Getting Back Into the Spy Game with ‘Archer’ Executive Producer Matt Thompson

Archer is back for a sixth season and with it comes a return to the secret agent “mission of the week” format we grew familiar with during the series’ first four seasons. Season Five, Archer: Vice, was a fun detour into the seedy world of cocaine sales, but after last week’s premiere, it seems that people – including the show’s creators – are glad to get back to the spy games that Archer is best known for. I talked to Executive Producer Matt Thompson about how real-world terrorism affected the show’s universe, this season’s spectacular guest stars and the possibility of an Archer movie.

Congratulations on the Season Six Premiere. What kind of feedback have you been getting?

It’s a blessing and a curse to have the internet out there and get instant feedback. I read a lot of Reddit comments and stuff and it seems pretty positive so far. I think there’s a real danger in trying to analyze things the next day. It’s better to give it a second to breathe. But from what I’m reading, people don’t want to kill us.

Last season was a bit of a departure from the spy format, focusing instead on Archer: Vice. That was somewhat of a controversial move. Some people loved it. Some people hated it. This season, you’re back to the espionage storyline. Can you talk about the process behind making the decision to go back to the original format?

There was never any intention to not go back to it. Adam Reed writes all of the shows himself. Well, 95% of the writing is him. I think he was just a little bit burnt out on “mission of the week.” He wanted to keep the same people, have them be very recognizable, but have them do something different. It was almost like What About Bob? – take a vacation from your problems. I think it was wonderful for the show and the characters. We learned and grew. But it also makes coming back home that much sweeter. It makes it exciting that in Season Six, we’re doing what we’re used to doing.

The show isn’t pretending that Season Five never happened.

No, it very much happened. I mean, the show hasn’t directly referenced some of the changes that happened. For instance, Pam is back to her old body weight. Sometime between last season and now, she quit doing cocaine every day and put the weight back on. It was fun to have skinny, giant-boobed Pam, but I missed big Pam. There’s something about her being a more robust character in both spirit and size that I enjoy.

Another big development was a product of the real world influencing the Archer world. This year, you’ve moved away from ISIS in Archer’s universe because of what is going on with ISIS in current events. I completely understand why you did that, but was there ever any discussion about maybe keeping it in and taking the risk of finding a meaningful way to address what is going with the real ISIS?

For a long time, Adam and I just kind of stuck our heads in the sand and hoped that their name would either change, or they would go away, or whatever. In the end, when it seemed like things were going to be around for a while, we felt like it would distract from the show too much. And to be honest, we didn’t even like publicly commenting on it because it trivializes the real world situation to even have a thought in your head that you’re complaining about changing the name of something on your silly little cartoon show when these horrific things are happening. We made the decision late. We had already made six of the episodes for this season before deciding to pull the trigger and say that we are now contractors for the CIA. So we had to go back in and paint a lot of logos out. It was the right decision. It kind of happened organically for the story because we’re seeing Christian Slater’s character becoming more important. Him giving the marching orders makes for an easy transition to say we’re no longer ISIS but contractors for the CIA. The series doesn’t really talk about it, we just did it and we’re moving on, unlike a show like South Park – and I love South Park – who would probably address it in a different manner. They would come right out and say that it’s terrible. But Archer exists in its own strange universe of space and time. We don’t know what the time period is. We don’t quite know what pop culture references we’re making. We just thought it was best for us to do as little as we possibly could to address it and move on quickly.

Did your decision to move on come to your mind this week when you heard what happened at Charlie Hebdo?

Oh, God yes. It’s such a heavy weight. I’m a cartoonist. It’s what I do for a living. I don’t make political statements, but… good Lord. I have such a heavy heart. To hear that playing on the news in the background while I work, it’s frightening. This is a very scary enemy to humanity.

You said that Archer was “a silly little cartoon,” but knowing that even the simplest of art forms can be taken and misconstrued as something offensive, do you ever second guess any of the content that you create?

No, I haven’t. Because we don’t exist in a realm of current events or commenting on something that is politically or religiously motivated. For example, this season on Archer, we have a Pakistani spy, played by Kumail Nanjiani, who does a great job. Even the way we treat this Pakistani spy is different from something that is really, truly making a statement about the United States’ relationship with Pakistan. It’s the Archer universe version, so we’re not really saying anything politically.

You have some great guest stars on this season. I’m really glad that Christian Slater is back. Another one I’m excited about is Allison Tolman, who is incredible on Fargo. She’s playing Pam’s sister, Edie, who we’ve never seen before. How did you choose her for the role?

We never had any intention of showing Edie. There’s an old television trope where you have the off-screen friend. I always think of it as the “Norm’s Wife” character. We considered Pam’s sister like that. She was never seen. You would just hear little slices here and there about her terrible sister Edie. Then, we were at an awards show and we got to hanging out with her and listening to her great Wisconsin accent, which is where Pam is supposed to be from. Sitting there, talking to her and having a beer with her convinced Adam Reed that, “Yeah, ok. I’ll go back and make Pam’s sister a real thing because Allison can do it.”

