At San Diego Comic Con on Thursday afternoon, J. G. Quintel (Regular Show) discussed his new HBO Max series Close Enough with former Regular Show voice actor William Salyers (Moral Orel). Close Enough stars Jason Mantzoukas (The Good Place, Big Mouth) who plays Alex, Gabrielle Walsh (Paranormal Activity, The Hive) who plays Emily, Kimiko Glenn (Orange is the New Black, Liza On Demand) who plays Bridgette, and Jessica DiCicco (It’s Pony, The Loud House) who plays Candice, also join Quintel, who plays the role of Josh, later in the interview for a table read of the season 1 episode, “Quilty Pleasures.”
Close Enough follows a married couple Josh and Emily, their toddler daughter Candice, and their two divorced best friends, Bridgette and Alex, as they navigate life while living together in a small Los Angeles apartment. At Comic Con at Home, Quintel describes his thought process throughout the creation of his new HBO Max series and how it compares to that of Regular Show, “stylistically, I feel like it’s the same, like I feel like we still use water color backgrounds, like how Regular Show did, Close Enough kind of had a very similar visual to it. The kind of way the characters look, now they’re not anthropomorphic, they’re humans, which was deliberate. I wanted to try to make an adult show that would appeal to people that don’t even watch cartoons. In doing that, I wanted to be more about showing real people and showing how they interact and how the place they live is a real place.”
Quintel repeatedly mentions in the panel that most of his ideas for his TV shows stem from what his life is like at the time. Regular Show was meant to depict a time in his life where he was “in college, working a lame job, and being unmotivated and slacking off.” As the Regular Show creator matured, he found himself telling the stories of his changing life, now married with kids. He states, “Regular Show just felt like a character of what I used to be like, it wasn’t me anymore. And so to make this new show about things that I’m experiencing now, I can draw from things from my personal life.”
Similarly, the rest of the cast also finds ways to connect with their characters through their own person lives. As stated in their interviews, Walsh and DiCicco both found that motherhood was an easily relatable trait among both their characters, Emily and Candice. Walsh clarifies that she understands the transition into motherhood, being a mom herself, “I know the transition between ‘am I doing this right?’ and ‘is this what I see for myself?’ and I think that Emily struggles with accepting where she’s at in her life but still wanting more for her daughter.” In comparison, DiCicco examines the hilarity that comes with voicing a toddler while also caring for one. “Since I’ve been working on Close Enough, I became a mom myself. It makes it so much funnier just knowing what Josh and Emily are going through as parents and just having that perspective now. But now, just having the perspective of the kid I’m almost critiquing myself in a way because I know what it’s like,” she states, “It’s just fun to watch because no one gives you this interpretation of that.”
Quintel’s thought process behind his creations are seemingly based on his life’s progressions and the path he’s on at the time. “I think that as time goes on, different things make you laugh that wouldn’t have before so whatever it is at the time that you’re into you just do it.”
The rest of the Close Enough cast’s interview at San Diego Comic Con 2020 can be viewed below.