Stephen Root on enjoying a cult chief in ‘Reward Petey’: ‘Clearly off his rocker’

Stephen Root offers a tip of the previous cap to buddy Mike Decide for his lead function within the new animated comedy “Praise Petey,” premiering July 21 (10 p.m.) on Freeform.

Annie Murphy headlines the collection as Petey, a millennial “It Lady” who, by way of a collection of occasions, takes command of New Utopia, a small-town cult began by her hedonistic late father (Root). He, in flip, left behind a trove of bizarre, oft-touching life-lesson videotapes to assist information his daughter on her newfound journey — and looms massive over the season arc.

The all-star solid consists of Christine Baranski, Paget Brewster, Kirsey Clemons, John Cho and Amy Hill.

The collection, created by Anna Drezen (“Saturday Night time Dwell”), counts amongst its govt producers Mike Judge and Greg Daniels — co-creators of Fox’s beloved animated collection “King of the Hill” (1997-2009), on which Root performed sad-sack Military barber Invoice Dauterive, pal/ingesting buddy of Texas propane salesman Hank Hill (Decide).

“He was the primary one to contact me [about ‘Praise Petey’],” Root mentioned of Decide. “He mentioned, ‘I’ve obtained possibly a bizarre man for you’ and I mentioned, ‘I’m down with you buddy, no matter you want. Happily the opposite producers thought I used to be good for [the role], too.

“I used to be joyful to come back in and play.”

Root’s lengthy showbiz resume pivots back-and-forth between live-action and animation, together with his Emmy-nominated function as Monroe Fuches in HBO’s “Barry” and as Mayor Toadstool in “Amphibia” (Disney Channel). For the uninitiated, he additionally performed mumbling, stapler-obsessed Milton Waddams — who didn’t get a piece of birthday cake — in Decide’s 1999 big-screen comedy “Workplace House.” So … he’s accustomed to enjoying offbeat characters.

“What you’re going to see [with Petey’s father] is usually that he’s handed on and that he was loopy sufficient to make a collection of videotapes to inform his daughter learn how to dwell and learn how to management the folks within the cult metropolis,” Root mentioned. “He’s clearly off his rocker.

“Hopefully his message, in the long run, is that it’s not great to be in a cult and that it’s higher to possibly get out of the cult and begin eager about your self — and that’s hopefully what Petey will get everybody to do over the course of the season.”

Whereas he’s performed a wide range of characters over time, Root mentioned he doesn’t select his function to suit any particular character trait.

“For me, the writing is paramount, however a powerful help to that’s who I’m going to be working with,” he mentioned. “I’m an enormous fan of Annie’s, and I labored with Amy Hill on ‘King of the Hill.’ All the pieces out of Paget Brewster’s mouth is humorous … and it makes an enormous distinction in the event you’re in a position to work with somebody you’ve by no means labored with earlier than, because it did for me on this collection.”

Root mentioned he and his fellow actors weren’t ready, for probably the most half, to report their voiceovers in the identical room as a consequence of COVID.

“We did Zoom read-throughs for nearly the entire exhibits, which is essential to see and time your self to the opposite actors, and everybody might see what the opposite was doing,” he mentioned. “The writers might see what chemistry bounced off of the actors after which might do rewrites as they went alongside.

“There’s nothing like being a room collectively,” he mentioned. “With ‘King of the Hill’ it was like old-time radio and everybody was in just a little semi-circle bouncing off of one another.

“I hope we’ll get an opportunity to try this right here.”

This interview was performed previous to the SAG-AFTRA strike.