Adult Swim has hit corporate humor gold with “Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell.” The show, starring Henry Zebrowski, Matt Servitto and Craig Rowin, is about Gary (Zebrowski), an associate demon in the strange corporation of Hell, trying to get ahead but always failing. Failure usually means getting tortured by the boss, Satan (Servitto) with intern Claude (Rowin) somehow benefiting. ShockYa was excited to get a chance to talk to the three stars about the show, corporate world horror stories and whether any of them would do well in Gary’s shoes.
The mid-season episode “Schmickler83!” airs May 9 at midnight/11 CT on Adult Swim.
How did you guys get in touch with your inner demon?
Henry Zebrowski: …It was really not until they put the demon makeup on my face…you really allow yourself to go there. It was really a valve to find the release of just how big of a moron I am, you know? And it’s helpful to channel that[.]
Craig Rowin: For me, personally, it as pretty easy once Henry got into character. There’s usually a back and forth between me and Henry. So when Henry’s at his most moronic and naive and lovable, it’s very easy to shut him down, tell to shut up, he’s stupid, try to be smarter than him. So, basically, Henry being a character was, more or less, all I needed to bring out the terribleness in me because when somebody’s that sweet and you’re told you’re supposed to be backstabbing them, its easy enough to start shutting them down.
Matt Servitto: I’m from the Daniel Day Lewis school of acting, so I just treated Craig and Henry like shit both on-set and off. So, they basically refer to me as Satan off-set…I was their lord and non-savior and they would get abuse no matter where we were, whether we were out at dinner in Atlanta or on-set with their makeup on.
Henry Zebrowski: We didn’t refer to him as Satan; we were always forced to refer to him as “Mr. Servito.” And he had a special belt buckle on that had two eyeballs on it, and he said to never look at his face, [but] to look at his belt buckle.
Matt Servitto: I like that. I think we’re going to have to work that into Season 2.
How was it having those hoof-pants, Matt?
Matt Servitto: The hooves–that actually was tedious. The rest of it was really cool and as Henry said, it really made–when you got all the horns on and red face and the nails–you just look and mirror and you’re like, “Okay, I’m ready to go.” …But the hooves were a real pain and I began to appreciate streetwalkers and what they go through because I was in these high-heeled pumps that had hooves on them, and I had to spend the whole day–I don’t know how many men have spent 12 to 14 hours at a time in high heels, but it’s not easy and I have a deep appreciation now for the girls on Sunset. It was truly painful; I’d get home and my feet were swollen. And, really, it’s funny–I’m glad you referenced the hooves because I keep watching the episodes and go, “Do people realize that my bottom half is yak hair?” I want to make sure they see that in every shot because, first of all, it’s really cool-looking and second of all, it was a lot of hard work and sweat and painful days on set to get that affect and whenever they do a shot where they don’t show it, I’m like, “No! No–I want them to see [the hooves].”
The bone alphabetizing scene reminded me of some of the stuff I had to do as an intern in a corporate office. Were your surprised to find yourself identifying with some elements of the show?
Henry Zebrowski: I would say, no, honestly. I worked a corporate job and it’s all there. It’s all there. I would wake up, and literally, sweat through the night about going to work. I would just drink and drink and drink before I would pass out in a chair. So it was a living Hell. I was not surprised. This is very similar; I would have welcomed death when I was working in a corporate job. The sweet release of going to a deeper, darker place because thing about it is when I’m murdered in Hell, where do I go? I just have to go start doing the thing I was doing again, again. Like being an intern–every time you get it wrong [and] you don’t use the proper-colored highlighter, they’re like, “Do it again, intern,” and you’re like, “I’m not a number, I’m a human.” And they’re like, “What was that, number?”
Craig Rowin: The way they wrote it, Dave Willis and [Chris “Casper”] Kelly, is that they definitely put elements from their lives. I remember there was talk about me wearing a scarf because they knew somebody they worked with that wore a scarf and he was sort-of similar to my character. That’s the great part about it; I related to just starting a new job and having to assert your dominance a little bit and all the little bullshit and having those run-ins. In an episode coming up, Henry and I have a run-in at the snack machine…when you’re getting a snack you don’t want to talk to anybody. That’s like your 30 seconds of work where you can just be like, “I’m in my own world, I’m getting Lorna Doone cookies, that’s all I care about right now, why is this idiot talking to me?”
What can fans expect from the rest of the season?
Henry Zebrowski: It’s just going to keep getting darker and weirder and funnier as it goes.
Craig Rowin: In terms of my character and Henry’s character, the first episode I start as the intern and by the last I’ve made my presence felt in the office and Satan has sort of taken me under his wing enough to where he still tortures me but I eventually get my own office…and Henry, the Gary character, is still plugging along and dealing with the torment…I think he doesn’t really deserve to be in Hell. So that sort of continues and blossoms throughout the rest of the season.
Matt Servitto: Henry, I love what you said yesterday about how…when you watch Dave and Chris’ work, their other shows, the early seasons are always about establishing the ground rules, who these characters are, the world [in the show]…I think it’s the same thing with our show. It’s all about setting the ground rules of Hell; what the pecking order is, who can talk to whom, what is not allowed in Hell and the rules of this weird corporation and then once that happens, in the second and third seasons, you can assume your viewers already know the relationship with Claude and Gary, the relationship with Satan, those sorts of things…I would love to have some celebrity cameos in Hell. Like, who can we get to do the red face and who would be willing to be in Hell and maybe, who should really, appropriately, be in Hell? Sort of like a “Celebrity Apprentice”-type thing. So I hope we do some stunt-casting in the future.
Do you think any of you would be successful as an associate demon in Hell?
Matt Servitto: Craig would. I think Henry and I would agree that Craig would.
(L-R: Rowin, Servitto, Zebrowski)