Exclusive Interview: Creator Doug Goldstein Talks “Devil May Care”

Throughout cinema’s short lifespan, (the) devil has gotten quite a bad rap. In his most recent television appearance, Satan drops his horns for a smart suit and redevelops hell from a bottomless lava pit into a gentrified neighborhood suspiciously reminiscent of contemporary American urban life, and filled to the brim with all things God hates—including you, me and all the things we love. In this exclusively interview, Devil May Care showrunner Doug Goldstein offers his hot takes on succubi, President McKinley, and CBD-infused coffee.

 

How did you come to work on Robot Chicken?

We all worked together back at Wizard  Magazine in the 90s. We all lived in New York, hopped in our cars and drove across the country to move here to Los Angeles to make Robot Chicken.  

Where did the idea for Devil May Care come from?

A long time ago, a friend of mine who went to UCLA for screenwriting told me a story about a teacher who was being very dramatic about the state of the movie industry. He said movies follow social trends and try to capture the Zeitgeist. Sometimes that means similar movies will come out at the same time, because of the need that society has for certain ideas. For instance, there was that time when like four or five movies about teenagers and old people switching brains came out simultaneously – 18 Again, that sort of stuff. Anyway, my friend raised his hand and said, I heard that some sort of person at this studio greenlit one of those movies and that, at a different studio, this guy that used to work with the first guy and really wanted to undermine him because he hated him, decided to decided to greenlight a similar movie. And that’s why they came out at the same time.

And that really got me thinking about how we always attach the most dramatic interpretations to things when really, they’re just dumb and mundane if you know the whole story. And that in turn got me thinking about the whole idea of heaven and hell. To us it seems dramatic, but what if in reality it’s just dumb and mundane, that heaven is simply filled with that God just thinks is cool, and hell with whatever he finds lame, stupid or repulsive.

Then we thought, who gets to run such a place, and who would be in there, what would their daily lives be like? These were the first steps to creating the characters. And the funny thing is, I had intended on keeping that dynamic a secret and let people figure it out for themselves. But as I kept working with people on the episodes they kept asking me, wait so how does this work? At which I’m like, look you’ll find out someday just be patient, and it just got to the point where it’s like, you know, it’s fine. I can’t, I can’t take it anymore. So I redid my plans for the fourth episode, which now explains the whole world and reveals everything I just said. So the complainers won.

You kind of answered my second question already. I was going to ask you what was the biggest change made to the series during development. Would you say that was it?

Yeah, I think that’s the biggest one. And it’s funny because I often complain about movies where the writer and director clearly have these amazing ideas but they fail to put them on screen properly, and so it comes across as clunky. I guess I was walking down that road, where I had this amazing idea and I said, ooh, I’m gonna tease it and we’ll these little clues so people will figure it out. And that was probably an egotistical, obnoxious to think. It was much better for everyone involved that I explained it in that episode.

Right. But the way you talk about it doesn’t necessarily sound like it was an executive decision, your bosses, the money men, was like: people won’t like this show if they can’t like figure it out immediately! From the way you said it, rather, it sounds more like the team just wanted to know what the hell they were working on.

Syfy has been incredibly supportive. What they are concerned about most is that the characters and their motivations and their relationships to each other are clear, which is great because you should understand the characters up front. What was funny was that they were asking all the questions that I just explained to you, that people were asking. The fact that they were asking that too, it bugged me how dramatic that change would be, so I decided it was better to just reveal the whole script, so to speak.

Why did you settle for your voice cast? What did they each bring to the table that no other candidates auditioning for their roles could?

First off, Alan Tudyk—he can do almost any role. It’s almost like, why don’t you get the greatest guy in the world? But what he does with Devil…I really wanted to make sure that people understood that Devil is in charge, but in a very strange way. I mean, it takes a strange mind to love all the things that end up in hell. Seriously, it is not ironic; he thinks this is all great even though it’s the stuff that God just doesn’t want. He doesn’t know that and he’s really honest about it, so to be outrageous and serious at the same time is something Allen really nails. I joked with him; I said, you know, ever since you came on board, I feel like I don’t have to work that hard writing this anymore because you just do such a great job of it.

Pamela Adlon voices Regina; she is a complicated character not only because she’s Devil’s wife, but also because she’s a succubus. She’s not sexually powerful in a way that relies on men to want her. She’s powerful in her own right. And Pamela is so strong and funny that she nails it.

