The cast and creative team for Archer put on their annual Indigo ballroom panel for the upcoming season 13 on FXX. While we got a preview for future events, the panel focused on the absence of beloved cast member Jessica Walter.
Aisha Tyler recalled a Comic-Con story where Jessica Walter was eyeing Henry Cavill at a party and Aisha took her to meet “Mr. Cavill” after previously making his acquaintance. Walter had other plans: Tyler remarked that in Malory style, she wouldn’t let go of Cavill, insisting, “I want to play your mother.”
The 13th season will see Archer write out Malory, with Walter’s final performance as the acerbic spymistress having already released posthumously in season 12. “I was describing it to someone over the phone, they started crying on the phone,” David Willis, Archer co-creator and writer, said of writing Malory’s final moments in the show. “So I was like, I think this is what we’re going to go for. And let’s just have Malory on the beach with Ron Cadillac [who was voiced by Ron Leibman, the late husband of Walter] felt so right, and it just felt like a fitting tribute to the both of them.”
“It was a difficult thing to write. It’s a difficult thing to reform. I think Jon [Benjamin] did a very good job. Listen, I did a very good job with that scene, because it was supposed to be, we had one job. Is it still to try to be funny? But Jon had a really nice quiver in his voice that I really liked. And Mark Dante, our co-EP, did a really nice job with that. We had to read her thoughts, because you obviously couldn’t record her. And so we had both Mark reading, and Jon performing and I thought it did very, very well. And Judy had a little joke in there and kind of brought into the living through them, which I like, which I liked.”
Archer Season 13 premieres August 24 on FXX and streaming on Hulu.
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