck up character that causes the controversy."

"And at the same time," the Family guy voice legend continued, "I got offered Rat Race, which was Jerry Zucker movie, [with ] one of the guys that made Airplane, some of the most important comedy ever and they're building this movie; they asked me to be in it. It's got Cuba Gooding Jr, Whoopi Goldberg; it's got Rowan Atkinson and John Cleese. I was like, 'I need to do these movies.'"

From our lucky (?) position in the future, reader, we of course know that Green was able to be in both movies. But it took a lot of grief to get him there.

"So I called Joss," Green said, "And I was like, 'Each one of these productions is like a two-month production. if we look at this 22 episode order, we can chart exactly where Oz is not here. [...]  You don't even need to pay me as a regular if you want to bring me back to a guest star contract. The money isn't the issue. I want to be able to keep doing Buffy, I feel like there's a path for us to do it, and I also want to do these movies. Can't you let me out the way that they let Clooney out to make Batman even though he was a serious regular on ER.'"

“And?” asked Carpenter.

"No," Green said was the response. "He just really didn’t want to do it. It got down to that - it got down to lawyers. It got down to the studio."

"Are these your representatives making these calls, or are you?" Carpenter asked, asking if Buffy's creator, Joss Whedon, was "accessible in that way"

"He was to me at that point," said Green. "I felt like we were friends then. That's the thing -  I know I had a different relationship with him then a lot of people did, but it was because I saw him out earlier as a writer. and I guess I considered myself a different kind of involved in this industry. By the time I got on that show, it wasn't my first show. I wasn't thinking about it as an actor exclusively, I was like still shaping the direction of my own career and choosing my allies and potential people to avoid."

"So I called him directly when it got to that point," continued Green. "Where he was like, 'Hey there's really no way for you to do these movies. You have to stay here exclusively and do this plot that we're going to do.' I said, 'Well, you know, I hear you on that. But also this is what we talked about doing last season.' And I spent like 22 episodes in scenes with nine people to essentially say, 'I don't know guys, I think Buffy is right.'"

"You don't even need this character in this place," Green wrapped up, "This season's about the mayor; this season's about Faith; there's all these other things that are happening. And that's cool, but give me the space to do other stuff rather than feel obligated to find a place for Oz to be in the background [...] I'm like let's change this contract because that's what's important to me."

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale is slated to premiere on Hulu sometime in 2026. 

Sink your teeth into the Buffyverse with Popverse's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel watch order. Then, become a Watcher in your own right by learning the history of the Buffy franchise and pondering its future with Disney. It's enough to keep you up all night... provided you don't have slaying of your own to do.