Rick and Morty are back, baby! On Sunday, October 15, Rick and Morty returned for its seventh season—with one big difference. Season 7 is the first season without creator Justin Roiland. Between domestic violence allegations (which were later dismissed) and claims of toxic behavior and sexual misconduct, Roiland was removed from Rick and Morty. Along with Dan Harmon, Roiland created the cult television show and helped write many early episodes. However, the show’s credits document how Roiland’s creative input dwindled over the seasons. After season 2, Harmon and other writers took over the series’ creative direction.
Roiland’s key role in Rick and Morty became his voice acting. Along with voicing some of the side characters, Roiland voiced both of the titular roles. Not having Roiland involved meant the series needed to find two actors who sounded enough like Roiland did in those roles to be believable. We heard some of the vocal work in a trailer for season 7, but with the new season out, we finally can hear them in full. And we finally know who the voice actors are.
In the credits of Sunday night’s new episode, the show listed Ian Cardoni as the voice of Rick and Harry Belden as Morty. Both actors only have a handful of Hollywood credits to their names. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Harmon and showrunner Scott Marder discussed the process of re-casting. First, they decided they needed two actors to replace Roiland. They didn’t want that kind of pressure on one person’s shoulders, especially with the vocal wear and tear that comes with that kind of job.
The show put out “exhaustive” casting calls for the position and received “thousands” of responses. I can only imagine how many guys were trying to shoot their shot for one of the coveted roles. “Everyone sounded like Macho Man Randy Savage or like a cousin of his,” said Marder. “No one sounded exactly like Rick. It was tricky. People had it in splashes but once you bring them back in, they couldn’t do it conversationally, which is what we needed. It was exhaustive.” Cardoni immediately stood out to them as having a good handle on Rick before being ultimately cast in the role. Morty proved to be a little more difficult; Belden came to them when they had tapped almost every resource.
Harmon admitted to not being involved in the early stages. Their team would narrow down the audition tapes until they found decent candidates. Then they would play audio clips for Harom to see if they sounded correct to him. Harmon told THR, “They were using me as a contestant on Is It Cake? to test the foolproofness of this. There was a blind process where for all I knew I was saying my favorite Rick is a different person than my favorite Morty.”
What do you think of the new voices? Does it change the show at all for you?
(featured image: Adult Swim)
