David Schwimmer brought his own corny dad jokes for his botanist character in “Goosebumps: The Vanishing,” the second season of the Disney+ and Hulu series inspired by R.L. Stine’s iconic stories.
For example, the punny plant joke that makes his teenage kids on the show — Devin (Sam McCarthy) and Cece (Jayden Bartels) — wince the hardest is, “What plant should you watch out for? An ambush.”
Showrunner Rob Letterman told TheWrap in a recent interview, “He did a deep dive on, ‘OK, botanist. Bad dad jokes. Bad dad plant jokes.’”
Fellow showrunner Hilary Winston added, “He sent us a list of these jokes. It was so cool.”
One of his bad jokes (“Sorry, I can’t go out. I have plants.”) became the unofficial crew shirt of the series “Everyone loves it. I was walking the streets of Brooklyn and I saw someone was wearing it,” Letterman shared.
Here’s more of TheWrap’s conversation with Winston and Letterman, who touted the season’s practical effects, its found footage episode directed by Eduardo Sánchez of “The Blair Witch Project” and how things you don’t see are sometimes the scariest.
How did you get David Schwimmer on board for this?
Rob Letterman: Oh, we got lucky. We love to get comedic characters to play dramatic roles like Rachael Harris [in Season 1]. Weirdly, comedy and horror map the same. It’s the same moment, the jump scares, the same moment as the punchline, often. So, we were going down that road, and then the idea of David came up. No one’s going to expect him to play something this dark, this emotional. We reached out to him, and he jumped on Zoom with us and he just loved the concept and he started giving ideas, and there was a great collaboration to shape the character of Anthony.
Was he familiar with the franchise?
RL: He was. He’s got a 13-year-old and so he’s familiar with “Goosebumps.” He loved the first season. And he’s in New York, and the show is based in New York, and he was born not too far from where the stages where we were shooting, so just a lot of things helped us.
Hilary Winston: The character of Anthony would not be what it became at all without Schwimmer. He just became that character, made the character so much deeper and richer. And there’s a lot of really great dramatic, sweet scenes with him. Even if you’re, ‘Oh, it’s him doing horror and that’s tied with comedy,’ there’s a lot of really dramatic scenes that he’s so good in this role.
How much of the stuff we’re seeing is CG, and are there any practical effects?
RL: There are a lot of practical effects. It’s a good mix. David had to cut into his arm in one scene, so of course he didn’t cut into his real arm. He cut into a practical thing, which was horrifying and everyone was cringing while we were shooting. But there’s a full monster suit in Episode 2. That’s total old school, no visual effects. The visual effects are amazing because WETA stepped up for us this season, which is incredible, because we had literally no time.
You’ve got the spookiness and little bit of gore, but you’re also trying to keep it PG.
RL: We don’t have to think about it. Disney was really cool. They said, “Don’t worry about that stuff. Just go for it. We’ll tell you when it’s too far.”
HW: They were like, “Just tell the best story.” And that’s what we’ve always done, not doing something just for a scare’s sake. It has to be organic to what we’re telling, organic to the characters. As long as we’re doing that, we just kept going as far as we felt like we needed to go.
Did they ever say, “OK, that’s too far”?
HW: Yes they have. They definitely have.
RL: But in a very nice way. We got, “That’s interesting, guys. But could you maybe not do that?”
HW: There’s a found footage episode that we do this season that is really, really scary that’s directed by Eduardo Sánchez, who’s one of the directors of “The Blair Witch Project.”
RL: It’s so awesome. We’re giddy about that.
HW: “The Blair Witch Project” was so scary [even though] not much happened. With that type of found footage, it’s what you’re not seeing. It’s putting you in the shoes of the characters, that’s what provides the scare.
RL: Knowing that something is there and not being able to see it tends to be scarier than getting the full effect of it. We did it last season, but we lean in even further on this season. We love playing with different subgenres. Every episode is really a mini movie, and it’s its own thing, which is part of the fun.
What is the appeal to you of an anthology show?
RL: It’s really liberating, because you can tell a whole new story, and new characters, new world and all that. Because how many years can a character deal with a monster where it no longer is fresh? How many years can you live in the poltergeist house?
HW: Ten years later you just go and live in the suburbs or with friends. You need to keep it fresh to scare people. Like all good horror, it is a metaphor for something else. That’s really the heart of it. If you like “Goosebumps,” you like diving into a completely different world, a completely different monster, and [the anthology format] gives us the chance to be more faithful to R.L. Stine’s vision.
What is the metaphor for Season 2?
HW: I feel like Disney probably does not like us saying this, but it’s really about grief. It’s like those stories that parents tell in hushed tones, and you never really know the real story and you’re piecing things together. That’s what this starts as, every family has those stories. It’s about what happens when those stories are not dealt with, when those stories are not told, when people don’t talk about them and they’re not processed and that’s really what we wanted to delve into.
“Goosebumps: The Vanishing” is now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