There’s a similar story about Matthew Rhys, who’s on The Americans, where you guys were drinking at the Super Bowl and something good came out of it, right?

Yeah, we were on a bus about to head to the stadium. The bus was part of a caravan of all the different Fox and FX people who were there. He’s just a great storyteller. He’s a gregarious, wonderfully funny, natural guy. He regaled the bus with a tale of these Welsh separatists from the 1970’s who were kind of bumbling terrorists. They had a beef with their English overlords and they blew some stuff up, including themselves. Him describing it and doing the story so well prompted Adam to be like, “That has to be an episode.” So we went home, read up on the Free Wales Army and Adam crafted a tale. Matthew just recorded the episode for us a couple of weeks ago.

I think that inside jokes are a key to the longevity of the show. Each episode is rich with inside jokes. People mine the show for all of these little references and clues. That has to be a fun part of creating the show, knowing that you can put all of that stuff in there and that people are going to get it.

It’s dense and it’s tough to keep up with, but it’s rewarding when you get to do that joke that only five or ten people are going to get. That person, when they get the joke delivered on a platter, it’s a good feeling. You feel validated, knowing that you got something that someone else might have missed.

At this point on time we know that Archer will at least be back for a seventh season. How does the knowledge that you have another season after this one – and the security that probably comes with it – affect your creative process?

The thing that is affected most is the look of the show. You’re going to notice that there is a little bit more fluidity to the movements, a little bit more expression in people’s faces and a little bit more spent on some big set pieces. Specifically, the third episode of the season is based on the old Clint Eastwood movie The Eiger Sanction. In it there’s an avalanche and to see the snow coming down is pretty neat. There are instances like that peppered throughout the season. Last night’s episode contained a really nice karate fight. Stuff like that we haven’t been able to do in past seasons because it’s expensive to hire and keep that crew around to do these little pops when you can. Knowing we had season six and seven allowed me to say to these people, “Sit down. You’ve got a job for the next two years. Let’s make something pretty cool.”

What are the pros and cons to living and working in Atlanta, as opposed to a more industry-heavy city like Los Angeles?

I don’t have any friends that I interact with on a regular basis that work in television. It’s refreshing from the aspect of, no matter what your job is, you probably don’t want to talk about it when you go home. That’s one nice thing. I’m not constantly surrounded by, “Oh, did you hear so-and-so got their pilot greenlit?” or, “Did you hear they let go of the writing staff of…” I’m in normal human being conversations with friends and family on a daily basis. There’s also a thing that happens when you are creating media content that people enjoy. You tend to get a lot of slaps on the back and you can get a feeling that you’re better than you are. In Atlanta, nobody cares. It’s just, “Oh, that’s interesting. Now, let’s watch the game.” By not being in L.A., I think it keeps you more grounded and maybe more in touch with regular, everyday stuff. The flip side is missing out on those things. Not knowing that you could have gone and hired the writer’s room that just got fired. Not knowing that there was an easier way to get something done. Not having that contact can be to your product’s detriment because you don’t have the same access to things as the people you’re competing with. Make no mistake, you’re competing every day and it’s a difficult business. You’re measured by a number and you’ll either survive or not based on the rest of the media offerings out there.

How would you describe your working relationship with Adam Reed? When you started, you formed 70/30 Productions, a name which gave a nod at the way the two of you divided the share of writing and producing. In this interview, you’ve said that Adam does about 95% of the writing. Can you give us a little behind-the-scenes peek at how you work together?

Adam and I have been working together since 1995. The original company was called 70/30 Productions because Adam would do 70% of the writing and 30% of the producing. I would do the exact opposite of that. As time went on and we got better and better at what we were doing, we figured out that I am a very good producer and Adam is a very good writer. In a game where you are competing for eyeballs, you have to be the best at what you do. We were no longer doing shows with budgets of $30,000. We were doing shows with budgets of $500,000. What that meant was that we are better off if Adam writes everything and I produce everything. We both know how to do each other’s jobs, but we both acknowledge that the other one does it better. It’s made a fantastic marriage. We complement each other.

What is the chance that you’ll be working on a full-length Archer movie in the near future?

We’ve talked about it. Right now we have a couple of other pilots – cartoons – that are pretty close to being done, so we’re focusing on those. I would say that it’s an interesting idea. There’s been talk of, “Would we do a live-action version for a movie, or would we do a cartoon?” We’ve definitely discussed it. When you have a series that’s on the air, just getting that thing done and going is a full-time commitment. Even making these other pilots means taking time and energy away from Archer. So, we still want to keep focused on getting these seven seasons right, then we’ll decide on whether there’s going to be a movie, or an eighth season, if we’re still wanted.

Getting Back Into the Spy Game with ‘Archer’ Executive […]