Matthew Lillard on Scooby-Doo Flop, Turns Down ‘Dancing With the Stars’

Matthew Lillard thought his career would explode when the success of 2002’s live-action “Scooby-Doo” (the film grossed $275 million worldwide) launched a franchise. The actor signed on to reprise the role of Shaggy in 2004’s “Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed” and earned the biggest payday of his career. The only way forward for his career was up. Or so he thought.

“I thought I was going to be No. 1 on the call sheet for the next 10 years of movies,” Lillard admitted recently. Business Insider. “And the reality was that the exact opposite happened.”

“Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed” was a critical dud and flopped at the box office, failing to cross the $200 million mark worldwide that the original easily managed. The failure of the “Scooby-Doo” sequel brought Lillard’s career to a screeching halt and forced him to re-prioritize his goals as an actor.

“I was caught up in the success of what I was doing, I was caught up in the parts I was getting, I was caught up in this pursuit of being quote-unquote famous,” Lillard admitted, noting that he finally had to stop worrying about to chase fame.

“I was going to do ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ And I was like, if I do ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ I’m never going to win an Oscar,” Lillard said. “If I do ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ I’ll be famous and not a great actor, and I really just wanted to be a great actor. I said (to my agent), ‘I just want to be an actor. I just want to be in in movies. I want to reset my expectations.'”

The actor added: “I’ve been through good patches and bad patches. I’ve been irrelevant and thought I’d never work again.”

A change in mindset allowed Lillard to break through in ways he didn’t expect. While he continued to voice Shaggy in various animated “Scooby-Doo” films, he also won supporting roles in films such as the Oscar-winning “The Descendants” and Clint Eastwood’s “Trouble With the Curve.”