Phil LaMarr Reveals How He Was Almost Fired From 'Futurama'

[Brian Damage]

Futurama (1999-present)—“Hermes Conrad”

PL: Ah yes, Hermes, who almost cost me a potential livelihood. [Laughs.] When I first auditioned for the character and first started doing the character, he was not called Hermes. He was called Dexter. He was not Jamaican, he was just an overweight accountant. And the character didn’t work. Like, a couple of episodes in, it was very clear that this wasn’t really adding anything. Which, when you’re on an ongoing series, if you don’t add anything, eventually you will be eliminated. But I had the good fortune of having Matt Groening walk up to me in the hallway after one of the table reads and say, “Hey Phil, can you do a Jamaican accent?” Now, given the fact that the character wasn’t really working, had I said “no,” we probably wouldn’t be talking right now. Unless I was serving you a Mocha Latte Grande somewhere. [Laughs.] But fortunately, I was able to do a Jamaican accent, we changed the character, and then it sort of clicked. The writers found an angle for him. And here we are, 13 years later, and I’m still doing it.

AVC: Do you have a favorite aspect of Hermes as a character? They’ve certainly added to his backstory over the years.

PL: I know, yeah. All the weed stuff has been built up considerably. [Laughs.] I guess there was some of that in the beginning, but you couldn’t really play that up very much on Fox at 7 p.m. But the thing that tickles me most is his almost-psychotic hatred of Zoidberg, which also wasn’t there at the beginning. But it’s just gotten more and more virulent as the series has gone on. [As Hermes.] “Get away from me, ya crab!” [Laughs.]

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