Space Force, the brand new series from co-creators Steve Carell and Greg Daniels (The Office, Upload), is a workplace comedy that takes place within the newly formed sixth branch of the US Armed Forces. Lead by Steve Carell’s General Mark Naird, the show is centred around a motley crew of scientists and “Spacemen” who are tasked by the White House with hurriedly getting American boots on the moon in an attempt to achieve total space dominance.
We caught up with John Malkovich, who plays Chief Scientist Dr. Adrian Mallory, and Ben Schwartz, Space Force’s Social Media Consultant “Fuck” Tony, for a conversation about their incredibly timely new series.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Umapagan Ampikaipakan: Hey guys. How are you? Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.
Ben Schwartz: Hey, what’s going on? I like that microphone.
John Malkovich: Very well. How are you?
UA: I’m great thank you. John, I swear to God, for the last 20 years, I told myself that if I ever got a chance to speak to you, I would open by asking you what it was like “Being John Malkovich”. But I was also afraid that you might reach out and choke me. So all I’m going to do is say that The New Pope was phenomenal. And it just blew my mind.
JM: Thank you.
BS: [Laughs]
UA: Let’s talk Space Force. So, I wasn’t sure what kind of comedy I was watching, until I got to the second episode and I realised that it was essentially a comedy about a group of people, each trying to do the best possible job they could, but constantly in conflict with one another.
BS: That’s absolutely right. I think that’s a beautiful way of explaining it. The people all have a skill set that can do their job well. I think they’re a little bit overwhelmed with the size of the things they’re expected to do, but it’s fun to watch these people try to achieve that goal. In this Bad News Bear type way, where all these people are kind of thrown together.
JM: I think a lot of times pain, desperation, desire are sort of some of the parasites that live on comedy. And these are people who they may have certain capabilities, but to some extent, they’ve all arrived at “The Peter Principle” where you’re promoted to your level of inadequacy and that’s sort of in play here, too. I think most especially in Steven Carell’s character. So things like in episode two, their reliance on a chimpanzee to fulfil their mission is not kind of metaphorical by accident. There’s a chance a chimpanzee may have a higher possibility of success.
UA: John, Mallory is an interesting character because I think he mirrors all of us as this guy who’s torn between hating government and politics for their constant interference, and yet needing them – and their money – to actually do good on a massive scale. Talk me about striking that balance.
JM: Well, I think there are several balances in play, I think the first one is the kind of conflict, the tension, between Naird and Mallory at the very beginning. That’s the tension between somebody who worked in a bureaucracy, who came through the ranks of the military, which has various set rules. And it has uniforms. And it has – it’s actually not true – but it has a lot of conventional thinking about all sorts of issues. And then a scientist who’s meant to be open to inquiry, and meant to be open to exploration, and of a deep and profound investigation of the universe as we find it. Then there is the political angle, which Mallory is hired to be the Chief Scientific Officer, and he’s delighted to be building rockets and working with his team of astrophysicists from around the world and to get back on the moon. But he has no interest in the mission, which is, in a certain way militarization, or we could call it colonization, or exploitation of space and its resources. To him, space is a place of wonder, and of great and beautiful mystery which belongs to the world. But that’s not his mission in this instance. And that’s the conflict, I think, within him and with Space Force in general.
UA: Ben, I imagine the biggest challenge about making a sitcom that’s so close to reality is actually out-ridiculing what’s out there at the moment. And I was wondering as an actor, does that help or hurt your process?
BS: When something is so real as this, I think the purpose of what we’re trying to do is make sure that we’re not really parodying the exact people. Like, I’m not really parodying the media adviser. Steve isn’t taking the actual general and playing him. But I think it’s more a matter of taking the idea of there being a new branch the military called the Space Force. Nobody quite knows what that means. Greg and Steve jumped so quickly to make the show that there will be no evidence of what they do before our show comes out. So I think there’s huge amounts of comedy in them because we’re just taking the idea and mining it for comedy as opposed to parodying the actual human beings. Steve and Greg jumped on it so early that we have the Twitter handle @realspaceforce, which is, bananas.
