One of Rick Kruger’s first scenes in “Common Side Effects,” Adult Swim‘s Emmy-nominated animated series about a magic mushroom that might heal the world, sees the CEO of Reutical Pharmaceuticals sitting in a dark editing bay, staring at a glowing screen, while two production staffers wait silently for his yay or nay on a new ad spot. The only problem is that Rick isn’t looking at the monitor showing the commercial. He’s looking at his phone.
When one of the editors awkwardly nudges Rick into saying something, aka doing his job, the slobbish boss pries his eyes upward for a few seconds and asks, “Is Frances here?” before going back to his phone, where his digital blue goat-boy is watering plants. When Frances, his assistant, suggests the ad for “geriatric incontinence and urine leakage” may face marketing issues, Rick, still looking at his phone, mutters, “Ugh, marketing. A lot of those types are going to have to get fired.” Then a tiny smile creeps across his face, and it’s unclear whether he’s pleased by the notion of impending layoffs, or the little pink flower his goat avatar just managed to grow.
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Despite these numerous, blazing red flags, there’s something about Rick that solicits sympathy. You even want to trust him. Yes, he’s an entitled rich guy; a lazy executive whose underpaid underlings are doing the majority of his work; a willing capitalist cog in the widely despised industry of health insurance. But he’s also a man you know; a guy you might commiserate with at a bar, or a neighbor who invites you over for a cookout and a cold one… who grills with propane and despises charcoal… who only drinks Alamo beer… who speaks in a distinct Texas drawl… who– oh, my God, that voice, it’s Hank Hill!
Clearly, Rick Kruger and Hank Hill are separate people. Their differences outnumber their similarities — highlighted by the most obvious distinction: they’re animated characters on completely different TV shows — but they are played by the same actor, Mike Judge, and his perfectly pitched vocal performance isn’t far removed from his iconic work on “King of the Hill.” The contrast between the two men, be it consciously acknowledged by some viewers or subconsciously operating on others, highlights an integral aspect of “Common Side Effects“: Everyone is not who they appear to be.
“When we thought of [Rick], we didn’t want him to be evil,” co-creator Steve Hely said in an interview with IndieWire. “We just wanted him to be, like, a product of the system. Like everybody else in the show, he’s squeezed by the various, weird incentives of a capitalist medical system. They have him where he is, and we like the idea of this exasperated guy who’s just trying to take a break on his phone. So there are likable elements to him. I used to sympathize with the character because he’s lazy.”
Hely and fellow co-creator Joseph Bennett said they didn’t deliberately cast Judge, who’s also an executive producer on the series, as a meta reference or direct his performance to sound like Hank Hill, but they were looking for an actor whose presence would appeal to audiences even when his character’s behavior did not.
“That voice just has such a charm to it. I want to hang out with Rick,” Bennett said. “It did sound similar to Hank, but I don’t know. Mike, he’s such a heavy hitter. I’m just happy to have any version of him. He’s so good at what he does, [you know] it’s going to work.”
The same could be said for the “Common Side Effects” cast at large — not only that they’re incredibly good at what they do, but that they regularly emphasize their characters’ humanity, despite the inhumanity all around them. Such vivid, lively people create a delightful contrast with the murky, unfeeling systems dictating their every move, and it’s only by breaking free from what’s expected of them that they can find any truth, happiness, and compassion in this weird world of ours.
Hely and Bennett’s first season sets expectations, again and again, only to deliberately, brilliantly upend them. Such subversions can be seen as the story pivots from one twist to another and one surprise to the next. But they’re evident in the characters, too, as their initial impressions often lead viewers to assume more about them than they know, and soon enough, those assumptions are out the window.
So let’s take a look at a few examples of how the “Common Side Effects” cast gets us to rethink the way the world works, one convention-defying character at a time — starting with our unconventional lead:
Marshall Cuso (played by Dave King)
His Initial Appearance: In the series’ opening scene (which wasn’t originally designed to be the opening scene), Marshall grabs the mic at a Reutical Pharmaceutical shareholder meeting to ask when the company will stop destroying endangered plant life.
