among uswhich is animated by the titmouse (Star Trek: Lower Decks), follows the classification of monochromatic Crewmates on a ship carrying space junk. An alien hidden among them is taking them out one by one. Their job is to put their collective noggins together and find out which of them is the traitor before there are no crewmates left.
Ahead of among us‘ premiere, we spoke to showrunner Owen Dennis (Infinity Train) about how the series landed with its diverse actors, as well as his philosophy of turning a video game into a television show nearly a decade after becoming a global sensation.
among us It features a completely stacked cast, including actors from video games, animated shows, and comedies. The cast includes Yvette Nicole Brown (community) as Orange, Kimiko Glenn (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) as Sian, Liv Hewson (yellow jacket) as Black, Ashley Johnson (the last of us) as Purple, Wayne Knight (seinfeld) as Lime, Phil Lamar (samurai jack) as Brown, Randall Park (blue eye samurai) as Red, Dan Stevens (solar contrast) as Blue, Debra Wilson (Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots) as Yellow and the Computer, Elijah Wood (lord of the rings) as Greene and Patton Oswalt (goat) as white. Assembling the right group to bring the little jellybean-looking companions to life proved to be no small task for Dennis.
“One of the hard things about casting among us Is it that all the characters look the same? Their costumes are different, but they look pretty much alike, so [we needed to] Make sure each voice definitely sounds like a different person,” Dennis said. “For us, there’s no moving mouth and no face. Because of that, if you have a whole group of people and they’re all standing there and one of them is talking, you have to know which one of them is actually talking without moving their mouths.
He added, “It was really important for us to make sure that we got actors who are great and can express things in comedy, drama or any direction that we need them to. And also, their voices are so unique that I know which person is talking at any given time.”
While guidelines for what among us The need to assemble a crew of actors to bring his larger-than-life jellybean friends to life was obvious, Dennis admits, yet it still proved a tough hump to get over, which is why he’s especially grateful he landed the stacked cast.
He said, “When we landed on what we landed on, it all felt very natural and very good. I’m very happy with what we have.”
With the show’s announcement three years after the game’s pandemic-era peak, a cavalcade of internet memes making their way into the internet’s collective consciousness, and the video game adaptation being a hit-or-miss venture for fanatics, it wouldn’t be out of line to guess that some fans might be concerned that the CBS show might become a dated time capsule of that specific moment in time. And radio silence since 2023 – followed by a shadow-drop – has heightened concerns for fans who had half-forgotten the series was even in development until today’s surprise announcement.
When he was asked whether he or the writers room was worried about this? among us‘ The cultural moment had passed – and whether that likely brought pressure to create a show that was visionary rather than limited to 2020 – Dennis didn’t hesitate in saying that he didn’t let the noise influence his work. In his words, the task was to “make an animated show based on this video game that’s supposed to be fun.” He then followed up that response with a comment that felt like the methodology that any listener adopting a video game would be wise to follow.
“Comedy is a product of its time. All media is a product of its time. As much as people try to pretend they’re creating something timeless or can last forever, everything is a product of its time. You can’t escape that. But what can really make something a product of its time is a lot of referential humor. And references are like the lowest level of joke because it’s not really a joke. It’s just you saying something and then someone else saying it, ‘I know that’s the case.’ This is not a joke. It’s just saying something that someone knows.
Like, Dennis made sure among us Did not rely on referential humor. Instead, the show attempted to create jokes that were appropriate for its characters, situation, and comedic tone, with an emphasis on “no big specific references or anything like that”. Additionally, Dennis noted that efforts are being made to incorporate pop culture memes, especially in the hand-drawn shows. among usFirstly, it is a foolish thing to do.
He said, “It takes so long to create animation that if you just tried to make a pop culture reference for something, by the time it comes out, as soon as you start doing that, it’s out of date because it takes years for it to come out.”
“I want [Among Us] Standing on one’s own. I think that’s important whenever you’re adapting anything, it has to be something that fans of the thing will love, but at the same time it has to be able to stand completely on its own without having to go into previous works or the meta-narrative around the work or anything like that. It should totally be its own thing. If you can do that, you can achieve something. But if you don’t, you end up with something that feels strange, empty, and bizarre. I would hate to work on something like that.”
all 10 episodes of among us Streaming on Paramount+.
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