Aubrey Plaza and Dan Murphy have written three books together, and their next project is “Kevin,” an animated series about a cat caught in the crosshairs of his human parents’ breakup.
The cast for the Prime Video series was announced on Oct. 7 and features Plaza, Jason Schwartzman, Whoopi Goldberg, John Waters and more.
Plaza is a co-creator and executive producer and voices Dana, a young woman who decides to end things with her boyfriend and is later blindsided by her cat Kevin’s decision to move out on his own. She tells TODAY.com the series feels like “a classic.”
“It just feels like a classic show. It almost has, like, this ‘Golden Girls’ kind of vibe, where you get this group of cats that all live together, and then they all have their romantic shenanigans and stuff, but you always end up back at Furrever Friends, where they all live,” Plaza says. “There’s something cozy about it, but I think it’s very New York. It’s got this indie-like vibe to it too. I think it will be unexpected.”
She continues: “I think most animation these days is so fast and crazy, but ours has a different tone I’m really excited about.”
Kevin, voiced by Schwartzman, decides to live life on his own after his owners break up, and moves into a local pet rescue called Furrever Friends in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in New York City, according to a news release from Prime Video.
While the tuxedo cat is excited to live the “single” life in New York City, Kevin learns he was sheltered in his fourth-floor apartment with Dana and her boyfriend.
“Jason also does the theme song for the show, which is incredible,” Plaza says. “So we’ve also got him singing, which is amazing.”
Goldberg plays Cupcake, an unpredictable hairless cat, and Waters plays Armando, a Persian cat who has sworn off humans.
“The characters are just so funny. Like, Whoopi Goldberg playing Cupcake, the hairless feral freak cat, is iconic,” Plaza says. “It feels very iconic. John Waters is a legend, and he plays Armando, this Persian cat, a very grumpy, sophisticated kind of guy.”
Plaza describes the team behind the show as a “team of super slayer writers,” and Murphy says many of the writers lived in New York City in the early 2000s.
“We got really lucky because it’s set in New York, where we all lived at the same time in early 2000s right after college,” Murphy says. “It feels very authentic, I think, to living in Queens during that time.”
He adds: “We got our dream cast of people that we have always looked up to. We were just so amazed that we were able to get these icon-type people that we have loved since we were in high school.”
Murphy, who is an executive producer on the show, says he and Plaza have been working on “Kevin” for years.
“The way it came together was, there was something else we were working on, and then this sort of, like, came to us,” Murphy says. “We worked on it during the pandemic, and then it took a while for it to actually get made.
“But it’s been a really great experience,” he adds. “It’s been really fun. It’s really funny. And we got this dream cast that was announced and they were all the same people that did the pilot.”
“Kevin” does not have an official release date yet.