In the Know star/co-creator Zach Woods talks about his new Peacock comedy with a lot of affection. “I think it’s a very strange show, and I think it’s pretty humanistic,” he tells Consequence. “It’s satirical, but the people who made this show love the characters and feel protective and fond of each of them, even though they can engage in some pretty obnoxious behaviors at their core. They’re wounded, full of yearning, wanting to do a good job… It’s a weird thing.”
It’s perhaps only weird given the context, as the characters Woods is talking about are puppets brought to life by stop-motion animation. In the Know features the Office and Silicon Valley star as the voice of a public radio host, whose awkwardness extends beyond his interactions with his officemates (voiced by J. Smith-Cameron, Charlie Bushnell, Carl Tart, Caitlin Reilly, and Mike Judge) to interviews with figures like Mike Tyson, Ken Burns, Tegan and Sara, Hugh Laurie, and more.
Woods tracks the origins of In the Know to a habit of his that co-creator Judge observed on the set of Silicon Valley: “I think I am both shy and curious about other people, usually. So often, in conversations, I’ll ask a lot of questions, and I sort of end up interviewing people all the time.”
That, plus Judge knowing Woods to be “basically like a nightmare coastal elite NPR embodiment,” led the creator to suggest a stop-motion animation series, featuring Woods as an NPR host interviewing real guests. Woods got on board, suggesting that “His name should be like one of these NPR names. So I was like, what if he’s named Lauren Caspian? And his girlfriend’s also named Lauren, and she’s a Dreamer under DACA, but actually she’s just an undocumented MFA student from Montreal.” From there, the dense and strange backstory of Lauren was developed, with Woods’ writing partner Brandon Gardner coming on board to help bring the idea to series as a co-creator.
The selection of guests was directly driven by the idea of “Who would Terry Gross talk to?” (especially since the Fresh Air host does interview a wide range of people) — Woods credits senior talent booker Hillary Kun (who previously worked on The Daily Show) for bringing an equally impressive range to In the Know.
“[Kun] did a spectacular job,” he says, “because it’s a dodgy proposition to ask people, ‘Hey, do you want to be on a show that you can’t watch, with an NPR host that you’ve never met, who’s stop-motion, and you’ll have no control over the edit. That’s a big ask, and she got all these people to sign on. We were really punching above our weight, thanks to Hillary.”
In the Know (Peacock)
Here’s how filming the interviews worked: Gardner would join a Zoom call with the interview subject, “and he’d say, ‘In a minute, you’re going to see a picture of Lauren. Just treat it like an NPR interview. You can laugh if something is funny, but please don’t worry about being funny. You know, just have a conversation.'” Following that prelude, the hour-long interview would begin, with the subject never seeing Woods’ face — just a picture of Lauren, in his puppet-ish glory.
“I would have an iPad with questions that the writers had helped us prepare that I could reference,” Woods says. “And Brandon would also be able to update the iPad in real-time, so that he could pitch, ‘Oh, ask this one now, make this joke.’ But mostly, they’re improvised interviews.”
There were two exceptions to the improvisation: One interview later in the season, featuring UFC fighter Jorge Masvidal, contained scripted elements, “but he improvised a lot of it, to be honest,” Woods notes. And because of a story point in the episode featuring Tegan and Sara, the producers asked the Canadian musical artists to pretend that they were feeling nauseous at one point.
This is a good opportunity to mention that Woods heaped praise on Tegan and Sara for the way they engaged with him: “They were just really down to clown and funny and great. Everyone fell even more in love with Tegan and Sara — the crew, all the writers, all of us were just like, ‘They’re the coolest people we’ve ever met.’ I want to be Tegan and Sara when I grow up.”
The interview subject who surprised Woods the most was author and intellectual Roxane Gay. “She writes editorials for The New York Times, often about quite serious stuff,” he says, “And when she was on the show, she was so playful and funny and kind of dirty and just a delight. Such a silly billy. And I wasn’t expecting that because she’s such a formidable voice. But she was so fun and so sweet. I just loved that.”
Woods admits that if he’d been pitched something similar, “I probably wouldn’t do it. But these people did, and it was awesome.” Does he think it’ll be easier to book people for a potential second season? “Maybe, or maybe much harder?” Woods says with a laugh. “Depends how people feel about the show.”
