'Solar Opposites' actor Mary Mack who plays Jesse says the voice acting for Season 2 is nearly done
Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan’s animated sci-fi comedy ‘Solar Opposites’ already has fans asking for a season 2. Mary Mack, who voices Jesse, the naive, well-meaning, good-natured teenage alien on the show, has some good news in that department.
“Yeah, we've recorded most of it already. But then the lockdown happened, and the stay at home orders happened. So, then we couldn't do it. But we're just waiting -- we have two more episodes to record,” said Mack over a phone conversation with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW).
She, obviously, could not, and did not reveal details of the second season of ‘Solar Opposites’, but she spoke about the show and her character among other things. Jesse’s character and Mack’s voice have a uniquely sweet quality to them. Jesse, on the show, is really, as the title suggests, the polar opposite of her sibling Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone). The latter is as mean and malicious as anyone gets, and the former is a bit of a pushover, who tries to see the best in everyone and everything. Mack’s soft voice (and a Minnesotan accent) does a terrific job of conveying the character’s intentions.
“I asked them if they wanted me to use another voice,” said Mack, laughing. “And they said, ‘Oh no, just use your regular voice,’ which kind of is an insult. Like, you know, you're playing an alien and they just want you to use your regular voice. It's kind of made me a little bit sad, but it's okay.”
Mack added, “But I've done some other things for Justin Roiland. Like I did his video game, and I changed my voice for part of that one. So that was kind of fun.”
“I guess that's why I don't get a lot of other jobs is because of my -- apparently where I'm from, our ‘O’s are different and every voiceover job I've had before this one, they always say, can you work on your ‘O’s?” Mack said about her Minnesotan accent, adding with a bit of exasperation, “I can't!”
Speaking about season 1 of ‘Solar Opposites’, Mack said that she had auditioned for the show in early 2018 or fall of 2017. “Isn't that crazy?” she said, “We recorded it over a year ago and, and it just takes a long time to get the artwork out and get the animation done.” This could well mean that even with most of the voice acting done for the second season, fans are unlikely to see season 2 any time before mid-2021.
Talking about Jesse, Mack said, “I think she's the most normal one. And she's really feeling a lot of peer pressure, just like a regular teenage girl, and she's the most positive one -- between her and Terry (Thomas Middleditch). But Jesse, I feel like she's adapted to the world better. She sort of has a sense of what's right and wrong.”
“But she's easily swayed,” adds Mack. “It doesn't take much to have her do something really awful, but she'll try not to for like a short while. She'll try to be the voice of reason.”
When asked if she agreed with the common consensus that ‘Solar Opposites’ felt sort of like ‘Rick and Morty’, Mack said that she hadn’t seen the latter. But she added, “From what I know about it, this sitcom seems to be more traditional. Like it's traditional, it's just like those family sitcoms -- but it's really messed up.”
She added, “This could be a clean show and still survive. It could be a clean show and still be about the dynamics of the family relationship. And that's what I like about it is it's like all about the relationships between these characters. And, even though it's a crazy situation and there's all these, and you know, it's unbelievable things happening. It's really rooted in the relationships between the characters.”
Mack, while talking about the Covid-19 lockdowns, and about how the U.S. has been dealing with the pandemic, said: “All the countries have to work together for these types of issues, and I'm really sad how the U.S. leadership has not worked -- has kind of even stopped working with other countries since this president came in and it makes me really sad because everybody needs to work together.”
She further said, adding ‘Solar Opposites’ to the mix, “It's like there's an angry teenage girl tweeting, but that angry teenage girl is running our country. You know? It's so insane. Like, you see Korvo and Terry (in the show) ruining things and just making these rash decisions that affect the community. Um, I feel like that's how Trump is.”