It's a popular misconception, a reasonable one given how much of a geek he admits to being, but Seth Green -- who is the co-creator and co-star of "Robot Chicken" (which is celebrating both its third season on Adult Swim every Sunday night and second one on DVD every day), the voice of Chris on "Family Guy," and the star of such movies as "The Italian Job," the upcoming "Old Dogs," and the "Austin Powers" films -- isn't a huge gamer. Sure, he'll kick your butt at Tetris and Ms. Pac-man, but when it comes to new games, he's a total noob. Not that he doesn't know a good game when he sees one... or at least has someone who'll tell him it's a good game. Which, he told us recently, is how ended up as your pilot in BioWare and Microsoft's upcoming epic space RPG Mass Effect.



GameSpy: How did you get the role in Mass Effect?
Seth Green: It was really cool, it was just something that came my way. I get sent stuff all the time, and a lot of it is stuff I want nothing to do with, but every once in a while something comes along that's really fun and really cool.
GameSpy: What was it about the game that got you interested?
Seth Green: All of my buddies who know everything about games said that BioWare was an awesome company, that this was a hotly anticipated game, and that it was something they all wanted to play. So that was the first inclination for me that it was something I should pay attention to. Then, when I got to hear about the story and the gameplay, and got to see some of the designs and the demos, I knew it was going to be awesome. And that it would be something I'd want to play if I was any good at games.
GameSpy: Do you often ask your buddies for career advice?
Seth Green: Always. I have close friends whose advice I ask about a lot of stuff. If I'm having trouble making up my mind about something, or if I'm not as informed about something as they are, then I'll consult them and ask them what they think. "Is this a good idea? Is this good for me?" Everybody asks their friends for advice, don't they?
GameSpy: So are you really that bad at videogames?
Seth Green: I'm just f***ing terrible at them. I just haven't mastered the skills necessary to play games like this. That's the sad reality. But I did watch the demos of this game and thought, "Man, I wish I could figure out how to play this." And I sure as hell am going to try, but I anticipate a lot of sitting over my friends' shoulders and cheering them on as they play it.
GameSpy: You'd previously done the voice of Chris Griffin in the "Family Guy" game.
Seth Green: Well, that was sort of a gimme...
GameSpy: Of course. But did your work on that make you more amenable to doing Mass Effect?
Seth Green: It didn't really have anything to do with it. Doing a game isn't anything I was ever opposed to or was avoiding, it just wasn't something that had really come up much. I'd been asked about other games before but, I don't know, the timing or the content. This just seemed like it would be really cool.