This isn’t the first time viewers have taken a trip to your farm. Just last year you had a show on Prime Video called Tom Green Country . . .
Yeah, we had a good warm-up, that’s for sure. I directed the show and I’m the director of photography on this show now, too. So, it’s a lot more than just the story side, it’s also technically shaping it and filming it and making it look beautiful. Show off Canada for what it is. That’s all been an exciting experience for me, because I’ve always loved cameras and the technical side of things. There’s new technology all the time and we’re trying to push the envelope.
Plus, this new show has, obviously, a talk show element to it. The first show on Prime didn’t. It was more of just a lifestyle show. This is actually a talk show where I have celebrity guests and things like that. I’m really happy how it turned out.
You know, I made the decision to move the show to Crave, essentially. I’d had a great year or so working with Prime . . . but I had the opportunity to move, so I decided, “Hey, let’s go do it with a Canadian company, eh? Elbows up!”
Honing in on that new chat show element, does the setting of this idyllic Ottawa Valley farm inherently bring a more laid-back vibe than a normal talk show studio?
It’s all very intentional. I mean, I’ve done interview shows from my home before — and with podcasting in this day and age, people are used to going to people’s houses to do an interview. But this is a little different in the sense that we’re in this outdoor, beautiful, peaceful setting. And I’ve sort of created a style of shooting that allows us to do the interviews throughout the property, but still keep them a multi-camera, beautifully shot interview.
People come out to the farm and everyone’s relaxed and happy to be outside in the nature and enjoying the countryside. And I think people do sort of exhale and have maybe more of a unique conversation than we would have had in a traditional TV setting.
On that note, what’s your mission statement for this particular series?
We’re trying to create a show that is warm and inviting and funny — that feels like I’m not trying to shock the audience. It’s more about just having a great, hilarious, fun, interesting conversation and also taking people to a place that maybe they’ve never seen before — rural Ontario. And certainly, around the world, people haven’t seen rural Ontario photographed this way . . . the way we’re capturing the drone shots and the various cameras and lenses that I’m choosing to use, it really makes the scenery look as beautiful as it is in-person.
Looking at your career in general, when did you became comfortable in your own skin as a performer?
Well, I don’t think you ever want to be too comfortable, because if you’re so comfortable that you are just sort of going through the motions, then there’s nothing at stake, right?
I started doing standup comedy when I was 16 years old and obviously the first time you get up on stage, you’re not comfortable. You’ve got a lot of anxiety and nerves, and that’s what makes it exciting, right?
And here it’s 38 years since I started doing standup . . . I play music now at my shows, I’m bringing my guitar on stage, I’m playing piano on stage — which is relatively new for me to combine music and comedy together in the way that I’m doing it now. I’ve been touring this way all year in Canada, so I’m getting more and more comfortable with playing my music on stage — and turning into a musical comedy live performance. But I always keep changing what I do, because you don’t want to just do the same thing over and over again.
Now, everybody, as we get older, we do become a little more comfortable in our own skin, whether you’re performing or just as a human being. So, certainly, I feel very comfortable in this role, doing this new show. For sure.
You lived in Los Angeles for a long time. Now you’re back in Canada. Not to say that your Canadian identity ever went away, but was there a point when your Canadianness took on an added significance?
Definitely. Because I’ve moved back full-time, and everything that’s going on in the world politically, it does give a renewed sense of Canadian pride. I feel much more proud to be . . . I shouldn’t say “more,” because I’ve always been very vocal about my Canadianness. When I’ve gone on talk shows or performed around the United States, I always say I’m from Canada. I’m not somebody who’s pretending to be from the United States. My parents are here, a lot of my friends are here, my brother’s here. I’ve always come back home to Canada multiple times a year just for personal reasons — and then with the standup comedy, I’ve performed in every city in Canada pretty much every year for the last 20 years.
But to answer your question, I mean, I’ve moved to a farm. I no longer have a house in Los Angeles. I am absolutely building this show to show off what makes me proud to be Canadian. I grew up in Ottawa, but we had a cottage outside the city, on a lake where I go canoeing and fishing and walking in the woods with my dad and my friends . . . the kind of nature that I love, and missed when I was in Los Angeles. So, it’s fun to be able to show some of the specifics of this to the world.
Is there a most memorable guest that stands out from season one?
The fun thing is they’re all very different from one another, because it’s a pretty wide variety of people that come to the show. Some of them are people that I’ve known or am friends of, and some of them I’ve never met. So, they all have a very unique sort of moment to them.
In the premiere, one of our big set pieces of the series was building the skateboard ramp for Tony Hawk. As a kid, I was such a skateboarder and he was one of my heroes. And even though we’ve become friends over the last 25 years and done shows together and stuff in the past, to have him fly up here with Kevin [Staab, fellow skateboarding legend] and to come to this ramp that we built, it was all a thrill.
Then there’s Les Stroud, who I’m a huge fan of — who I’ve met before, but never went for a hike in the woods with. And Kurt Vile, got to play some music with him, and Jason Blaine and deadmau5 and Jessie Reyez — who I’ve never met before, but is a hip-hop artist from Canada; and I grew up making rap music in Toronto when I was a kid . . .
Being in the comedy business yourself, sitting down with Dan Aykroyd must have been a boon . . .
That was definitely exciting and fun. And from Ontario, right? So, he understands the lifestyle that I’m living here and it was kind of a unique way to be able to get to hang out with Dan . . . I’m glad he brought some of his Crystal Head vodka, because we got to have a few drinks. He made some drinks for my mom and my wife and I.
And I’d say that’s another big part of the show. There’s lots of real people, family moments . . . lots of things around the farm that kind of break up the long-form interviews. If you watch The Tom Green Farmcast [the show’s companion podcast] on the internet, that’s just the interviews basically pieced together. It sort of removes all the other farm shenanigans. There’s all sorts of fun stuff with the horses and my mule, and going fishing and canoeing and different adventures we get into — plus, family things with my wife and my mother, who’s a producer on the show. It is a talk show, but because it takes place here on my farm with my family, there’s a lot of other elements to it.
The Tom Green Farm streams on Crave
MEMORABLE ROLES:
Making a truly indelible mark on the entertainment landscape, The Tom Green Show’s zeitgeist-grabbing shock-comedy antics began, most humbly, on Canadian cable-access in 1994 — before making their way to international infamy on MTV. That series ran till 2000, after which he appeared in such films as Freddy Got Fingered, Road Trip and Charlie’s Angels, the latter of which saw him share the screen with first wife Drew Barrymore. In 2025, Green enjoyed a resurgence via streamer Prime Video, which released a trio of projects, including This Is the Tom Green Documentary, standup special Tom Green: I Got a Mule! and aforementioned docuseries Tom Green Country, about his rustic rebirth back on home soil.
CURRENT GIG:
Back in 2021, comedy iconoclast Tom Green left L.A. for a new life in his old digs in the Ottawa Valley — buying himself a plot of land and starting himself a farm. That said, he hasn’t left showbiz behind. After a docuseries dubbed Tom Green Country hit Prime Video in 2025, now comes Crave’s The Tom Green Farm, wherein the funnyman’s horses, mules and chickens are joined by celeb guests like Tony Hawk, Michael Cera and Dan Aykroyd. All 10 episodes of season one are now available to binge.