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Aubrey Plaza and Joe Wengert didn’t person to look acold for inspiration on Kevin, their big animated bid for Prime Video.
In a rather different scenario, nan show had nan 2 reconvening to excavation their past romanticist narration a mates of decades aft it ended — utilizing that history arsenic nan backdrop to research nan soul life of Kevin, nan feline (voiced by Jason Schwartzman) that they erstwhile owned together.
Interestingly, Plaza and Wengert came to squad up on Kevin after each separately mulled their ain cat-centric animated series, pre-pandemic. Their narration didn’t travel into nan communicative until nan folks astatine animation workplace Titmouse learned of it, encouraging them to thin successful arsenic a measurement of bringing a much individual touch.
Plaza, Wengert and executive shaper Dan Murphy discussed nan collaboration for nan Deadline Studio @ Prime Experience. Watch nan speech beneath and scroll down for photos from nan event.
Whereas successful reality, Kevin went pinch Wengert erstwhile nan mates collapsed up, nan joke astatine nan bosom of nan animated bid became, Wengert explains, that nan feline would say, “F*ck you guys. I’m going to spell do my ain thing” — going to unrecorded astatine a pet rescue successful Astoria, Queens, pinch a ragtag bunch of animals.
The creation of nan show’s ocular world was heavy influenced by Plaza and Wengert’s memories of Astoria — wherever their supervising director, Angelo Hatgistavrou, is from, and wherever they lived together successful nan early to mid-2000s.
“In nan creation direction, we didn’t springiness a circumstantial clip period, but we were trying to spell for a small spot of a vintage look for erstwhile we lived there, which was 20 years agone astatine this constituent — 10, 15, 20 years ago,” says Murphy, a friend of Plaza’s since she was 16 who was besides successful her orbit during that period. “So I deliberation nan show looks for illustration really we retrieve Astoria looking.”
Joe Wengert, Aubrey Plaza and Dan Murphy KEVIN astatine Deadline Studio astatine Prime Experience held astatine PMC Studios connected May 07, 2026 successful Los Angeles, California.
Anthony Avellano for Deadline
Joe Wengert and Dan Murphy astatine Deadline Studio astatine Prime Experience held astatine PMC Studios connected May 07, 2026 successful Los Angeles, California.
Anthony Avellano for Deadline
Aubrey Plaza astatine Deadline Studio astatine Prime Experience held astatine PMC Studios connected May 07, 2026 successful Los Angeles, California.
Anthony Avellano for Deadline
Coming to make Kevin after moving arsenic a supervising producer, past co-EP, and yet EP connected Netflix’s big animated comedy Big Mouth, Wengert says nan large instruction he brought to nan caller show from that 1 was nan value of grounding a “raunchy” world of “crazy jokes and crazy situations” successful a “strong consciousness of heart” — thing he and his collaborators did arsenic they leaned into “the emotions and existent feelings of these cats and dogs, nary matter really crazy they mightiness look connected paper.”
During nan chat, Wengert besides revealed that scripts for a 2nd play of Kevin are already written.
“I deliberation pinch astir drama shows and ensemble shows, it benignant of takes a small spot to find it. We talked about Parks and Rec a batch erstwhile we were moving connected [Kevin], and erstwhile we landed astatine nan extremity of nan first season, we were each really charged up astir knowing which characters we wanted to proceed to travel nan stories with,” he said. “So we person those scripts fresh to go, and I deliberation it is moreover funnier than nan first season. So we’re hoping to get to do much of them.”
Plaza voices Kevin’s erstwhile owner, Dana, pinch Wengert playing aggregate roles, and nan likes of Whoopi Goldberg, John Waters and Aparna Nancherla besides successful nan cast.
Kevin is exec produced by Plaza and Wengert, who serves arsenic showrunner, on pinch Murphy, Chris Prynoski, Ben Kalina, Shannon Prynoski and Antonio Canobbio. The show is produced by Titmouse, Evil Hag Productions and Amazon MGM Studios.
