Faces Behind The Faces

"No no no no, like, a big, sweaty fireman carries you out of a burning building, lays you on the sidewalk and you think, 'yeah, okay, he’s gonna give me mouth-to-mouth', but instead he just starts choking the shit out of you, and the last sensation that you feel before you die is he is squeezing your throat so hard that a big, wet, blob of drool drips off his teeth and just, flurp, falls right onto your popped-out eyeball..." Luckily, when it comes to Archer, you no longer have to worry that your imaginary girlfriend, who looks like what you think Cheryl Tunt would in real life, is actually hideous. Matt Thompson recently passed along to Vulture "pictures of a ragtag group of friends of the show and fellow animators that they wanted to use as physical guideposts" when the ISIS gang was first designed. In order to get the wonderful range of physical expressiveness we see in each episode of Archer, the animation team took thousands of photos of real people who would serve as models for the two-dimensional characters. And there are some interesting stories about the faces behind the faces — and why the production team chose these models in lieu of the voice actors.

So now we know that Lana Kane, superspy and thorn in Archer’s side has the voice of Aisha Tyler and the body of wing-slinger Hooters girl, Kynyetta Lester. More importantly, the Judy Greer-voiced Cheryl Tunt, Malory’s secretary and psychotic heiress, is based on Siobhan Price, writer/producer of Adult Swim–sponsored promotions. Sploosh...

"Aisha Tyler is gorgeous, but she also is the busiest person I know," says Thompson. "She could not fit us into her schedule until June 2014. So we had to cast someone else. For [series creator] Adam Reed’s birthday a couple of years back, we went to a Monster Truck Rally because, why the hell not? Afterward, we went to Hooters to grab some wings, and our waitress Kynyetta was ... shapely. So we decided to do the office a favor and cast her as Lana’s body model. For illustration reference, we take pictures of the models doing stuff here every day; it’s all pretty normal. But then there are those days when beautiful women dress up in tight clothes. There are also those days when ripped guys take off their shirts to show their eight-packs, but I tend to focus on the former. Now you know the real reason why Lana seems to somehow lose her top at some point every season."

"Siobhan is friends with many people on our staff, having worked for Adult Swim in Atlanta," explains Thompson. "She is currently in production on a pilot she created for them, which is probably more exciting to her than being the face of a beautiful yet insane cartoon woman. Even if that woman is voiced by the equally beautiful and considerably less insane Judy Greer. Cheryl Tunt is a nut job in a lot of respects, but the one kink people mostly associate with her is her love of choke sex. And unfortunately it is this question that is most frequently posed to Siobhan: 'Cheryl likes autoerotic asphyxiation. How about you?' Again, this brings about feelings of guilt on our part. And for all of this trouble she was paid $1 by the production. More guilt."