Muscular, swaggering and tough, Scott Caan gives every indication of becoming a "man's-man" like his father, legendary actor James Caan. While it is obvious that he admires tough method actors like Marlon Brando and Sean Penn; James Caan's eldest son also has a strong egalitarian streak, evidenced by his reasoning for baring his body in the film Varsity Blues (1999). He is quoted as saying that originally only the women in the scene were to be nude, but that he felt it "really sexist", so "he stripped too".

Raised being shuttled between his parent's homes (his mom is actress and model Sheila Ryan; the Caan's divorced when Scott was a year old,) Scott benefited from his father's hands-on approach to child rearing (the elder Caan reportedly took a five-year hiatus to coach all of his son's little league teams.) Scott has appeared in a handful of independent films such as Last Resort (1996), Nowhere (1997), Nowhere to Go (1998), and Bongwater (1997), and has been improving his craft with each of his mainstream entries. Scott Caan is one of the best of the current crop of second-generation actors.