Matthew Lillard Resented ‘Scooby-Doo’ Movies After His Career Nosedived When the Sequel Flopped: We ‘Sold Our House’ and Had to ‘Downsize Our Lives’

Matthew Lillard got brutally honest about his love-hate relationship with the “Scooby-Doo” movies while participating in Variety’s “Know Their Lines” video series. The actor expected to become a blockbuster movie star after landing the role of Shaggy in 2002’s live-action “Scooby-Doo,” which earned $275 million worldwide. But the franchise was short-lived after 2004’s “Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed” disappointed and cut Lillard’s blockbuster dreams short.

“I felt a ton of pressure to not suck,” Lillard told Variety’s Nick Stango about landing the Shaggy role opposite Freddie Prinze Jr. (Fred), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Daphne) and Linda Cardellini (Velma). “It was the first big movie that I was in and it was a big opportunity for me. And then I felt that ‘Scooby Doo’ is this big movie, I’m now going to go off and be a big movie star. And it was right about this time, after the second movie, that my career took a real nosedive for a long time. Like, I may be one of those guys from the ’90s that never comes back. This movie is a love-hate relationship for me because I was like, ‘It’s “Scooby Do’s” fault. That’s why I’m not working.'”

“I resented ‘Scooby-Doo’ for a long time, but I never regretted doing it because the reality is that if I didn’t have the money I made in the second film, I wouldn’t have made it through,” he continued. “My wife and I would have had to sell everything. We eventually [did sell a lot]. We sold our cars, we sold our house. We basically downsized our lives so that we could live in a very affordable way. And my wife went back to work, and that was a real pivotal moment for me as well. Like I felt like before this movie, ‘I’m doing all these movies and I’m a big guy.’ The reality was I’m not. I was always a character actor, and I thought I was more than that. There was like a real humbling of Matthew Lillard that happens right after this movie that now I’m so grateful for.”

Lillard earned the biggest payday of his career for starring in the “Scooby-Doo” sequel. He told Business Insider last year that he expected the sequel to be a huge success and catapult him into becoming No. 1 on the call sheet for the next decade of his career, but then the opposite the happened and he couldn’t find any work as a leading man.

“I was caught up in this drive to be quote-unquote famous,” Lillard admitted, noting that he finally had to stop caring about chasing fame in order to build back up his career as a character actor.

A change in thinking allowed Lillard to breakthrough in ways he was not expecting. While he continued to voice Shaggy in various animated “Scooby-Doo” films, he also won supporting roles in films like the Oscar-winning “The Descendants” and Clint Eastwood’s “Trouble With the Curve.”

Watch Lillard’s full Variety video interview in the post below.