Then there’s Beans, the fish-out-of-water, innocent character who works as Devil’s assistant. His voice actor, Asif Ali, does such a great job at being honest and confused and shocked and scared and taking things in stride with the way he expresses himself, and he really just is Beans in that way. I remember watching videos of a lot of different candidates, and as soon as I heard him speak, I said, oh shit, that’s him.

Then the the other main character is voiced by Stephanie Beatriz. She plays Gloria, the know-it-all-seen-it-all head demon of hell. She kicks around with characters whom she likes but is condescending toward the ones she doesn’t. Stephanie just had that attitude, she’s got a little bit of that Brooklyn-I-don’t-give-a-shit-tone in her voice.

As for President McKinley, who is Devil’s – I say left hand man instead of right hand because left is always more sinister. I love the idea that all politicians are in hell, of any kind. I was going through all the old presidents of saying who would might make a good assistant, you know, vice president for Devil. If you go to Wikipedia and look up President McKinley, his face, he looks crazy intense. Like he’s got a resting stare. We we actually asked a few different voice actors what they would do with the character if they go the role and what Fred, the voice actor we settled on, did was just intimidating, yet in a way that you could tell he was a little bit of a blowhard.

So either people immediately matched what I had in my head when I heard them, or, as with Alan, it just occurred to me that, holy shit he could do stuff with this character that I never thought to do myself.

Sticking with Alan for a moment. The devil appears in a lot of animated shows. What distinguishes your version of him from all the others? 

Doug: First of all, and this is something that I enjoy saying to people, our devil is just Devil. He’s not The Devil. That’s just his name. And it’s one of the funny examples of how we are dramatically misinterpreting things like oh my God, The Devil! He is not evil in any way. When he was put in charge of hell, a long time ago, hell was just lava. And he was like okay, this is  the way God wants it. Okay, let’s do it and have some fun. And it took him thousands of years to realize that humans don’t like being dumped in lava, so he was like, oh shit, sorry guys! He’s like a Steve Jobs guy, if Steve Jobs worked on bad products.

Does Beans have a counterpart in heaven, who is God’s assistant? And if so, who would have to tougher job?

He does not, although God does have angels that do his work for him. I think Beans has a tougher job because he still has to figure out every little thing he sees whereas God really just wants heaven to be a wonderful place where he can relax with everybody. Because of this, there’s not that much for the angels to do. On top of that, we’re never going to see God or heaven in the show. There’s one episode where we explain everything, but you don’t see them. This is not a story about the relationship between heaven and hell. It’s just about hell.

Interesting you say that because I believe there’s quite a bit of pressure to up the ante for each new season. Introduce new characters, visit new places, change the rules, things like that. You know how Rick and Morty has this rule where they don’t do time travel? Yeah.

Is not going to heaven your equivalent of the time travel rule? Well, I think that those guys don’t use time travel because the storytelling becomes…stupid, and I know that’s probably oversimplifying the situation. With me and heaven, it’s just not part of our story. It’s like, let’s say if you wanted to tell a story about America In the 60s. Someone might say, oh, right in the middle of the Cold War, we’re going to see what’s going on in Russia…No! That’s not what this story is about! Plus, heaven’s boring. Everyone’s happy and relaxed and having a good time all the time. There’s just nothing worth exploring up there.

Do you have a good relationship with your own social media team?

Yeah, so far I do, even though we’re just getting started. The big thing that we worked on together was the virtual San Diego Comic Con this year. They were great. They sent over a lot of equipment so I could record, and they were funny. We work together on what would be said. They wrote some stuff. I rewrote it. We all recorded it. Alan did a lot of recordings for them. They’ve been great so far. And thank God for that, because with the quarantine, we can’t really do much that isn’t social media.

How has the quarantine affected the show’s production? 

We just finished – well, almost finished the pilot. It’s all written in our homes. All the voice recordings are done out of the actors’ homes. The production team is in Vancouver with Titmouse and they had to close their whole studio. The animation is then sent overseas, where I assume most people are working from home, too. It’s almost like the world of animation hasn’t stopped. And in fact, if anything, it’s gotten a lot busier because now that we can’t do live action, people are asking for more animation.

 

Devil May Care premieres February 6th @ Midnight ET/PT, only on Syfy, check your local listings. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.