American Pie star Jason Biggs had an awkward first encounter with Jodie Foster on the set of new Netflix show Orange Is The New Black because he was pretending to pleasure himself at the time.

The actor's lonely character Larry attempts to perfect the solo sex art of 'edging', which brings an individual to the brink of orgasm, in the storyline and Biggs was perfecting his odd scene when director Foster walked onto the set.

He tells Nylon magazine, "Here's Jodie coming in, and I'm masturbating the first day we're working together.

"She's like, 'Um, Ok, so... I don't know much about what (you're doing)..., and I was like, 'I've made a career of this. Don't worry. I got this'."

The day made for an interesting anecdote when Biggs, who famously pretended to have sex with a pastry in teen comedy American Pie, phoned his wife, Jenny Mollen, from the set.

He says, "(I said), 'Today I jerked off in front of Jodie Foster. What'd you do?'"