After Six Years, Aubrey Plaza's Star-Studded Animated Series Is Finally Here

"Delightfully demented is good. I like that," Aubrey Plaza says, describing the humor of her new animated series for Prime Video, Kevin. Anyone familiar with Plaza’s work — across TV, film and years of deadpan daytime and late-night talk-show appearances — might describe her sense of humor that same way. Does this show, which she cocreated and voices a character for, reflect that sense of humor? "Totally. I have my hands all over it."

In the first of eight episodes, after human couple Dana (Plaza) and Dan (Mike Mitchell) decide to call it quits, their cat, Kevin (Jason Schwartzman), decides to call it quits on them, too. He leaves home and moves into a local pet rescue in Astoria, Queens, where he falls in with a potty-mouthed band of misfit cats and dogs. Inspired by a real-life breakup and the pet caught in the middle, Kevin is ultimately about finding one’s place in the world — told through a cat who keeps bringing up his "butt-hole specialist."

While Kevin isn’t the first piece of adult animation to center around a colorful pack of anthropomorphized animals, the pedigree of its equally colorful voice cast makes it a marvel. Among those lending their voices are Whoopi Goldberg, John Waters, Amy Sedaris, Aparna Nancherla, Gil Ozeri, Cary Elwes, Nicole Byers and Quinta Brunson, ensuring that hilarity is par for the course.

Plaza points out that, as happens with TV projects, Kevin is the culmination of six years’ worth of work. She, her cocreator, Joe Wengert and her producing partner Dan Murphy have been working on the show, premiering April 20, since before the pandemic. Here, she speaks with emmy editor Stephan Horbelt about crafting the show’s unique sense of humor and rounding up her "long-shot" cast.

What’s your relationship to animation? Did you grow up watching Saturday-morning cartoons?

I was a kid in the late ’80s and early ’90s, so I grew up in Nickelodeon’s Nick Jr. era — Rugrats, Doug. As an adult, I don’t watch a lot of animation. I love it more as a creator, because it allows you to do things you could never do in live action. That’s what’s so fun about it for me.

What influenced the show’s animation style?

It’s funny, I was actually using a lot of film references. I was interested in trying to elevate this show and have a more cinematic, indie-cinema feel to it, which is my favorite. So, I used a lot of Wes Anderson references in terms of the framing, and then ’70s New York movies, like the Al Pacino movie The Panic in Needle Park. Also, Woody Allen movies. To have New York be a character is very common [in live-action projects] but not so common in animation, so we really leaned in that direction. Visually, with the character design, we liked this kind of simple design. We wanted it to have a vintage feel.

Tell me about crafting Kevin’s unique sense of humor.

The great thing about the writers on this show is that a lot of them are comedians and writers who Joe and I knew in our Upright Citizens Brigade days, in early-2000s New York. We had this common approach to comedy, because [most of us] trained at the same place. That really helped solidify the tone. We didn’t want it to be a silly, empty, just-for-jokes show.

We want the jokes to escalate, and we want things to be insane but grounded in truth. The whole philosophy of the Upright Citizens Brigade is "Truth in comedy." That’s an underlying theme for how we approach the show creatively.

How did you get the voice cast involved?

First, we had Jason Schwartzman as Kevin. That right there sets the tone for everybody. Jason is very picky, I would say, about what projects he works on, and he’s such a respected actor and comedian in the community that, once you have him, it elevates things immediately and makes people want to work with him. John Waters and I have a longtime friendship, so that was an easy call. I wasn’t sure if he would do it, but I think he loved the idea of playing this queen cat who’s literally from Queens and is an old curmudgeon. Then, Amy Sedaris — I’ve wanted to work with her for so long, and we were lucky to get her, because she does multiple voices for the show.

Whoopi was a long shot. I wasn’t sure if that would work out. I met her when I did The View years and years ago, and we developed a rapport. When I reached out to her team, she was definitely interested, but she’s extremely busy, so it took some extra luck to get her on board. But I think it was a combination of the script, the animatic [an animated show’s preliminary blueprint] that we made in the beginning and the cast. We stacked that thing.

Before Kevin, your last TV project was Agatha All Along. [Plaza played Rio Vidal, later revealed to be Lady Death.] Is returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the cards?

I am absolutely up for it. I’m deeply manifesting a Lady Death project in the MCU. I’m doing all the spells I can to make that happen, because I think the character has so much potential. If you look up her origin in the comics, she’s got a love triangle with Thanos and Deadpool, and she doesn’t die. What’s more fun than that?

You were Emmy-nominated for The White Lotus, a show that’s been known to bring back a character. Is that something you’d be up for?

Yeah, absolutely. I loved playing that character. If Mike White called me and said, "We’re shooting a season in Scandinavia," I’d probably have to say yes.

Kevin is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

This article originally appeared in emmy Magazine, issue # 4, 2026, under the title "Feline Trouble."