ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Steve Hely and Joe Bennett about creating the new Adult Swim animated series Common Side Effects. Hely and Bennett discussed how the show addresses topics of Big Pharma, creating the trippy-looking animation, and more.
“The half-hour series follows Marshall and Frances, two former high school lab partners who share a secret: Marshall has discovered the world’s greatest medicine, a mushroom that can heal almost anything,” the synopsis for the show reads. “But getting it out into the world won’t be easy – the DEA, big pharma, and international businessmen are all on the chase to stop them.”
Common Side Effects will premiere on Sunday, February 2, at 11:30 ET/PT on Adult Swim. New episodes will also stream on Mondays on Max.
Brandon Schreur: I’m wondering if you can tell me a little bit about how this project came to fruition. I’m always kind of just curious to know about when you started working on this project and what the process of getting it made was like.
Steve Hely: We started working on it, I think it was 2019. Greg Daniels and Mike Judge were starting an animation company and I knew Greg from working on The Office and everybody knew Joe from being a cool animator. We sort of got paired up. I’d seen Joe’s work and I thought it was awesome. We started talking about, ‘What’s sort of an animated show we can make that’s sort of in the real world?’ We got going on this thought experiment of what if there was this medicine that can cure almost anything? Who would be after it? What would that look like?
We started talking about this character who is sort of a weird, oddball kind of guy. We just went on from there. We had a lot of the same references, movies we were thinking about, and themes we were into. So, ever since then, we’ve been going on it.
The project went through a couple of different iterations. We sold it to Amazon, at one point, and they didn’t quite get what we were doing. Joe made a little animated short to try and show what the tone of the show would be, and that got some excitement. We were able to sell it to Max and it moved over to Adult Swim. Now, we’re finally putting it into the world.
Sure. That’s awesome. What a journey, but I’m glad it worked out that way. There are a lot of things I love about Common Side Effects. One of them is just this kind of the animation, in general. This style is so unique and cool-looking the whole time. When you were first working on the show back in 2019, like you said, and you had in mind that it was going to be animated, did you know how it was going to turn out in the end? Like, is this how you envisioned it to look? What was the process of bringing this to life like?
Joe Bennett: I think we had a general idea of what it was going to look like. I think we were trying to really lean into the cinematic world and have things feel grounded and feel real to sort of match the style of the way the characters are talking to each other, the writing, and all that stuff. A lot of it has also kind of evolved. We were very fortunate to work with such a huge, awesome team of amazing artists that brought a lot to the table. It was this whole evolution and there were certainly parts of the show that definitely got heightened because of what they brought to it.
I founded an animation studio called Green Street Pictures and we co-produced Scavengers Reign. I think a big part of our whole philosophy is just trying to make things look as high-quality and prestige as possible. We tried to do that with this show. And, yeah, shoutout to Benjy Brooke, the supervising director; Wes McClain; a lot of the episodic directors like Camille Bozec and Vincent Tsui. These are artists from around the world who are incredible. This wouldn’t have looked the way it does without them.
Hely: Yeah, Joe is, like, an animation fan in addition to being into this stuff, so he’s always finding these awesome people who are doing great work and bringing them onto the team. It’s a beautiful collaboration to witness.
Sure. I’ve got to say, I loved the sequences when they take the actual mushrooms and everything gets so trippy. That was so cool, I loved it so much, so hats off to how that turned out because, again, so cool. I also love the show because it raises some really big questions about Big Pharma, government, and all that. But, at the same time, you guys are really good at being funny in this show. The quick Gegory line in the first episode, that made me laugh out loud, a quick little thing like that. How does the process of balancing out the big, heavier themes of the show with the comedy work? Is it a lot of back-and-forth of seeing what works or did you know exactly what tone you were trying to strike right from the get-go?
Hely: Yeah, we were definitely going for something that was funny but not something super jokey or feeling really scripted. We wanted everything to feel really organic and come out of real moments. But if you just sort of pay attention to the weird way life works — you’re having this important conversation in a coffee shop and something weird is going on in the background. That’s our vision of how life is. So we just tried to bring that into the show.
Even DEA agents on a serious stakeout are going to be trying to amuse themselves, pass the time, play each other weird music, and make each other laugh. Putting that into the show just made it feel like it came to life for us.
I wanted to ask you about the DEA agents, too, because I loved those guys. They were so funny and their dynamic was so fun; I love how you introduce them and they don’t even have to say much but you immediately get what their relationship is and how they work. The voice acting for them is so good for them, too. What was it like bringing those guys to life? You worked with Joseph Lee Anderson and the great Martha Kelly. How did that go for you guys?
