‘Rick and Morty’s Kari Wahlgren Reveals that Rick’s Ship Has the Voice of His Wife Diane
As characters, Rick and Morty are total opposites. Rick is a super genius who often appears responsible for the fate of the universe, while his grandson Morty is a largely expendable moron. However, there is a distinct similarity in the kind of women they’re into — or at least how those women sound.
A self-described “utility player” on Rick and Morty since its first episode, Kari Wahlgren began the series as the voice of Morty’s crush Jessica, and over the show’s run she’s played a wide breadth of both minor and major characters. This includes Gaia, the planet Rick had sex with and Rick’s dead wife Diane.
In an interview conducted over Zoom, Wahlgren detailed what it’s like to play the romantic interests of both of the show’s lead characters. She also dropped some surprising information concerning Rick and Morty canon — that is, why Rick’s ship sounds so much like his late wife.
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Let’s jump right into it: Is Jessica into Morty?
She definitely friend-zoned him for most of the show, but in the time god episode, I really think that was the moment where she was like, “Huh, maybe my friend could be something more.” But that was the episode where they kept missing the chance for it to go out of the friend-zone, then she has her major existential experience. So yeah, timing-wise, that was the moment and they missed it.
Do you think they could ever make it work after that, or no, that was it?
I mean, Rick and Morty’s one of those worlds where you can never say never.
Well, Jessica is technically dead, right?
Well, she’s technically a time god.
Right, sorry.
I will say, a little behind-the-scenes thing is that the writers were all like, “Okay, we’re rolling up our sleeves. We’re ready now that she’s a time god. We’re going to be doing a lot more with her.” But Dan Harmon was like, “Nah, I’ve got some other ideas I want to explore.” So, everybody thought she was going to pop up a little bit more, but there were other storylines they started exploring.
Was there anything that helped inform that character or an inspiration for the voice?
When I got it, I just remember them saying that she’s a popular girl, but she’s not a mean girl. They wanted her to be sweet. She’s a popular girl, but she’s not a jerk. So, the voice was pretty easy to find and the sweetness was easy to find. It made the raunchy humor here and there even funnier because she has a sweet baseline. But then, once the show started to take off, I was very pleasantly surprised they kept writing her into episodes.
You also play Rick’s late wife, Diane, and so much of the show’s backstory revolves around that character. Do you remember how it was decided that you would play that part too?
It was interesting because I started out with Jessica, and then there were one or two lines in an episode where I played Rick’s ship. During that recording, I went into the studio and the line was, “Turn right at certain degrees Fahrenheit and turn and go 2,000 light-years.” So, I was in the studio and I started adding, “Did I stutter? You idiot, I said to turn right.” I started improv-ing these really snarky lines. The guys were laughing and they said, “Wouldn’t it be fun if we wrote an episode about the ship being really, really snarky?” And so they wrote the “Keep Summer Safe” episode.
Along that same line, Diane was in one episode very, very early on. She had a few lines, and I thought nothing of it. It was cool, but honestly, the ship started taking over more and more. That was the main thing that I would do — even more than Jessica. The ship started getting written into more episodes, then his garage was talking and the house was talking. At first, we experimented with making those different voices. Then they were like, “No, let’s kind of keep it consistent.” He’s got this main voice for the ship and the garage and the house. It’s all sort of consistent. He’s programmed it to sound this way.
So, long story payoff — which is often the way in the Rick and Morty universe — they approached me and said, “Hey, Diane’s going to be coming back in an episode.” And so, they started by having Diane’s voice in the other room saying, “Rick, I’m in the other room. You programmed me to sound like I was just out of reach to make it especially psychologically vindictive.” Then she starts popping up a little bit more.
The lore is they really wanted me as the voice of Diane because, in their minds, they thought Rick would use Diane’s voice as the voice of the ship and the garage and the house and stuff like that. It added this awesome layer as we got deeper and deeper into it.
Whoa, I never knew that.
It kind of blew my mind too. They didn’t set out that way, but as it went on, they thought, “We want to keep you as the same voice for all of this stuff. This makes sense to us, that all of this would be the same actress, and this is why.”
It tracks perfectly.
That’s the thing about this show that’s constantly mind-blowing to me: It’s so smart and forward-thinking, and it comes back in this crazy, full-circle way. Then it has all these fart jokes and diarrhea jokes, and there’s really gross, stupid stuff thrown in. Yet it’s so smart.
Are you able to keep up with all the lore of the show, or no?
No.
Listen, I keep up with it as best I can, and it’s one of the few shows that I’m actually a fan of — as working on it. I really enjoy the show, but I say this with a lot of respect: There are smarter people than me behind the curtain. The people writing and masterminding the show are just so smart that sometimes I’m like, “Wow, I’m tapping out.” “This reference has been too smart for me,” or “Wow, I do not understand the quantum physics at this point.” But I keep up as best I can.
Getting back to the ship’s voice. Does doing that robotic voice get tiring after a while?
No, it’s so fun. I really could do it for hours. We always experiment with how awkward we can make certain lines sound, but then it’s just so quotable, like, “Buckle up, bitches.”
Yeah, she’s like HAL with an attitude.
Exactly. She’s sassy HAL.
What’s cool about that character is that she was always there, but she became a character later. And, when you picture Rick and Morty, you think of those two in the ship. She was there all along.
Oh yeah. Hot Wheels even released a little Rick’s ship that I have. I’ve got it right next to my Rick’s ship Funko Pop. It’s been so fun being that character. One of the nice things about Rick and Morty in general is that, it’s kind of like on The Simpsons where they have a couple of their utility players that would just come in and play all the smaller roles. I’ve been so grateful and happy that they’ve made me a utility player on this show. I’ve gotten to do a lot of different small roles over the years. So, while it started out as Jessica and I’ve had a great time playing her, I’ve actually had just as much fun playing a lot of the other characters.
Are there any others that stand out for you?
BugAnne’s been fun. She pops up here and there. I can’t say too much more about her because assassins will shoot me in the head.
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