UA: That’s what it felt like to me. From the initial announcement, to when the series is coming out, it feels quicker than usual. Is that right?
BS: It’s so quick. The casting process was incredibly quick. I remember I had an audition, and then two days later I had a callback, and then we had a table read, and then we were off to the races. John was still finishing up a project while we were on the first week of filming. That’s how quick it was. And then they edited it so quickly.
UA: And you’ve got so much great press, because of it. No matter how serious a news piece, it would always end with: “by the way, Greg Daniels and Steve Carell have a new series coming out called Space Force.”
BS: They (the actual Space Force) announce they have camos – you know, that they wear – and we’re like, “oh, we have camos, too”. And we show them. And they’re like, “we have an emblem.” “We have an emblem, too.” They just came out with this video that was like, “we are Space Force, come work for us…”
JM: Hey, we have a video too!
BS: We do have a video! We filmed it!
UA: What’s fascinating to me about the series was its tone. It laughs with the military. I felt that it doesn’t laugh at them? And I think that was quite interesting. Was that always a guiding ethos on set?
JM: I know it’s something that Steven and Greg discussed at length. I think there is an appropriate kind of balance in the script about it. And that the fun is what we use to kind of call good, clean fun. Take, for instance, I don’t know if we’re supposed to talk about specific episodes, but Steven Carell’s character is going to do a conjugal visit with his wife and he gets a text from the President of the United States, who decides to prohibit that visit for the simple reason that sex is for winners. It doesn’t mean that the president of our country at present would actually send that text, but everyone could recognize that it’s within the realm of possibility. And that’s what makes it funny. That you can kind of go, “that could happen.” And I think it’s a very treacherous path to have to tread, but I think an interesting one, and a very funny one too.
UA: Ben, tell me about the things you could get away with on this show that you couldn’t do on network television? I mean, other than having a character called Fuck Tony.
BS: Yeah, that I could ever play a character that has a curse word in it. I think what Netflix does, what it lends itself to, is that you can push the envelope a little bit harder with your comedy. There are some jokes that are in there that you’re like, “whoa!” Which is great, but all handled with the grace of a great writer. I also think that you can really push the boundaries of what your character does. That’s what places like Netflix, and some places like HBO, are known for. You know, and I mean. Oftentimes, in the older school sitcoms, you play the same archetype of a character and they don’t even connect the episodes. There’s great comedy in that. But we have built a story. If you watch the first season, you will be rewarded, and it leaves it in a place that you cannot wait to see what happens next. So I think it’s that stuff. And growing out the character more and having development where maybe if I get better at my job, you see my confidence rise. And then what happens? Do I have to be put down? Or is Steve like, we should give you something bigger? Maybe I have something where I get hurt and then I have to go and lean on Mallory. Then Mallory and I become friends for a season. There’s so many things that could happen because you have Greg and you have Netflix who’s like, “do what you guys think is a creative and great.” So that’s lovely.
UA: Gentlemen, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. Stay safe. Stay home. Just one last thing. Ben, will we be getting more Middleditch and Schwartz at any point?
BS: I love you. Please tell everybody that it exists.
UA: I haven’t laughed out loud that much in a long time.
BS: Thank you so much. We filmed four and we released three. That was our first block. And if enough people watch it, we will get another three. But even you mentioning it here is what we need to do.
JM: They are three separate shows?
BS: It’s the same location, it’s three totally different shows, three totally different backgrounds. We’re in different outfits…
JM: Totally different nights, totally different stories, everything…
BS: Everything. Everything is its own show. So what we wanted to do was show that most stand-ups release one stand-up special every eight months. So we’re like, we’re going to release three comedy specials at the same time because with improv you can do that. Every show is totally different. So we did that. So we don’t edit between them to intercut them. Each show is its own show.
JM: Its own world. Very good.
UA: Thanks guys.
BS: Thank you for mentioning that. It’s very kind of you.
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