Our Natural Assumption: With his red button-down completely unbuttoned, a potted plant in his arms, and a thick beard drooping down toward his exposed belly, Marshall fits the bill for a crazy-fanatical environmentalist — someone whose passion to protect the planet trumps basic human niceties like personal hygiene, common sense, and collective civility.
The Hidden Truth: Marshall is extremely, consistently, endearingly nice — and he’s not crazy. Not in the slightest.
“Marshall’s highly intelligent and a little bit going off on his own path — there’s a lot going on in his brain,” Hely said. “So we just wanted to get that quality of [the character].”
Hely has known King for decades. They grew up in the same town and later co-hosted a podcast, “The Great Debates.” After listening to King on the podcast, it was Bennett who suggested casting him as Marshall.
“I just thought Dave had such a unique voice, and he was also a writer on the show, so that was a really nice thing,” Bennett said. “But he was just able to become the character so quickly. It felt right.”
Hely and Bennett’s only concern about King playing the lead character had nothing to do with his talent. It was whether the network would object to his limited acting experience.
“‘Is this going to be a problem that he’s not a huge A-list kind of actor or something?,’” Bennett said, remembering their initial fears. “But Adult Swim was really cool about all that. They trusted us.”
“Yeah, it was funny when they were going through the casting,” Hely said. “[The network executives] were like, ‘Well, Dave obviously is perfect,’ and we were like, ‘OK, whoa!’”
Harrington (played by Martha Kelly) and Capano (Joseph Lee Anderson)
Their Initial Appearance: In a sequence I’ve watched more times than I can count, Capano sits in his car listening to the radio while Harrington gets a hot dog from a nearby street vendor. When Harry Belafonte’s infectious hit, “Jump in the Line,” starts playing, Capano turns up the volume so Harrington can hear it in her earpiece, and the two start dancing — Capano in the relative privacy of his car, Harrington with a park full of people staring at her.
Our Natural Assumption: These two aren’t just goofballs — they’re incompetent goofballs. An important part of their introduction (that I neglected to mention above) is the framing: Before we meet Capano and Harrington, we’re in a super-serious meeting where their superiors are trying to decide who should track down Marshall. Capano and Harrington are the only team available, and when the boss asks if they’re any good, the briefing officers share a silent, ominous look. Then the scene cuts to the partners dancing in their car, implying that maybe they’re not the best agents the FBI has to offer.
The Hidden Truth: Capano and Harrington are actually too competent for their own good, but that’s not the only way they buck audience assumptions.
“The funny thing was that little dancing sequence was actually part of sort of a proof of concept — like a little sizzle that we used to sell the show,” Bennett said. “Because we didn’t have actors at the time, that’s why they’re dancing to Harry Belafonte and not talking.”
Once you hear Harrington’s voice, though, “it doesn’t immediately match the look of the character,” Bennett said. Kelly’s sweeping monotone is a unique asset, capable of holding an impressive array of emotions without expanding beyond an even keel, and the comedian deploys it beautifully in her stand-up as well as on shows like “Baskets,” “Carol and the End of the World,” and “The Great North.”
But until you appreciate the power of its subtle inflections, her voice sounds impassive and machine-like — traits that don’t belong to Harrington in the slightest. Beyond her lively dancing, the rest of Season 1 reveals her as chameleonic and even intense.
“She brings so much more than just the line,” Bennett said, noting that he’d previously worked with Kelly on some of his short films. “I just think that she can fill out [each line]. Every time I hang out with her, she’s so funny.”
As for Capano, Hely said they ended up writing more scenes for him because of Anderson’s thorough portrayal.
“That character just came to life in such a cool way from the way he does that voice,” Hely said. “It just felt like he knew the guy. We ended up seeing more of his life — his apartment and stuff — just because we wanted to get to know this guy a little more.”
