Animal Control’s opening-credits cast started their panel at the ATX TV Festival today by running through the aisles of seated attendees cheering and high-fiving. They have good reason to be in a celebratory mood: As several of them said during the course of their conversation (moderated by TV Guide magazine’s Damian Holbrook), no one starring on a sitcom these days counts on getting to a second season, never mind the fourth they’ll all start shooting in a few months. And for them all to get to work together on what they told us was a friendly, welcoming, supportive set — a set that they claim doesn’t even smell too bad, considering all the animal actors who visit as guest stars! — sounds like a real gift.
The moderated portion of the conversation took us through the moment New Zealander Grace Palmer (who plays Victoria) found out which nation’s accent she should use for the role, which animals they most liked working with and a runner about Michael Rowland (who plays Shred) not knowing what to do with his hands during his Zoom audition and possibly still today. But when the time came for audience questions, it didn’t take long for fans of Joel McHale (who plays Frank) to bring up the rest of his résumé.
Would McHale ever do a show like The Soup or The Joel McHale Show again? Instead of repeating an earlier remark from co-star Ravi Patel (who plays Patel) about McHale’s numerous gigs — “He doesn’t turn anything down” — McHale said of course he would, if the audience member had a streamer that could pay him to do it. He doesn’t think a show like The Soup could happen again now, since “YouTube is so instantaneous,” but it was the first thing he ever did and feels lucky that it worked.
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What was his favorite thing about working on Spider-Man 2? As his colleagues apparently found out for the first time that he had, McHale recalled that he was cast as “Mr. Jacks,” a bank employee who turns down Peter Parker’s beloved Aunt May for a loan. At the time, McHale said he didn’t have an agent, so a friend named Jason Burns pretended he was and somehow got McHale an audition with director Sam Raimi. McHale booked it with an audition heavy on improvisation, then was so scared the night before his shoot day that he couldn’t sleep. Tobey Maguire was “so nice” and the experience was great: “And then I didn’t get a job for years. That was way before my hair transplant. Much more of a character actor back then.”
Just when you thought McHale’s most beloved role — as Jeff Winger in Community — might not come up, the very last audience questioner brought it up, asking when we will all see the Community movie. “The Community movie is called Scream 7, which you can see next February,” said McHale.
But seriously? McHale said that the creative team has secured the necessary financing, so the next step will be scheduling it, which is something the whole cast is anxious to do: “We’re just trying to help Donald (Glover)’s career.”
If the sloths and iguanas can spare McHale for a few months, I’m sure Glover will be very grateful.
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