NYCC 2013: Archer Panel
Emily Dunbar ‘17 / Emertainment Monthly Staff
In an unexpected turn of events, the Archer panel began with the audience getting the chance to see the season five premiere. Without giving anything away—and as I’m sure you can guess—it was awesome!
It’s very different, though, from what the show has done in its past four seasons. This is deliberate; Adam Reed, head writer for Archer, said, “We’re trying to breathe life into the show, to try something different. Make sure people are still watching.
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The changes, however, won’t take away from what Archer fans know and love. The characters will still do the wacky things they always do, including traveling to exotic places and getting into huge messes.
Season 5 will bring in some new guests stars along with the new direction. Gary Cole and Ron Perlman are definite contributors, and the crew is in talks with Christian Slater.
Moving into questions, each of the actors explained that it takes about three (or so) takes to get all the lines right. H. Jonathan Benjamin, the voice of Sterling Archer, joked that all his lines happen in one take, and that’s often why there are random loud noises in the show, as he accidentally whacked the microphone. A lot of what takes time with every actor’s lines is the fact that they’re all based in different location so they have to work with what the can.
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When asked about what they would like to see their characters get into this season, Lucky Yates replied that he would like for Kreeger to build a giant robot because, “Why the fuck not build a giant robot?!” Amber Nash wanted to see more from Pam Puvi’s family up at Puvi farms. She’d love to voice all the characters herself. We can definitely, however, look forward to this season are Aisha Tyler’s character doing all the things pregnant women are not supposed to this season.
Reed explained that Pam’s back tattoo came from something his 10th grade English teacher, Coach Towson, said. The rest of the panelists proceeded to make fun of Reed for calling his teacher “coach.”
The panel ended with each of the actors explaining how similar they are to their characters. They agreed that their characters definitely bleed into their real lives because whenever they all get together, they just end up falling back on them.