Common Side Effects co-creates their trippy new adult swimming thriller

What if you found a mushroom that could heal something? This is the main question behind Swimming for adultsis Common side effectsa new series of creators Joe Bennett (Scavengers Reign) and Steve Healy (Veep, The Office, 30 Rock)—and the answer brings a lot of chaos into the life of Marshall, the eccentric genius who stumbles upon the miracle 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 pharmaceutical company—Marshall grabs his pet turtle and runs away from anyone who feels threatened by his medical breakthrough , which turns out to be a lot of people with deep pockets, well armed and wild eyes.

To learn more about the series, io9 got a chance to speak with Bennett and Healy beforehand Common side effects‘ Debuts February 2 on Adult Swim.

Cheryl Eddy, io9: One of the Common side effectsBig topics hold healthcare companies accountable, something that takes 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. This event was deeply shaken, of course. But he said we touch a nerve that people think and talk about, and that electrifies people’s imaginations and beliefs. We’re definitely thinking about something that’s in the public consciousness or subconscious, and that’s exciting — and a little scary when it turns into active street violence. But I guess it’s great that we come across something that feels relevant.

io9: Marshall is quite an unconventional character. What informs his backstory and appearance?

Joe Bennett: It was based on a big bag of different characters. There’s Paul States, who’s a mycologist—a lot of these guys are in the fringe world, Terence McKenna and Richard Schultz and Wade Davis and all that stuff. But also visually and much of Marshall’s personality comes from John LaRoche of (The Orchid Thief book) and Adaptation— I really liked Chris Cooper’s version in particular. This is a person who is a little restless, a little careless, very confident, very smart. He will always represent himself in court. He’s kind of a badass in his own way, but he’s just not your traditional hero looking tough guy. I like that Marshall is a pacifist. He has his own philosophies or ideologies that he knows are few in the minority.

place: Thinking for himself and willing to follow the lead wherever it takes him, even if it brings him into conflict with some powerful forces.

io9: Do you think that’s why Francis is so interested in helping him?

place: I think anyone who’s that passionate, that independent and that driven is always fascinating, even if they’re a little weird and scary sometimes. And then Frances struggles with what her place is in this world and what she really believes. We thought of a heroine who is very human and real, and tries not to be poor and to have enough money to live, which is hard to achieve. This leads her to work for this company she’s not so sure about, and her beliefs are questioned. It 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 — drug manufacturers, insurance companies, shadowy government agents. Who do you think is the top of the pyramid in terms of being the absolute worst?

place: We’ve always thought of it as – there’s no human villain. It’s more the system. Even (drug company CEO) Rick or the killers, we always tried to show a little bit of their humanity and where they came from. They are just people who are caught in a system that is beyond our control. Later in the series, we have some dark characters who give their point of view, and we always try to make it like, “Okay, yeah, you can see it from where they’re coming from,” and make everyone motivated in a way that it’s not just like, “Haha, I’m the evil, profit-minded villain!” They have some way of looking at the world that makes sense to them, and they feel like they’re acting from a perspective that matters.

We talked to all kinds of people with different points of view. We talked to a retired DEA agent and we talked to pharmaceutical people. You know, people who work at a big pharmaceutical company can argue that, “Yes, it costs 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 aren’t you glad we have Advil and penicillin and covid vaccines and stuff?” You can see it from their perspective. We tried not to make any one person Voldemort or whatever, but rather to make him multi-dimensional.

io9: I didn’t include DEA agents in this list of villains because you get the feeling that maybe their moral compasses point in the right direction. They’re also super weird – why did you want to lean on them as comic relief?

place: A lot of this job is you sitting there waiting or looking for a seat. And it just seemed to us that people at work 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 relationship (of the DEA agents) without characters speaking. So I animated a little bit with them dancing to Harry Belafonte, and that, I think, in a lot of ways helped us get an idea of ​​what they were like.

But yeah, from Steve’s point of view, we talk about that a lot when we think about the characters and how they talk to each other. If Steve and I are going on a hike, we probably talk about anything other than the hike itself. There’s just a lot of time to kill. There are a lot of threads that they just throw away or whatever. And then at the end of the day they are real people. It’s their job, but they have their own wants and needs. We just tried to make (them) more one-dimensional characters as (much) possible.

io9: Adult Swim seems like an unusual outlet for a show like this—it has elements of humor and fantasy, as well as elements of a conspiracy thriller, but its themes are perhaps a bit more serious than we’d associate with the platform. Why was this the right place for your show?

place: I think it was just going to be broadcast to Max and then Adult Swim got excited about it. And we were excited to both be a part of this cool, 20 or 30 year legacy of great shows, I’ve loved those shows for a long time, but we also think it’s great that they want to, like, why can’t we to expand what Adult Swim means and have a serialized show that takes a while and isn’t loud and crazy? Sometimes the tones can be a little more muted. It’s exciting and fun that they want to expand what Adult Swim can mean.

io9: How much is fact and how much is fiction when it comes to the existence of a mushroom that can cure any disease?

place: There’s a lot we don’t know about mushrooms. Mushrooms are extremely strange, and I think we’ve only just 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 can act sort of like stem cell therapy. I don’t think there’s anything close to that that’s been discovered yet, but it didn’t seem too crazy to imagine that something like could they exist.

io9: I like the voice cast, although there weren’t many people I immediately recognized except for Mike Judge. Did you have certain artists in mind for the characters?

place: Some of the people were people Joe knew and worked with in the past or people we knew. Dave (King), who plays Marshall, he’s done a little bit of acting, but he’s not primarily an actor. We love Martha Kelly (who plays Harington). (Joseph Lee Anderson), who plays Copano, worked with my wife on a show called Young rockand we just thought he had a great voice. And a lot of people we just grabbed them. Some of the voices are me and Joe. What we wanted was to make them sound real. For us, there’s not much benefit to getting someone really famous to do your cartoon voice. You want whatever voice is right to embody the character. … All of our training or guidance was like ‘do it, like, no acting.’ It’s hard for professional actors to get there, especially when they’re alone in a recording booth. But I think we managed to get that real, authentic feeling in the sound.

io9: That last one is for Joe – we were big Scavengers Reign io9 fans and regretted that there were no more seasons. How do you feel now about where it ended and is it a story you’d ever want to return to?

Bennett: I feel good about that. There will be a future. I’m not worried about that. I’m very grateful that we were able to do (one season) and that there’s such a cool fan base that feels like it’s growing every day. And you know, the doors will open. (They) always (have). I feel like (they) will continue to do this if I just don’t dwell on the negatives. I try to put my head down and put the blinders on and just do things that are fun. But yes, there is certainly more to tell.

Common side effects premieres its first two episodes Sunday, February 2 at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT on Adult Swim; thereafter, there will be one new episode each Sunday during the 10-episode run. You can also stream new episodes on Mondays on Max.

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