Before They Were Stars: The “Freaks and Geeks” Auditions

I can’t believe I’ve never done a “Before They Were Stars” spotlight on Freaks and Geeks, which is pretty much a cornucopia of famous actors getting their first big break. As you probably know, Freaks and Geeks was a teen comedy-drama TV series about high school life which aired on NBC from 1999-2000, but was cancelled after only 18 episodes aired. However, Freaks and Geeks has built up a very strong cult following over the years and since it was executive produced by Judd Apatow, the show’s cast contained a lot of actors who would go on to bigger things and star in many of Apatow’s movies, including Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segel and Martin Starr. Here are clips of some of the auditions for these then-unknown actors.