After living in the U.S. for 20 years, off-beat comedian and actor Tom Green has finally become an American citizen.
Green is seen in a short video waving an American flag during the swearing-in ceremony posted to TMZ.
The comedian, who was briefly married to actress Drew Barrymore, took the oath of citizenship on February 20 in a ceremony at the Los Angeles Convention Center. And one of his main reasons he decided to become an American, he said, is so that he could finally vote for president.
“I’ve sort of become tired of not voting, frankly,” Green said according to Yahoo Entertainment. “I mean, I live in the United States. I’ve lived here for 20 years, I feel like I would like to be part of the political process and part of the democratic process and vote in the next election, and that’s why.”
Green said that he has been considering the dilemma at least since he was on Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice in 2009. Still, he does not talk much about his personal political positions.
He has joked about how his experience on Celebrity Apprentice sort of “demystifies the presidency when you’ve sat there and had him scream in your face.” Green added, “Wow, that guy’s the president? I really should’ve gone up for all of those jobs in my life that I never felt qualified for.”
Green noted that he doesn’t get too political during his stand-up comedy shows because he tours all over the U.S. and does not want to upset his audience unnecessarily.
“I want my comedy show to be a place that is a reprieve from the partisan bickering,” Green said. “I mean, I know there’s a lot of standup comedians today and a lot of comedy on television certainly, that find a lot of material in critiquing the current administration and… I have done some of that, but my comedy is more about having fun, and I want my show to be fun for everybody.”
“That doesn’t mean that I don’t have strong opinions about it,” Green added, “I just don’t really publicly talk about it.”
Aside from his comedy shows, Green will appear in the film Iron Sky the Coming Race which is due out in the spring.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.