Left to right, John Ross Bowie, Lauren Lapkus, Kevin Sussman and Brian Posehn star in “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe,” premiering Thursday. Photo courtesy of HBO
Kevin Sussman says actually working in a comic book store prepared him to star in The Big Bang Theory, but not its sci-fi spin-off, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, which premieres Thursday on HBO Max.
“In The Big Bang Theory, it was very helpful because in that, unlike this, in a lot of it, I was in the background. And, so, that’s the hardest thing to do when you have little to do in a scene, but you’re there on stage, so I always just did what I did at the comic-book store: took inventory,” Sussman, 55, told reporters in a recent virtual press conference.
“I had the clipboard. I was really looking at: ‘OK, what edition number is this?’ And, so, that was helpful, but not really as much for the spin-off,” he explained. “Nothing could help prepare for this role.”
Sussman also recalled how being cast as a comic-book store owner in writer-producer Chuck Lorre’s The Big Bang Theory was something of a happy accident almost two decades ago.
“That was a coincidence by the way. Chuck did not know. He had seen me for various other roles, but that was just a weird coincidence,” Sussman said. “It was just my day job when I was an actor because I couldn’t get a waiter job because no one would believe, no one could convincingly think I could carry dishes around.”
Lorre, 73, said he started thinking about a show, in which there is a portal to other universes in the backroom of Stuart’s store, shortly after The Big Bang Theory ended its 12-season run in 2019.
“I’ve always wanted to work in a bigger genre than what we were doing in front of an audience. I loved what we did in front of an audience, but the idea of working with visual effects and computer graphics and all the things that you can do now [was appealing],” he noted.
“I’ve been a longtime fan of Mr. Sussman and I just thought he’d be the perfect lead for this kind of a comedy. As far as the melding of it with comedy is concerned; something’s funny or it’s not,” Lorre added.
“All the special effects and computer graphics cannot make something that’s not funny, funny. So, we just had to remain honest with ourselves as we wrote these things that we were telling the truth. We think this is truly funny.”
Lauren Lapkus, 40, returns as Stuart’s girlfriend Denise in the new show.
“I loved it because I felt like we were able to get to another level that you wouldn’t get to on a multi-cam sitcom,” she said.
“There was some depth to the relationship and they, of course, are going through such extreme situations that their relationship grows through that.”
Series co-creator Zak Penn, 58, said the cast and crew loved exploring different versions of well-known characters in new realities every week.
“We love all universes, equally, because they’re all our babies,” he emphasized.
“The asylum episode was a fun universe to play in. The next episode after that, where they’re kind of in paradise, those are just fun to write,” Penn added.
“But there’s so many others that were fun to actually be on set for. That’s the whole point. There’s an infinite number of variations and we just tried each week, as we were writing, to come up with something that we thought, ‘Well, they won’t see this coming.'”
Brian Posehn and John Ross Bowie co-star.
