What you need to know
American Pie centers on Jim, played by Jason Biggs, and centers on one of the most infamous scenes of the era, as a group of awkward high school friends navigate sex, friendship, and embarrassment.
Decades later, there are still moments when he chases Biggs, like going straight to his home. On a recent episode of The Julia Cunningham Show on Sirius
“They kept hearing about American Pie and pie and[asking]me, ‘Dad, what do you do with pie?’ And I had to have a conversation with my oldest son,” Biggs explained on the show. “I actually showed him the scene. Jenny and I talked about it and said, ‘We want to move forward with this.'”
Lexi Moreland/WWD via Getty
Director Biggs said the decision didn’t come out of the blue, especially since the film still presents itself in unexpected and sometimes jarring ways.
He said, “As my family was walking down the street in New York, the boys were ahead of me and thankfully they didn’t hear me, but one guy ran past all of us and literally yelled back at me, ‘Hey, it’s pie.’ So I immediately saw the boys.” “They didn’t listen to him, thank God.”
But Biggs ultimately decided to have the scary conversation with the tween and chose to handle the situation thoughtfully.
“This is my version of sex talk, right?” he explained. “It’s about how much you want to hear from your friends and other people at school, and how much control you want to have over the narrative. That’s literally what was happening in American Pie.”
universal
In the end, Biggs decided the best course of action was to approach it with honesty and a little humor, even if it meant reliving one of the most awkward moments of his career in front of an audience of 12 people.
“In a way, I had little control over the story because he was guessing it,” Biggs said, “but he wasn’t completely sure. But I wanted to ask him first. I said, ‘What do you think is going to happen?’ I was just curious, and he actually guessed correctly.”
“He was embarrassed to say it, very shy. But I thought, ‘Okay, let me show you. Let me show you what happened,’ so I showed him the scene, and he kept laughing.”
Still, the moment wasn’t completely painless. “He definitely looked a little uncomfortable,” Biggs said. “He said I was a good actor.”
Universal/Getty
In 2017, Biggs told PEOPLE that he was already thinking about how the infamous American Pie scene in which he is caught eating a freshly baked pie in the kitchen by his father, played by Eugene Levy, might someday come to life in his home.
“The scenario I imagine is one of his friends, I don’t know what grade he’s in, but I hope he’s a little older, comes over and says, ‘I saw your dad’s dick on TV last night!'” he said. “That’s a very real possibility for our lives.”
At the time, Biggs also admitted that he took some comfort in the fact that he was raising his sons.
“All I think about is how happy I am to have a boy and a girl,” he says. “I don’t know how this situation will turn out, but I do know that no matter what the situation is, it’s easier to have a son than to have a girl.”
