WARNING: The following contains minor spoilers for Hoops, available now on Netflix.
The adult animated comedy Hoops centers on Ben Hopkins, a basketball coach at a Kentucky high school who's coaching skills are as questionable as his team's basketball skills. He's the loudest, most foul-mouthed person in the room -- and the most selfish -- a quality that's alienated his wife, Shannon, who's estranged from Ben. Voicing Ben and Shannon are comedy all-stars Jake Johnson, known for his roles on New Girl and Stumptown, and Natasha Leggero, known for being one half of the folk duo Garfunkel and Oates and the series Another Period, respectively. As Ben, Johnson is vulgar and proud of it, while also harboring a strange soft spot for the Jodie Foster movie Little Man Tate -- which he may not have actually seen. Meanwhile, as Shannon, Leggero is desperate to move on from Ben, but despite her best instincts, can't quite get away from him.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Johnson and Leggero discussed their characters on Hoops, talked about the joy of being able to curse freely for their roles and addressed the show's goal to be crudely funny but never offensive to any specific group.
CBR: Why were you both attracted to Hoops?
Natasha Leggero: Well I was brought on later than Jake, but I'll say from my point of view, I had worked with Jake before and I knew he was hilarious, and just reading the sides and going in and getting to improvise with him and then hearing who else was involved -- Ron Funches, …Rob Riggle, …A.D. Miles -- all these people who I knew and loved and had been working with. So, for me, like project, people, if I love them, I'm kind of in.
Jake Johnson: Totally. I was the same way. It was people. It was Chris Miller, Phil Lord, Ben Hoffman. It was the idea of doing an R-rated animated show, I didn't know what that would look like. It was the idea of doing a Bad News Bears but rated-R version, see what that would be. It was not being sensitive with the jokes…. The goal from the beginning was casting it with the funniest people we could and trying to get as many people in the booth together as possible. And, you know, for an animated show, it felt worthwhile to do.
In watching your characters, I was consistently amazed by Natasha's character’s desire to change and Jake’s character’s desire not to change. How did you conceive of Coach Ben and Shannon?
Johnson: Yeah, I actually really like that. I think if we get to Season 2, I'm going to steal that. Her character's desire to change and his character not to change is pretty accurate. [Laughs] What I like about it is nobody in this show is weak. Everybody's loud, everybody's abusive but I don't think anybody's abused. And I think that was a really important part for me because, my friends and I, when we’re together, we do talk sh*t to each other and we say mean things, and I find it really funny because I know that in the end, they don't want to hurt me or bring me down. I screwed up and now they got me. And it's a really fun and enjoyable thing to be getting called from my brother where he humiliates me for 15 minutes, and the hardest I laugh sometimes is when I've done something really stupid and somebody has caught it.
And then with entertainment, a lot of times that doesn't happen because characters are then considered unlikable. And so for this, the idea was, what if everybody was in a way unlikable, but we got to do the mean jokes to everybody so we could just go off and have everybody go on rants about what they like or don't like about each other, and just try to be funny and try to be loud? And so that was an attractive thing about not only Coach Ben but all the characters. Everybody has a voice and everybody can be a bully.
What about you, Natasha, how did you think about your character?
Leggero: You know, Shannon kind of reminded me of, because I'm from a small town and, the kind of relationships you have that you want to shake off but… they're easy, you're addicted to something in it and you know it's toxic, but you just kind of keep letting it [continue]. Like if I wouldn't have had a career path for myself, I could have very much ended up in that kind of situation with my first boyfriend. So I think that just having that there in my head of, she's one of those people who… wants to see this way out but she just keeps falling back.
It happens to us all. [Laughs]
Leggero: Did I bring up a poor subject? [Laughs]
Johnson: [Laughing] After that she goes, "Thank you guys for the interview, I think I’m going to take off. I’m at home, I’m just going to close off this theater and go in the other room."
Natasha you mentioned the small-town vibe, Jake was there anything that was personally resonant for you about your character?
Johnson: Yeah, you know, I knew I wanted Coach Ben, considering what the sense of humor was, is I didn't want Coach Ben to have any hate for any specific group or specific thing. And I also… didn't want him to be alpha in any way. So I liked the idea in any situation, when he starts describing his POV, his point of view -- sorry, I said POV because I'm cool -- but his point of view of anything, I like it to be, that even if it's funny, he's so weird for thinking it.
So we’ve had a lot of talk for a while where we were thinking of making him totally asexual. So even the way he talks about sex he'll be like, he'll love a woman and then even the idea of having sex is like, "Yuck! Who needs it?" So, as he's talking, you think he might be right because he's loud, but then when you listen you're like, "Who is this wet noodle and what is he talking about?"
