ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Entergalactic stars Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi and Jessica Williams about the Netflix animated event, which begins streaming on September 30, 2022. Mescudi also co-created the TV event with Kenya Barris.
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“An original, immersive, animated story about a young artist named Jabari — voiced by Mescudi — as he attempts to balance love and success,” says the synopsis. “Finding the latter brings Jabari a step closer to the former, when moving into his dream apartment introduces him to his new neighbor, photographer it-girl Meadow — voiced by Jessica Williams. An explosion of art, music, and fashion, Entergalactic takes place in the only city that can handle all three: New York.”
Tyler Treese: Scott, I’ve been a huge fan of your music, and one thing you’ve always been able to do is to instill a mood to the listener through the production, your lyrics, and even just your humming. With Entergalactic, you get an extra layer to play with, with the visuals, which look just amazing. So how important was it to have just a great look to the series to really further the art?
Scott Mescudi: Man, I think, you know, with me, I think my whole career has always been about how do I push it. How do I bring new experiences for the listener, for the fans? And with this, before I started, it was kind of like, I was in this place where I was really bored of recording an album and just releasing it and doing two music videos, and then that’d be it, you know? And I always wanted to do some type of visual album type thing, but that’s been done before and I was just trying to figure out my angle.
So when this came around, it was kind of like “Oh, this is perfect.” You know, I can kind of do something where the music is as important as the visuals and it guides the story. And that’s something new, and the animation can be new and groundbreaking and different, you know? Everything is heightened, the music is heightened, the animation is heightened. And meeting up with [director Fletcher Moules], he was key, our director, finding exactly what I wanted with the animation.
We went back and forth for months just trying to get it right. He was a really big help. You know, the first mockup that he did of the character was like, pretty much spot on. I felt like we put it in good hands with Fletch. So, it’s very important for me to just push it and make sure that kids are experiencing something they’ve never seen before.
Jessica, there’s really great love story here. What element of Jabari and Meadow’s relationship did you just find the most moving?
Jessica Williams: The element of Meadow and Jabari’s relationship that I found the most moving was when she hops on the back of his bike. That, I think about that a lot, it’s stuck with me and we’ve done this project over a couple of years. I like the symbolism of it, and I like how cute it is. It’s just as simple as that to me. It’s a really nice layered action between the two of them, and also I think it fits our movie really well. Yeah, I like it.
Mescudi: Yeah. I agree.
This is one of the most incredible casts I’ve ever seen in a TV event.
Mescudi: I know. I’m so lucky.
Similar to an album where you’re getting features. What was it like just getting all of your friends involved, all these great actors, and them wanting to be a part of your vision?
Mescudi: Man, I remember when we first started, I was talking with [executive producer Karina Manashil] and the team, and I was just like, “Man, we got to figure out who can do this. You think they’ll do this?” Like, names would come up, and like, Jessica’s name comes up, and I was like, “All right, she’s in this Fantastic Beasts movie, this huge movie, would you want to do this?”
You know, and it’s just like asking Timothée, even though Timothée’s my boy, I know Timothée’s got Dune and all this other stuff going on, these big movies, would he want to do my small animated show? It really just warmed my heart to see so many people just get behind it and get behind my idea, you know?
And when we did that junket when we were all together a couple months ago, and then we had that question where we were like, “What made you guys all kind of get into the project?” and all you guys [said it was because of me]. Like, that moment right there was like, “Oh my God.” I just felt so good, you know? Because anybody, any artist, especially when you’re trying new things, and you’re going on a journey, and everybody involved knew that this was something different and new, it’s just… It just means so much that there’s so many people that are willing to take that ride with you, you know? That are willing to trust you on this whole ride.
