Common Side Effects was one of the most thoughtful adult animated debuts of 2025, mixing a pharmaceutical conspiracy narrative with humanistic character dynamics that would go on to win a Peabody Award.
Co-created by Joe Bennett and Steve Hely, the series follows two former high school lab partners, Frances (Emily Pendergast) and Marshall (Dave King), who reconnect after Marshall discovers a mushroom that has incredible healing properties. The two are then wrapped in a thrilling adventure involving everyone from Pharmaceutical Companies to DEA Agents like Copano (Joseph Lee Anderson) and Harrington (Martha Kelly).
At NYCC, The Beat had the chance to chat with some of the cast and co-creators of Common Side Effects to preview Season 2 set to premiere on Adult Swim, January 24 at 11:00 p.m. ET/PT and streaming the next day on HBO Max.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Aaron Halls: I saw in an interview that you pulled from ’90s movies like The Fugitive and the Coen brothers’ film as inspiration for Season 1 and the show as a whole. What were some movies or pieces of media that inspired Common Side Effects Season 2?
Steve Hely: Indiana Jones plays a big role in Season 2. We get a little ambitious with it.
Joe Bennett: Michael Clayton.
Steve Hely: The Insider.
Joe Bennett: JFK.
Steve Hely: The Social Network, Quiz Show.
Joe Bennett: Sicario.
Steve Hely: Sicario is a big one. We just saw Josh Brolin downstairs. It was pretty cool! [Laughs]. What else? You [Joe Bennett] were watching Copycat. I mean, what were the other movies in the movie club?
Joe Bennett: In the Line of Fire.
Steve Hely: Oh, I love In the Line of Fire!
Emily Pendergast: You guys have a movie club?
Steve Hely: Yeah, the animators gather and watch a movie! [Laughs].
Joe Bennett: It’s also funny because there are movie references in the writers’ room, but then there are separate movie references for just pulling for shots—when the artists and the board artists are finding references for shots.
Aaron Halls: I also read in an interview that Common Side Effects was one of your first voice acting roles Emily, and I think your first, right, Joseph? Is there an acting tool or a skill that Common Side Effects unlocked in you that you think you’ll be able to take forward in acting, no matter if it’s an animated project or a live action project?
Emily Pendergast: We’re really lucky because Dave King [who plays Marshall] and I have gotten to record together, which I think is so great. And because then you get to just work off of each other, it provides a little bit too, because the script is so natural anyway. So that’s really fun. I think something that’s great with voice acting is it doesn’t matter what your face looks like. [Laughs]. [For example,] when you’re pretending to run. Your face doesn’t have to look believable. [Laughs]. So you can go a little bit further to be able to portray those moments that you’re supposed [to].
Joseph Lee Anderson: One thing that I’ve taken to different projects now is the variety of [ways in] which I can deliver lines. Because, [with Common Side Effects], I obviously come with an idea of how I want to say the line, and then Steve will go, “Hey, try it this way,” and Joe, “Hey, try it this way.” I trust these guys, and they trust me. It’s a really big collaborative thing.
Steve Hely: You [Joseph] are a master at doing different versions of everything.
Joe Bennett: Especially when we do such a variety of different takes, it’s kind of like playing Tetris because it’ll be like, “Okay, this Copano take actually works really well with this Frances take.” [And then] we start to carve out tonally in the episode. [Then it’s] like, “Oh, actually the conversation sort of navigates a little bit more in this direction because of the way Frances is screaming this line.”
Steve Hely: I’ll give an example. The other day we were watching an episode, and [the character] Rick (Mike Judge) says something kind of rude to Frances, and we didn’t have Frances reacting. We’re like, “Oh! Go through all the stuff, and there’s probably somewhere where Frances says something like, ‘Excuse me!” Or even just Emily said that to the staff in the recording booth. [Laughs].
Joe Bennett: Also, a big thing that we do—I think you guys know this already—but a lot of the time we’ll hit the record button before you’re reading the script. So, it’s just like, “How was the commute here? How was it—?” And a lot of the time, you get some of the most real laughing. The most real reactions. Those little things that we’ll sort of Frankenstein inside the dialog, so that it feels natural. It feels real.
Emily Pendergast: That’s so cool.
Joseph Lee Anderson: But now we know, so we’re gonna watch what we say. [Laughs].
Steve Hely: [Mimics a robot] Hello. The commute was great today.
Emily Pendergast: [Mimics a robot] I would like a water. [Laughs].
Aaron Halls: For Joe and Steve, one of the great elements of Common Side Effects is that it feels so human. The characters feel very real. I feel like a natural side of second seasons is that they get more expansive. As creators, how did you keep the human feeling of these characters while you go into Common Side Effects Season 2 and it might feel a little bit bigger in scope?
Steve Hely: That’s a great question. I mean, that’s always a challenge to try and keep it very human and real, but also have it be exciting and propulsive enough to make sure people want to watch and hear our story because a lot of life can be boring.
Joe Bennett: And I think also there’s mundanity everywhere. Even though they’re globe-trotting, it’s like you could still find strange, peculiar little idiosyncrasies and little things everywhere. I think that’s what is a big part of the show.
Aaron Halls: Emily and Joseph, when you were working on Common Side Effects, with an animated project like this, what’s an aspect of voice acting that a casual viewer like me might assume like, “This is easy,” but it’s actually really hard to do?
Emily Pendergast: Any of the effort noises. Like the “Ugh! Oof! Ugh!” Sounds, I think. I’m like, “Is that good?” [Laughs].
Steve Hely: What does it sound like when you run? [Laughs]. I don’t know what I sound like.
Emily Pendergast: I know. Yeah, I don’t run a lot. So, I don’t know. [Laughs].
Joe Bennett: Yeah, in Season 3 Frances is like super constipated.
Emily Pendergast: Perfect! So a lot of grunts? Okay. Good. So you got my email? [Laughs].
Joseph Lee Anderson: I think for me, it’s trying to act without having a visual. I think a lot of times I wish I could see the animation before, but I don’t even know what that looks like. So it may be a whole other thing.
Aaron Halls: I have a final question for you, Joe. I know a lot of people are continuing to support and love Scavengers Reign. It just made its debut on Adult Swim. What’s something from the creative process of that show that you feel like you carried over and that applied to Season 2 of Common Side Effects?
Joe Bennett: Yeah. It’s funny because while I was wrapping up Scavengers Reign, we started working on Common Side Effects. I think it’s [humanity’s] understanding of the natural world and all the complexities in that. What we try to understand. What we want to figure out. All the new miraculous things that keep showing up. But also just the difficult challenge of keeping that all balanced, and there’s such a delicate balance with everything.
I think that with these characters in Scavengers, they’re navigating this completely unfamiliar territory that has just got layers and layers of complexity, but it’s all intertwined. So I think similarly [in Common Side Effects], it’s like Marshall’s realizing this mushroom—it’s interconnected with all these other things. I think it’s fun to explore characters that are navigating that world.
Stay tuned to The Beat for more news from NYCC ’26.
