Exactly one week ago today, we here at NAG were lucky enough to get the chance to talk to two of the biggest names in geek pop culture today – Chris Parnell, the voice of everyone’s favourite idiot Jerry and Sarah Chalke, the voice and life force behind Beth.
Morty: “Mom, I have a friend coming over. Is that cool?”
Beth: “I told your sister no parties.”
Morty: “It’s one friend.”
Beth: “That’s a party to you.”
Since 2013, Rick and Morty have been entertaining millions around the globe with season after season of complete insanity. One of the core reasons the show has managed to remain as consistently successful as it has is undoubtedly because of the contrast between Beth and Jerry and the rest of the family.
Hardly strangers to the screen, the two actors responsible for making us groan at them and cheer for them week after week have an impressive 261 acting credits between them. From Archer to American Dad and even How I Met Your Mother, if you watch TV, you’ve probably heard the voices of Beth and Jerry on screen for longer than you even realise.
Jerry: “The trick to cereal is keeping 70% of it above the milk.”
While we only had a few minutes to talk to one of the geekdom’s most loveably problematic couples, we did get to glimpse behind the curtain and see some of the inner workings of their relationship. One of the questions we had was whether or not either actor could identify a part of Beth or Jerry that was a reflection of who they are in their real lives:
Chris: Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s not hard for me to pull on my own insecurities and things, to go to the space that Jerry lives in, you know. Hopefully, I’ve got it together a bit more than Jerry, a bit more capable. But yeah, no, that’s definitely there for me, the pathetic parts of Jerry and insecurities. So, you know, that’s easy enough to pull out.
Sarah: Uh, for me, I think that I tend to, as a middle child, kind of just want to make sure everything’s okay, and so I can definitely relate to that with Beth. Just like she doesn’t want Rick to go and leave the family again, like let’s just keep everything okay and then obviously that shifts and evolves, and we learned a lot more about that, that I hope that’s where our similarities end. Beth, you know, had to have a secret world created because she was making whips to make people like her and mind-control hair clips as a child.
Jerry: “Nobody’s killing me until after I catch my wife with another man.”
One of the other questions asked during the interview was about Beth and Jerry’s relationship and the evolution that it has gone through over the last six seasons. As viewers know, their relationship hasn’t always been the easiest. We see a throwback to some of their more turbulent times at the start of the latest season. Chris and Sarah on where they see their characters’ relationship going from here:
Sarah: We can’t say what we know because then we will not have these lovely jobs that we love so much. But my hope and my wish is that this show goes on and on and on, and we get to see them have a lot more ups and downs. I mean, it’s been one of the funnest parts of the show to play out this relationship that I had no idea of where it would go at the beginning. It’s been so fun to play, just kind of like Beth’s initial disdain for Jerry and this power imbalance in their relationship and then getting to play their divorce and then them coming back together. So, yeah, hopefully, there will be many more iterations of that.
Chris: Yeah, it’s, uh, I don’t remember if there are any major relationship shifts in this season. I don’t think there are. I mean, it’s sort of, we do see the family come together to work together, which is nice, always. But I don’t, I don’t know that we go through any great turbulence in our marriage this season, but I can’t remember. I don’t know. It’s been so long since we recorded.
Beth: “Dad, how could you make my son miss an entire semester of school? I mean, it’s not like he’s a hot girl. He can’t just bail on his life and set up shop in someone else’s.”
And finally, what better on-screen couple to ask for relationship advice than the couple who have literally been through it all? Multiple times over. When asked about the marriage advice that they would give their characters respectively, here is what Chris and Sarah had to offer:
Chris: Communicate, keep the lines of communication open. Be honest. Be sure to express your love for your partner. Try to be physically connected. Um, I don’t know, just sort of typical, healthy relationship advice, I guess.
Sarah: Maybe don’t go to off-planet couples counselling where you have the opportunity to see in the visual form how the other person views you. That might’ve been not a wise choice as Beth saw Jerry as a worm. I think it revealed a little bit too much.
Chris: Or maybe it helped Jerry. I don’t know.
Sarah: Well, maybe, maybe that was the whole impetus for all the growth.
Chris: Yeah, exactly. He needed to see himself through Beth’s eyes as a worm.
Sarah: Yeah.
If you enjoyed this interview, be sure to check back in next week for our review of Season Six of Rick and Morty – Wubba Lubba Dub Dub