Despite many, many sequels and franchises filling up the cinemas these day, generally the originals will always be the best.
One such film was American Pie. The first was undoubtedly the best of a franchise that started so well but unfortunately just went further and further down hill thanks to some ill-advised spin-offs where the only recognisable character was Jim’s dad. Then again Jim’s dad is pretty cool…
Spin-offs aside, American Pie launched the careers of some of today’s most well-known actors. Seann William Scott, Alyson Hannigan, Mena Suvari and Jason Biggs, among others, all went on to bigger (if not always better) things. And they’re still at it almost 20 years later.
Here’s reminder of the coming age of tale:
One of the most memorable characters, however, was Paul Finch, a.k.a Sh*tbreak. The suave high-schooler who played golf and drank mochaccino. He also stole the show by sleeping with Stifler’s mum after his fool-proof plan to get a prom date massively backfired thanks to laxatives being put in said mochaccino.
Now, 19 years after the film came out – how time flies – Finch seems to have blossomed. After being the slightly weedy, nerdy kid in American Pie (he did everyone’s Latin homework and, alas, wasn’t one off the hench lacrosse players like Stifler and Oz), actor Eddie Kaye Thomas is all of a sudden catching the eyes of quite a few people.
In the time since playing the underdog Paul Finch, Eddie has gone on to star in the Harold & Kumar films, Family Guy, American Dad and, more recently, the TV series Scorpion.
And while some of the American Pie cast have also aged very well (hello Jim’s dad, again), good old Sh*tbreak seems to be turning the most heads these days.
Check him out at a recent Comic Con event:
And another:
Just one more for luck:
It’s a far cry from his Sh*tbreak days:
In an interview with Bello, Eddie spoke about what it’s like being recognised for a character as infamous as Finch.
He said:
I’d say someone calls me “Stifler’s mom”, probably averages to once a day. Sometimes it doesn’t happen every day, so it’ll happen twice on another day. More often than not, it’s just people thinking they know me, because they can’t really place where they recognize me from. It took me a few years to just tell them that it’s from American Pie.
People usually think I went to high school with them, or they’ll ask me where I grew up. I used to feel like I was bragging when I told them they knew me from American Pie, but I’ve realized that it just saves a lot of time to just tell them that right off the bat […] it’s just become part of my life.
Embrace it, Eddie. It’s obviously working wonders for you. I for one would love to sit down for a flask of delicious mochaccino with you. Cheers.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.