Hely said a number of smaller parts ended up getting bigger because of the actor who played them, citing Shannon Woodward’s Amelia as another example.
“She’s just so talented and she can do so many different voices,” Hely said. “She could bring so much emotion to these characters, who we thought of as kind of small. Suddenly, they had so much more humanity and richness when she was doing them.”
Jimmer Jarvis (played by Mike Judge)
His Initial Appearance: As ominous music plays, the local sheriff walks in on Marshall while he’s trying to buy some real estate from an agent who turns out to be Mrs. Jarvis. Superficially courteous and casually racist, Jimmer is an old school authority figure, from his wide-brimmed hat to his work boots, and he’s presented as a fearful impediment to Marshall’s mission right from the jump.
Our Natural Assumption: He’s a hick, a hillbilly, a Southern gentleman who’s anything but gentle — in other words, he’s not someone who’s going to get along with Marshall and most likely will turn out to be an obstacle on his path to a progressive future.
The Hidden Truth: Wouldn’t you know it, Jimmer turns out to be an ally to Marshall — helping him protect his home, his mushrooms, and his attempt to give them out to those in need.
Judge, flexing the vocal range that’s allowed him to play Hank Hill, Beavis, and Butthead for decades on end, lends Jimmer a soft twang that denotes his soft heart — but the performance almost ended up on the cutting room floor.
“Actually, there was a bit of a fight over that,” Hely said about casting Judge. “He did it at the table read, and he did it so well that we wanted to cast him. But the network thought the voices weren’t distinct enough. So somebody else did that whole part and then we were like, ‘Hey, this guy is so good.’ It just didn’t sound right, having anybody else do it.”
“Mike’s one of those people that when he goes into the booth, it’s usually the first take where you’re like, ‘Well, this is great.’ That’s very rare,” Bennett said. “A lot of times you have to sift through a lot of different takes, and it takes some time for the actor to kind of understand the cadence or whatever that you’re going for. But every time, [Judge] just nailed it. We were like, ‘He’s the best Jimmer Jarvis. No one could beat that.’ So toward the end, we were able to convince the network to go back to that.”
Frances Applewhite (played by Emily Pendergast)
Her Initial Appearance: Frances spots Marshall at the shareholders conference and approaches him after he’s tossed out — hiding her affiliation with Reutical Pharmaceutical.
Our Natural Assumption: In her boring gray suit-skirt, plain brunette ponytail, and combed, fraying bangs, Frances is as close to straightforward as anyone in “Common Side Effects” gets. On the one hand, she cares about Marshall and wants to help people. On the other hand, she’s working for a shady pharmaceutical company, and she’s not immune to the financial benefits that come with climbing the corporate ladder. Still, from the start, Frances’ good heart shines through. She may be torn between two opposing forces, but she’s trustworthy.
The Hidden Truth: In a world (or, at least, this TV series) where no one is exactly how they appear, Frances is the exception. The key to her character is authenticity — you have to believe she wants to help Marshall, even when she’s going against his wishes — and the twist is there is no twist. Despite being tempted to betray Marshall or abandon his benevolent mission, she stays the course.
Hely took note of Pendergast’s talents when they worked together on “Veep.”
“She has a real sweetness and earnestness to her, and she’s just a very cool, genuine person, but can also go there emotionally as an actress,” Hely said. “With Frances, we wanted someone who you can empathize with. She’s someone who’s going through a lot and she’s become kind of successful, but she’s still struggling. Emily had the ability to do all that stuff.”
“Across the board, with all the actors, Steve and I wanted to try to go with their natural speaking voice,” Bennett said. “[We didn’t want to] put on any kind of fake cartoony accent or anything like that. So even with Emily, it’s like, ‘OK, let’s listen to an interview of Emily talking as opposed to her [acting] in film or TV or whatever.’”
“Common Side Effects” is available on Adult Swim and HBO Max. The series is nominated for Outstanding Animated Program at the 77th Emmy Awards and has been renewed for Season 2, which is expected to premiere in 2026.
