SNL veteran Chris Parnell and Greek alum Spencer Grammer are the father/daughter duo on Adult Swim’s hilariously genius Rick and Morty. Season 2 is officially in the works (with no solid release date as of yet) and their characters Jerry and Summer will be back to get sucked into Rick’s insane sci-fi world.
So as promised, here’s the second part of our Comic-Con 2014 interview coverage featuring Chris Parnell and Spencer Grammer, where they reveal some of the first details about their characters and what to expect in Season 2 of Rick and Morty.
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On how they get their family chemistry for the show:
Chris Parnell: “We don’t record together. Not at all.”
Spencer Grammer: “I don’t feel connected to you all. [laughs]”
Chris Parnell: “When I see Spencer every time, somebody has to introduce us to each other because I forget who she is.”
Spencer Grammer: “What has it been, three? We’ve probably met three times?”
Chris Parnell: “Three or four, yeah.”
Spencer Grammer: “Three or four times. Where we’ve met. Total. In our lives. In the three years we’ve been doing… [laughs]”
Chris Parnell: “But you know, I have a pretty good idea of what Summer is going to do, because Summer is so clearly drawn – both in the way she plays it and the way that she acts on screen – that it’s like I know what to expect from Summer.”
Spencer Grammer: “There’s stereotypes of family, in that way like a father is mad at your teenage daughter. Your father annoys you as a teenage daughter.”
Chris Parnell: “[Looks at Spencer] She really annoys me. [laughs]As you can tell, she’s super annoying.”
Spencer Grammer: “Super annoying!”
On how they got involved in the show:
Spencer Grammer: “I’d never really done any animation and I was wanting to get into it. I’d auditioned for a lot shows, but I felt like this is kind of more where I can kind of run the gamut of being sincere and funny at the same time. And it’s just way fun to do this kind of a cartoon. [Not] like a little kid cartoon. This is like adult humor. Which definitely drew me to it.
And I really like Monster House! I was like ‘Who is Dan Harmon? Oh, he did Monster House! Oh okay, sure. I like that. That sounds like a good animation to do.’ I don’t usually pay attention to that stuff until way after the fact. Like yesterday, it occurred to me.”
Chris Parnell: “That’s a good approach to have.”
Spencer Grammer: “Like that and world peace. Those are my priorities.”
On if they are sci-fi fans, or if the references in the show go over their heads:
Spencer Grammer: “Um, I get a lot of them. I get some of them. I think there’s some stuff referencing Memento in the next season. That’s not really sci-fi. There’s some time travel stuff. [Dan and Justin] didn’t know about this crazy – what was the movie? I can’t even remember the name of it. It was all shot at the same time. It was when they had that split screen thing and there were like four different…it was really, yeah. So there’s kind of a thing like that, that happens in our premiere episode.”
Chris Parnell: “I’m a pretty big sci-fi fan. Since I was a kid, I’ve always loved sci-fi. So it’s fun to just read these scripts and see where we’re going in the episode because they can really go anywhere. It’s really genuinely exciting to read it. I’m like ‘Wow, what’s going to happen now?’ And then by the time I finally see it, I’ve forgotten about it completely. So it’s like all new to me.”
On people recognizing his voice now over his face from his earlier works:
Chris Parnell: “It’s probably for the best. [laughs] You know, a surprising number of people know me from animated stuff. You know, like ‘I love you on Rick and Morty. I love you on Archer.’ So yeah, I’m a little bit surprised by that, but I guess I think it probably helps that people knew me from SNL or 30 Rock. It’s cool though!”
On whether they’re paired up at all during Season 2:
Spencer Grammer: “We haven’t been yet. We’re still recording.”
Chris Parnell: “We’ve only recorded a few.”
Spencer Grammer: “And I never know what they are until the day before. They’re like ‘Here’s the script’ and I’m like ‘Greeeat.’”
On whether some of the humor is improvised:
Spencer Grammer: “I mostly stick to the script. But I’m not much of an improv’er in general. But when I feel like it’s necessary I can. There’s no ‘You’re not allowed to say other things.’ If a word feels weird, or it’s not rolling well you can switch it out for something that’s more comfortable. And that’s little things like “No duh!’ instead of something really…”
Chris Parnell: “Negative to add.”
Spencer Grammer: “Yes! Negative to add! [laughs]”
On whether we’ll see multi-verse versions of Jerry and Summer in Season 2:
Chris Parnell: “Yeah I think so. [Looks at Spencer] I can’t remember if we’ve seen them this season or not. But I’m sure we will. We’ve got to.”
Spencer Grammer: “Yeah, in the first episode we do. Definitely.”
Chris Parnell: “Her memory is about a thousand times better than mine.”
Spencer Grammer: “No, it’s really hard to remember what we’ve done, because so much happens in one single episode, so I was trying to review the ones that really stood out to me. There’s two that really did, in terms of my character. So yeah, the first one is time traveling and multi-verse stuff. It’s really cool. Really fun.”
On whether Summer and Jerry get bonding time in Season 2:
Spencer Grammer: “Maybe. We’ll know more with the next few episodes. [laughs]”
Chris Parnell: “We’ve found out, I think, that in the first season Jerry and Beth really do have a deep love for each other even though it’s a fraud relationship.”
Spencer Grammer: “A normal marriage.”
Chris Parnell: “Yeah. Gosh, what’s your marriage like? Do we need to talk? Oh my god. I don’t know whether the dynamic is going to change that much, but I think it’s the core relationships there are going to continue to give the show a kind of a center that it probably wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Spencer Grammer: “We haven’t really gotten a chance to work so much together in this particular season. Although there is the whole episode with the bed bugs kind of thing? [Looks at Chris] Inspired by? It’s inspired by bed bugs. I can’t really…”
Chris Parnell: “I can’t even remember.”
Spencer Grammer: “But there’s a lot of family memories in that episode.”
Chris Parnell: “Oooooh, right.”
Spencer Grammer: “So there is like that bonding, but it sort of raised the question of what really is memory and what we remember about our families. Maybe all of our memories are just fictitious sad plots. You might as well just be watching a TV show about them or something.”
Chris Parnell: “It’s true.”
Spencer Grammer: “It’s really kind of dark, but it’s got a lot of humor to it too. [laughs]”
Chris Parnell: “That’s Rick and Morty.“
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Need more Rick and Morty to tide you over until the Season 2 premiere? Check out our other Comic-Con 2014 interview with the minds behind the show, Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland.
Rick and Morty returns for Season 2 in late 2014 or early 2015, only on Adult Swim.