{"id":47690,"date":"2026-08-16T00:56:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T19:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=47690"},"modified":"2026-08-16T00:56:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T19:56:45","slug":"smiling-friends-creators-zach-hadel-michael-cusack-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=47690","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Smiling Friends&#8217; Creators Zach Hadel &#038; Michael Cusack Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tCreed Bratton\u2019s commitment to his art was on full display on the set of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/smiling-friends\/\" id=\"auto-tag_smiling-friends\" data-tag=\"smiling-friends\">Smiling Friends<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tPainting himself fully green for \u201cLe Voyage Incroyable de Monsieur Grenouille,\u201d an episode in the adult animated sitcom\u2019s third and final season that brought the show its first <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/lists\/emmy-nominations-full-list-nominees-scorecard\/\" data-type=\"pmc_list\" data-id=\"1236975707\">Emmy nomination<\/a>, <em>The Office<\/em> alum must have hoped to get the paint off by the end of his guest star appearance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tPer the show\u2019s co-creators <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/zach-hadel\/\" id=\"auto-tag_zach-hadel\" data-tag=\"zach-hadel\">Zach Hadel<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/michael-cusack\/\" id=\"auto-tag_michael-cusack\" data-tag=\"michael-cusack\">Michael Cusack<\/a>, though, that\u2019s not what happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t\u201cHe was so good and really fun to work with. He was painted green fully all over the body,\u201d Hadel recalls during an appearance for Deadline\u2019s Contenders Television: The Nominees Studio. \u201cHe had to go film a movie the next day and apparently still had some green on him. So the green lasted many weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tWatch the conversation with Hadel and Cusack here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t<br \/>The film Bratton was going to shoot, we\u2019ve confirmed, was <em>Primetime<\/em>, A24\u2019s crime thriller starring Robert Pattinson as <em>To Catch a Predator<\/em>\u2018s Chris Hansen, which we scooped in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tIncredibly, the paint hadn\u2019t completely come off even by the time Bratton was done with that project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tCusack said, \u201cHe told our friend, the one that hired him, he said he went to the doctor a month later and they\u2019re just doing a basic checkup. And he\u2019s like, \u2018Why is your skin slightly tinged green?\u2019 And he\u2019s like, \u2018No, it\u2019s not a health problem. I just painted myself with paint that never comes off, so it\u2019s totally fine.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Smiling Friends<\/em> is an absurdist, mixed-media comedy starring Cusack and Hadel as Pim and Charlie, employees at a company whose job is to help make unhappy people smile.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tBratton painted himself green for a live-action appearance as the father of Mr. Frog, a character Hadel describes as \u201cthe dumbest\u201d in the show, which the creators conceived early in the design process on <em>Smiling Friends<\/em>. Over the course of the show\u2019s Emmy-nominated episode, we follow this supporting character \u2014 a \u201chollowed out\u201d TV star,\u201d in Hadel\u2019s words \u2014 from his leap to President and then ruler of the world. The episode then goes as deep as is possible, in the span of just 11 minutes, into what makes Mr. Frog tick.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe intention, Cusack says, was to see what would happen in devoting \u201ca cinematic, prestigious TV episode\u201d to \u201cthe stupidest character in all of animation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tOf the show\u2019s Emmy nomination for Outstanding Animated Program along long-running and beloved series like <em>The Simpsons<\/em>, Cusack said, \u201cWe feel very honored. Obviously, we grew up with all the shows that we\u2019re against and respect them very much. We would\u2019ve never thought in a million years that our little quarter-hour show that we did for <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/adult-swim\/\" id=\"auto-tag_adult-swim\" data-tag=\"adult-swim\">Adult Swim<\/a> would be in this league, so we feel very honored by it and it\u2019s a very nice feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tIn the conversation with Deadline, Cusack and Hadel underscored that it\u2019s easy to underestimate the rigors of crafting a 2D animated series, frame by frame, in 2026, putting the ambition of their process in context.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Creed Bratton\u2019s commitment to his art was on full display on the set of Smiling Friends. Painting himself fully green for \u201cLe Voyage Incroyable de Monsieur Grenouille,\u201d an episode in the adult animated sitcom\u2019s third and final season that brought the show its first Emmy nomination, The Office alum must have hoped to get the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Smiling-Friends-Test-1.jpg?w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}