Leggero: [Ron Funches' character] Ron and Shannon still listen to him.
Johnson: Yes, everybody listens to him, but it was important to me to make sure that Ben was somewhat of a dish rag. Because he barks so much that I didn't want him to have teeth, I didn't want him to be able to bite.
Hoops has very adult humor, it's a lot of swearing, and you both have done a lot of network things where that's not allowed. Did you relish the opportunity to let loose?
Leggero: I mean, personally, I just came off a network show and I would have to go in and [record additional dialogue] over like, "What the he-?" They're like, we can't even have the beginning of "hell"…. And then you redo it and it's even less funny and nothing’s barely making sense and everyone's just so terrified, so being a part of something that is more like stand up where you can just kind of go into this dark room and say whatever you want, that's -- obviously, this has a script -- but for me that's kind of my dream [Laughs], to not have to neuter myself.
Johnson: Totally. And also for the network stuff I've done, a lot of times in between takes, the cast we're always making jokes to kind of stay in the rhythm of shooting, and the jokes right before action are vulgar…. Like if I'm shooting New Girl and Damon Wayans and I are messing around and talking sh*t to each other playfully to make each other laugh right before take, you would use the language of Hoops, and then they go, "Alright, quiet onset," and, "Action," and then you're right back into the tone of the thing.
So it was just nice to have Natasha come in, she and I would be making jokes, f*cking around with each other, then start and not have to say, "Hey, you know what, don't say that again because we're not allowed to mention 'blank.'" There was none of that so it didn't feel like there was a line of: now we're at work and now we get to try to be funny. And I'm not saying the swears are the only thing that make things funny but that is the tone that we were all just using, so it was nice to not have to stop doing it.
Jake, you've been involved since the very beginning with this project and you're an executive producer on it. How did that come about?
Johnson: Just contractual bullying that I did. [Laughs] You know, this one came to be seven years ago we did a pilot presentation for it, for MTV.
Leggero: Oh, I didn’t know that.
Johnson: …[Hoops creator] Ben Hoffman said MTV was giving him a little bit of money, they couldn't pay me anything, but if I just wanted to go into the booth with Chris and Phil. And it was before Chris and Phil had kind of blown up, but I'd known them. I hadn't done [21] Jump Street with them yet but it was right around that era. And we just went in the booth and just goofed around. And then MTV passed.
And so then I got a call saying… Netflix is interested in doing this as 10 episodes. But Ben was really the brainchild of it. He had the whole pitch. At the pitch, I didn't talk. He pointed at me at one time, I did the voice for a little bit. But coming back I said, look if I'm going to come back, I'd like to be an EP.
This is one of multiple collaborations you’ve had with Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Jake. How was it working with them this time?
Johnson: You know, they weren't as involved in this, but not in a bad way. It was more we had Aubrey Lee, their executive ran the show more. But I think those guys are brilliant to be honest, so anything they're involved [in] a little bit -- they are I think some of our most talented people working right now from the other side of the camera -- so whenever they come near calling me, I’m an instant yes.
The thing I thought was interesting about this was there's no real racial or gender content even though there’s a diverse cast. A lot of the time with this kind of humor, you get racially or gender-based jokes, but that’s not the case here. Was that by design?
Johnson: Yes. So this is a loud, ridiculous show. I hope it's not offensive to any individual group. If you don't like vulgarity, it's not for you. If you get offended easily by people not being nice to each other, it is not for you. And I'm personally fine with those people not liking it. If there's an individual group that feels alienated by our comedic content, then we didn't do the right thing.
We're not trying to hurt anybody with this. This is a goofy R-rated show about a guy who talks about trying to get multiple dicks sucked, even though he also says he doesn't like sex. [Laughs] It's a loud goof-around, late-night show. And… honestly [production companies] Netflix and 20th [Century Fox Television] have been very cool, because we have wrapped picture and went back to make sure and had different people watch and circled jokes that could be offensive to an individual group and then discussed it. Because we don't want a race joke to ruin the whole thing and have some 16-year-old or 17-year-old get their feelings hurt. We want you to sit back and laugh your ass off. And so it was very conscious about gender and race as much as we could be. If we missed the mark, which we might have missed the mark, we did try.
Starring the voices of Jake Johnson, Ron Funches, Natasha Leggero, Cleo King, A.D. Miles and Rob Riggle, the 10-episode first season of Hoops is currently available on Netflix.
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