The Tick - Available on Amazon Prime Video
Today, I got to chat briefly with Peter Serafinowicz who plays the lead character in Amazon’s Original series, The Tick, ahead of the launch of Season 2 tomorrow. Peter is known for his roles in not just The Tick but also Shaun of The Dead, Star Wars: Episode I and the TV series, Spaced. He has also gained a strong YouTube following for his Sassy Trump videos, which is a series of videos where he redubs speeches of Donald Trump.
What is The Tick series about?
If you haven’t seen The Tick before it’s an Action-Comedy TV series based on the comic books by Ben Edlund. The series stars Peter Serafinowicz as the invulnerable superhero, The Tick. The show is a sort of parody of superhero TV shows, however don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s a low quality show like some parody films of recent years. The series has laugh out loud moments combined with an extremely compelling story. A lot of mystery surrounds the series and throughout the first series you gain a deep connection with the characters, even the lead villain, The Terror (played by Jackie Earle Haley).
I recently watched the first series of The Tick and whilst the first episode of season one is a little slow by the end of the 2nd episode I was hooked and I binge-watched the first season in the space of 24 hours.
Interview with Peter Serafinowicz ahead of The Tick Season 2 Release
Hi Peter, how are you?
“I’m OK thanks. I’m excited the show comes out tomorrow and that’s pretty cool.”
“It seemed like it was a way off and I’m so excited for…to see what the fans think of the show.”
“Because it worked out so well when we showed the first episode [of season two] at WonderCon, it was such a joy to watch with everybody and I think everyone really enjoyed it, it was incredibly exciting seeing it on the big screen.”
How do you think the show has evolved from Season 1 to Season 2?
“Well I haven’t actually seen it yet. So I don’t know really, I will have to watch it and find out.”
“The way we shot it we would film like 2 episodes at a time, so we would film scenes from both shows, both like pair of shows every day, it would be like we were doing a block of 2 episodes, every 2 weeks.”
“We end up like shooting a lot of stuff, for a TV show, its like super ambitious what we are trying to achieve, because we are competing with all the other super hero related media there is. Where as this one is different, because it’s not like the main focus of the show, it is more like the backdrop, to this surreal sort of heartfelt comedy.”
“We often didn’t really know, where we were, exactly where we were in the story and its only, like even watching the first episode, its like oh right ok I see why, why we did that. You know.”
Do we learn anything about your character, The Tick’s backstory in season 2?
“As far as I can remember, I don’t think so, directly. We don’t learn that much about The Ticks backstory. It’s just that vague notion, vague notion of you know what The Tick is all about. Its addressed sometimes, but people have now accepted it, you know.”
What would you say is your favourite moment whilst playing The Tick?
“My favourite moments are when its me and Griffin…when they are just hanging out in some capacity…they are in the apartment or I just like it when it’s them having like low level tension, they are in this sort of extremely happy marriage, you don’t see a lot of happily married people on the TV, generally. Like really happily married and that’s the sort of closest analogy I can come up with for Tick and Arthur.”
What would you say the atmosphere is like on set?
“Yeah, I mean it’s quite tough to shoot, the costume, mine and Griffins are quite uncomfortable to wear and the studio has to be super chilled because, particularly my suit gets overheated.
Yeah I can imagine!
“It just means like in-between takes when we are setting up for another shot and you know if you have been around movie sets and TV sets, the thing you are doing most of the time is waiting around and that is usually when you are having conversations with your cast mates and your friends on the crew.”
“And I can’t do that as much as I would like, as I am trying to conserve my energy to…well in order to stay conscious.”
What is it like working with Amazon?
“Well we don’t write the show, Ben [Edlund] and a team of writers do and well from their perspective I think Amazon pretty much leaves them alone I think, yeah, its way more hands off than things usually are. In my experience. “
“Network sitcoms in the US, I would say seem to me to be the ones that have the most people wanting it to change and wanting to shape it to a certain demographic.”
“To make a certain show appeal to as many people as possible, I don’t know its weird I suppose one of the advantages of there being a dizzying array of things to watch, is that they can cater for lots of smaller specific audiences.”
And what The Tick tries to be is as broad as possible in its appeal its also quite niche as well. The people who watch superhero stuff, even though its not really a superhero show its a backdrop for this surreal sweet comedy we have and also people who are people who like comedy, its broad but its also weird and surreal and it’s beautifully written. Ben Edlund can write a sentence.”
Is Peter Serafinowicz as funny as The Tick in real life?
Peter proves he is funny both on screen and off. At the start of our conversation, Peter calls me Matt after I introduce myself as Matthew and I explained (not sure why I did?) that I always introduce myself as Matthew instead of Matt as people often confuse it for Mark. At the end of our conversation when I thank Peter for his time, Peter says “You’re welcome Mark“.
The Tick Season 2 Release Date
The Tick gets released worldwide on Amazon Prime Video tomorrow, 5th April and I can’t wait to binge-watch it!
In the meantime if you haven’t already watched the trailer, check it out below and if you haven’t even watched the series yet, there is still just enough time to watch the first series before tomorrow! The whole first season is available to watch instantly on Amazon Prime Video.