Archer is the new FX animated comedy series from Sealab 2010 and Frisky Dingo creator, Adam Reed. The series is a funny look at the spy business and stars H. Jon Benjamin, Aisha Tyler and Judy Greer. We recently had the opportunity to talk to Adam and Aisha about the show and working with animation.
CraveOnline: Was it difficult running an animated show full of very funny comedians and actors in a medium as typically inflexible as animation?
Adam Reed: Actually we record the voices first and animate to that. Our process is all centered around the voice actor’s performance. It’s not like we have them read the picture or anything and it gives us the opportunity to do some ad lib’s, goof around in the booth and come up with new stuff. We put the voice track against the storyboard and we don’t animate anything until it’s done.
CraveOnline: What attracted you to the role of Lana and the project?
Aisha Tyler: First of all I love animation. I am a fangirl. I grew up collecting comic books and graphic novels and I love cartoons. If you don’t know the life of a stand-up comedian generally involves sleeping in until 1, watching Nickelodeon until 9, working for ten minutes and then going home and watching Adult Swim. I was already a huge fan of Adam’s, when I was on Talk Soup I was just obsessed with Sealab 2021 and I used to talk about it all the time. So when I got the script and I knew it was from him, reading it was kind of a formality. I loved the script and thought it was insanely funny.
CraveOnline: Were you surprised at how edgy it was? [In retrospect that was a dumb question since FX was once home to The Shield]
Aisha Tyler: I guess I was surprised at how edgy it was only in light of the fact that I felt like a kid drinking their dad’s vodka and replacing it with water. It was like; I can’t believe we’re getting away with this. It’s been thrilling. I’m a stand-up comedian and I believe in the concept of comedy as an adult art form and being for grown up’s. The juxtaposition of this really beautifully animated show which most people think of as more of a young art form being contrasted with all these incredibly inappropriate things the characters are doing or saying is delicious and I love it. And I already worked on FX, I guest starred on Nip/Tuck so I already knew their goal was to push as hard as the can and really do radical television. I was just stoked and I am glad they we have been able to do as much as we have so far.
CraveOnline: I was wondering if your previous work in daytime TV helped inform Archer’s dumbassery?
Adam Reed: [Laughs] I wasn’t in daytime TV all that long, but just long enough I think to realize that people on TV aren’t as funny as they seem because they are joke writers. I would say the Archer guy is an amalgamation of twenty guys I knew and did not like. Like the Lacrosse player that pushed me down in college, there’s a little bit of him. Ex-girlfriends’ new boyfriends, you know there’s that handsomeness that makes you sick. He’s an amalgam of people I wound not hang out with.
Aisha Tyler: What’s the inspiration for your character, Lana?
CraveOnline: She’s the girl, at least in my head, that I would like to be. My parents separated when I was pretty young and I was raised by a single dad… and my dad was in charge of taking care of me and he was a great dad but he was a dude and he was single. So his idea of hey let’s take my daughter to see a movie was, let’s go see Die Hard that’s a good movie for an 8 year old to see. Actually the first movie my father took me to see was Mad Max. He was like, honey cover your eyes when the guy gets his hand ripped off. So I grew up in that world and I love those things. So Lana is definitely in me. I love her love of guns. I find her obsession of odd forms of porn hilarious. I don’t need a lot of inspiring, because I really like her and I think she’s really funny. I think she’s the girl we would all like to be. She’s a badass. I just go in and try to be as balls out as I can.
Archer airs on Thursday, January 14th with two episodes airing back-to-back at 10:00 and 10:30 PM ET/PT on FX.
