Nick Kroll discusses making Big Mouth more inclusive
The Netflix animated comedy will debut its first asexual character in the sixth season, out tomorrow
Aux News Nick Kroll
Six seasons in, it’s inevitable for any show to evolve. For the middle school-set Big Mouth, it could also be called growing up. In a new interview with New York Magazine’s The Cut, star and co-creator Nick Kroll addresses how the Netflix animated show has become more inclusive over the years.
“We quickly realized this was a show about much more than two straight Jewish white boys from Westchester,” the comedian says. Big Mouth has historically revolved primarily around Kroll’s character, also named Nick, and Andrew, voiced by John Mulaney. “By now, the characters and the stories have taken on a life of their own.”
Despite the show being populated by hormone monsters and a Shame Wizard, they’re all part of Big Mouth being rooted in very human perspectives, which have expanded over the years to reflect the real world. The cast of Bridgeton Middle School students now includes characters voiced by Ali Wong, Gina Rodriguez, and Joel Kim Booster, amongst others.
Previously, Big Mouth was called out for casting Jenny Slate as the voice actor for Missy, a Black character. The Marcel The Shell star stepped away from the role in 2020 and was replaced by Ayo Edebiri. Missy’s plotlines since then have reflected that the new casting allows for a deeper exploration of her identity. (Fellow Netflix animated series BoJack Horseman never took action on Alison Brie voicing the Vietnamese-American Diane Nguyen despite consistent criticism across six seasons.)
Big Mouth has been acclaimed for its humorous depictions of its characters figuring out their sexualities, often to outrageous, eye-popping effect. In the sixth season, released this week, the series will introduce its first asexual character, something requested by fans. The show’s writers work with sex educators and psychologists to help them get things right.
“You don’t want to force these story lines,” Kroll tells The Cut. “You don’t want to limit a character to, like, This kid, his whole thing is that he’s ace.”
The sixth season of Big Mouth premieres on Netflix on October 28.
12 Comments
Oh, this should be fun.
As fun as what the Kroll family did for Harvey Weinstein. They almost saved him.
Alt. headline: Big Mouth bites off more than it can chew
Big Mouth Opens Wider
Funny how kids just started being all these things like five years ago. It’s almost as if growing up with social media fucks up your brain in more ways than we can imagine.
Nick Kroll’s family owns K2 Intelligence which is a company that Harvey Weinstein hired to collect information on the women and the journalists trying to expose Weinstein’s long history of rape. Good guy.
…but he did it in his El Chupacabra voice, which seems like a bad move.
So I guess the autistic kid is still going to be relegated to awful Family Guy-style background gags
The recasting of Missy worked pretty well actually. I just hope they don’t ever consider recasting Lola, because even though she is voiced by Nick Kroll she is one of the funniest characters.
I do kind of miss the original voice actor’s performance because they brought an odd, sort of nasal quality to it that really sold Missy’s nerdiness. Almost like a Steven Urkel snort was constantly about to happen. That said I get why they felt it was necessary and I think the current voice actor is doing a great job. I was a bit concerned it would be different enough to be distracting at first but after a few lines it wasn’t really noticeable.Agreed about Lola, even if she is a bit of a punching bag/wrecking ball as a character she’s hilarious and the vocal performance has as much to do with it as the writing.
I don’t know if this is a hot take, a bad take or the right take, so take it with a grain of salt. The recasting of Misty worked out for the best, and I applaud Kroll for listening to fans, but I still don’t necessarily believe it was necessary. A big part of Misty’s identity comes from her being Jewish, which Jenny Slate is, but not in a stereotypical way. Misty is also mixed, white and black. While the more recent seasons started to explore her cultural identity a bit more, it was never the main focus of her character. By removing Slate (she volunteered, I know), they essentially pushed aside her Jewish heritage, imo. To be clear while I’m not religious, my family is Jewish, so that might be why I feel this way.I agree with A Drop of Hell, her nasal quality really sold her nerdiness, too. Lastly, again, I need to stress that Ayo Edebiri is doing a fantastic job with the character, to the point where it’s not super noticeable that the VA was changed.
Nobody is white and Black.