What if you discovered a mushroom that could cure anything? That is the fundamental question behind Adult Swimming‘s Common Side Effectsa new series of co-creators Joe Bennett (Scavengers Reign) and Steve Hely (Veep, The Office, 30 Rock)—and the answer brings a lot of chaos into the life of Marshall, the eccentric genius who finds the miraculous mushroom.
With the help of Frances, his former high school lab partner – who is very reluctant to tell him that she now works for the CEO of a major drug company – Marshall captures his pet turtle and runs away from anyone who feels threatened by his doctor. a breakthrough that turns out to be many deep-pocketed, well-armed, wild people.
To learn more about the series, io9 had a chance to speak with Bennett and Hely beforehand Common Side Effects‘ February 2 debut on Adult Swim.
Cheryl Eddy, io9: One of Common Side Effects‘big issues are in charge of health care companies—something that has taken on new meaning in the post-Luigi Mangione era. How do you feel about the show’s new cultural context?
Steve Location: Well, it was a bit of a shock. That event was deeply upsetting, of course. But it did say that we touch a nerve of what people think and talk about, and it electrifies people’s imaginations and beliefs. We’re definitely thinking about something that’s on the public consciousness, or subconscious, and that’s exciting—and a little scary when it erupts into active street violence. But I guess it’s cool that we hit something that feels important.
io9: Marshall is a rather unconventional hero. What informed his backstory and his appearance?
Joe Bennett: He was based on a big bag of different characters. There’s Paul Stamets, who’s a mycologist—a lot of those guys kind of in the fringe world, Terence McKenna and Richard Schultz and Wade Davis and all that. But also visually and much of Marshall’s personality came from John Laroche of [The Orchid Thief book] and Adaptation-I especially loved Chris Cooper’s version. It’s a guy who’s a little laid-back, a little reckless, very confident, very smart. He would always represent himself in court. He’s kind of a badass in his own way, but just not your traditional hero, tough guy-looking character. I like that Marshall is a pacifist. He has his own philosophies or ideologies that he knows he’s a little bit in the minority.
Location: Thinking for himself and ready to follow a thread until it takes him, even if it brings him into conflict with some powerful forces.
io9: Do you think that’s why Frances is so interested in helping him?
Location: I think anyone who is that passionate and that independent and that driven is always kind of compelling, even if it’s kind of weird and scary sometimes. And then Frances struggles with what her place is in this world and what she really believes. We thought about a character who is very human and real himself, and trying not to be poor and have enough money to live on, which is hard to do. That brings her to work for this company she’s not so sure about, and her beliefs are questioned. That just seemed like an exciting spark for a little relationship and a story that would expand as we continued to tell it.
io9: There are a lot of villains in the show—pharmacists, insurance companies, shady government agents. Who do you think is the top of the pyramid in terms of being the worst?
Location: We’ve always kind of thought of it as—there’s no such thing as a human villain. It’s more the system. Even the [drug compamy CEO] Rick or the killers, we’ve always tried to show a little bit of their humanity and where they come from. They are just people who are caught in a system that is beyond all of our control. Later on in the series, we have some dark characters that give their point of view, and we’ve always tried to make it like, “Okay, yeah, you can kind of see where they’re coming from,” and make everyone motivated in a way where they don’t. it’s just like, “Haha, I’m the evil, self-serving villain!” They have some way of looking at the world that makes sense to them, and they feel they are operating from a perspective that matters.
We talked to all kinds of people with different perspectives. We talked to a retired DEA agent and we talked to pharmaceutical people. You know, the people who work at a big pharmaceutical company can make their case, “Yeah, it cost a lot of money because we need that money for research and development. And we charge a lot because that’s how we fund the next invention. And what Aren’t you happy we have Advil and penicillin and covid vaccines and stuff?” You can see it from their point of view. We tried not to make someone a Voldemort or anything, but rather to make them multi-dimensional.
io9: I didn’t include the DEA agents in that list of villains because you get the feeling they might have their moral compasses pointing in the right direction. They’re also very quirky—why did you want to lean on them as comic relief?
Location: A big part of that job is you sitting there waiting or setting a spot. And it just seemed to us that the working people often talk about everything but work and life.
Bennett: We did an early animation test before we had any actors attached to the show, and we just wanted to try to understand the [DEA agents’] relationship without any character speaking. So I animated a little bit with them dancing to Harry Belafonte, and that, I think in a lot of ways, helped kind of give us an idea of what they’re like.
But yeah, to Steve’s point, we talk about that a lot when we think about characters and how they talk to each other. If Steve and I are going on a trip, we probably talk about anything and everything but the actual trip itself. There’s just a lot of time to kill. There are a lot of topics that they just throw away or whatever. And then at the end of the day, they are real people. This is their job, but they have their own wants and needs. We were just trying to do [them] more than one-dimensional characters like [much as] possible
io9: Adult Swimming seems like an unusual outlet for such a show—it has humor and fantasy elements, and the conspiracy-thriller elements, but its themes are perhaps a bit more serious than we’d associate with the platform. Why was it the right place for your show?
Location: I think it was just going to be streaming on Max and then Adult Swim got excited about it. And we were excited, both to be a part of that great, 20- or 30-year legacy of amazing shows, I’ve loved those shows for a long time, but also, we think it’s cool that they want to, like— why can’t we expand what means Adult Swimming and we’re going to have a serialized show that goes on for a while and isn’t loud and crazy? The tones can be a little weaker at times. It’s exciting and fun that they want to expand what Adult Swim could mean.
io9: How much is fact and how much is fiction when it comes to the existence of a fungus that could cure any disease?
Location: There’s a lot we don’t know about mushrooms. Mushrooms are extremely strange, and I don’t think we’ve even begun to understand what they do. There are some that can heal you or give you crazy visions, and there are some that can kill you. There are some that are delicious. So it doesn’t seem completely crazy to have one that could work sort of like a stem cell therapy. I think there is still something close to that being discovered, but it didn’t seem too crazy to imagine that something like that. could to exist
io9: I love the voice cast, even though it didn’t have a lot of people I immediately recognized, other than Mike Judge. Did you have certain performers in mind for the characters?
Location: Some of the people were people Joe knew and worked with in the past, or people we knew. Dave [King]who plays Marshall, he acts a little bit, but he’s not primarily an actor. We love Martha Kelly [who plays Harrington]. [Joseph Lee Anderson]who plays Copano, worked with my wife on a show called Young Rockand we just thought he had a cool voice. And a lot of people, we just caught. Some of the voices are me and Joe. What we were aiming for was to make them sound real. For us, it’s not that much of a profit to have some really famous person do your animated voice. You want any voice that’s right to embody the character. … All of our training or directing was like, “do it, like, no acting.” It’s hard for professional actors, especially when they’re alone in a recording booth, to get there. But I think we were able to achieve that real, stumble-y authentic feeling in the voice acting.
io9: This last one is for Joe—we were big Scavengers Rule fans at io9 and regretted that it didn’t get more seasons. How do you feel now about where it ended, and is that a story you would ever want to return to?
Bennett: I feel good about that. It will have a future. I’m not worried about that. I am very grateful that we have to do [one season]and that it has such a great fan base that feels like it’s growing by the day. And you know, doors will open. [They] always [have]. I feel like [they’ll] keep doing this if I just don’t dwell on the negatives. I try to take off my head and blinders and just do fun things. But yes, there is more story to tell for sure.
Common Side Effects premieres its first two episodes Sunday, February 2 at 11:30pm ET/PT on Adult Swim; thereafter, there will be one new episode every Sunday during the 10-episode run. You can also stream new episodes on Mondays on Max.
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