Hely: They’re both great. They’re both so sweet and interesting, themselves. Martha is just completely unique and having somebody with her voice and style in a role like a DEA agent seemed really funny. Joseph, on his end, he’s really sweet-hearted, but he can also bench press 400 pounds or something. The partnership of those two people seemed kind of interesting. It gave us a chance to tell a love story that isn’t a romantic love story, it’s just about two people who work together and really care about each other. And they started to actually care about each other, which was really nice.
That’s awesome. As soon as Martha Kelly started talking, I was like, ‘I know who that is!’ She’s got such a great voice for the role.
Hely: It is distinct.
So the show, obviously, touches on some big, real-world topics. Big Pharma, capitalism, government, and all that. I was surprised and impressed by how head-on you get into everything. The show doesn’t really mince words, you just go for it right away. Talk to me a little bit about how you infused all of that into the show and what you’re kind of hoping people take away from Common Side Effects in regard to those themes.
Hely: We were talking a lot about wellness, health, and how we spend so much money on this stuff but people are sick all the time. A lot of people are chronically addicted to weird drugs, legal and illegal, and what’s that about? Who is profiting from it? Trying to evolve that in a way where there aren’t little villains who are manipulating everything, but there are people who are caught up in this massive system that’s bigger than anybody and has these strange, warping effects on all our lives. That just seemed true to our view of the world.
Totally. I was wondering what kind of research you have to do for a show like this. Like, did you have to go around and talk to people who are in this industry and everything to really figure out how it works?
Hely: Yeah, we did. We talked to a retired DEA agent, we talked to a bunch of people in the pharmaceutical business, we talked to a tortoise biologist, and we talked to people who had been in jail. We did as much research as we could do. And, always, we’d come in with particular questions and then they’d offhandedly mention something else that would lead to some weird little story or some phrase they’d use that we’d put in or some procedure. The more we can learn, the better. Less work for us.
Sure. I’m sure that probably took a long time, too, getting all of those facts and making sure they’re right.
Hely: And the visuals, all the artists are looking up — give them an assignment and they’ll be finding real-world examples and shots from old movies that can inform what they’re doing. It creates this cool, cinematic quality.
Bennett: A lot of the time, even if we bring in somebody who is like a tortoise biologist, they’d talk about weird stories in their life that are not related to the tortoise at all. For instance, they have to sort of scan the desert to find tortoise eggs and so they have to go in a line with a bunch of people. They’re kind of raking the entire desert and they discover some of the weirdest things. They’ve seen dead bodies. They’ve seen, like, a tent with a bunch of weird sex experiments going on inside. You can just sort of pull from that sort of stuff, as well. Yeah, they’re fascinating people.
Hely: Yeah, and we had a bunch of writers who are really smart, and the people who work with Joe — everybody has had strange experiences with drugs, pharmaceuticals, the medical world, or they know somebody who is a doctor. It can feel like therapy, sometimes, when we’re doing the writing and digging in on the need to affect your brain with a little pill.
Sure. That’s all so interesting.
Hely: And I think these are themes the world is talking about and thinking about.
Oh, sure. All of this is just becoming more and more relevant every day, so I think this show is really going to catch on and find an audience.
Hely: I hope so!
So, from the time you started working on the show, back in 2019, until now, how would you say that it’s impacted you? Is there stuff that you learned? Did your mind change at all about pharmaceuticals?
Hely: I would say that we’re always trying to be open-minded to where people are coming from. For everything that you’re talking about — Big Pharma, say, you can look at those guys as villains, but you can look at it from their point of view of, ‘Yeah, we have to charge a lot for these things so we have money for research and development.’ The way those effects kind of warp people’s behavior and dehumanize us is a theme that we’re looking at in the show. I think it made us sympathetic to every possible perspective on these things.
That makes total sense. I’ve now seen the first four episodes of Common Side Effects. I’m so excited to watch more, I’m so into it. In general, what can you tease as far as what’s coming for the second half of the season?
Hely: We think that it just keeps building and building and getting more and more exciting. The last couple of episodes are just — I can brag about it because it’s a masterpiece of animation and filmmaking craft. It’s super fun.
Bennett: It definitely escalates and crescendos in a really cool way.
Hely: We’re trying to just keep hitting the gas and go faster and faster until you can barely stand it.
Awesome, I can’t wait. And, again, I don’t know how the season ends or what’s coming down the pipe, but assuming that the door is left open for more seasons and Adult Swim said they’d be interested in continuing the story, would you guys be interested in doing more Common Side Effects after this?
Hely: Yeah, we’re ready to go. We pitched out a Season 2 the other day. They seemed excited about it so, hopefully, we can keep telling the story. It’s been a joyful experience and a fun project all around.
Thanks to Steve Hely and Joe Bennett for discussing Common Side Effects.
