Futurama star John DiMaggio on the revival and his personal fight for Bender
- TV Show
John DiMaggio officially started recording the voice of Bender for the Futurama revival, a.k.a. Futurama season 11, on April 1, 2022. So, already it felt like someone was pulling his leg. Sitting in his home office with a Bender statuette prominently displayed in the background and his dog Fran sleeping in her bed off to the side, he quickly checks his calendar to double check. Yep, it was April Fools' Day. "Which is a pisser," the veteran voice actor tells EW over Zoom, in an interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Not only did it already feel like a surprise that the 1999 sitcom was coming back, but it's been a particularly long road for DiMaggio to return as the fan-favorite foulmouthed robot boozer of Futurama. Hulu and 20th Television Animation announced another season of the sci-fi animated comedy from The Simpsons' Matt Groening was in the works with much of the main cast at the top of 2022. Little did the public know that DiMaggio had already been in contract negotiations for months on compensation that weren't going anywhere, a battle the actor then discussed openly on social media. The fans agreed: You can't have Bender without DiMaggio. It was finally made official later that March that he was coming back, even if negotiations didn't end where he hoped.
"Like I've said before, it was a situation where it was better to be in the room eating Thanksgiving dinner as opposed to standing outside in the cold, wet rain across the street, looking in through the window," DiMaggio says, followed by his familiar booming laugh. "But I'm happy to be back on the show," he adds. "I'm not knocking it... It's just great to get to work with these people again, and I'm grateful for it. It's always exciting to get back on this bike every time. It's just like, these are new tires."
Futurama — about a pizza delivery boy and professional slacker named Fry (Billy West) who cryogenically freezes himself on accident and wakes up in the year 2999 — has come and gone a lot over the years. It originally ran on Fox for four seasons with a cast that also included Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, and David Herman. After it got canceled in 2004, the show became even more popular when episodes were syndicated on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Then there came four Futurama movies released on home video, followed by new seasons on Comedy Central.
Now, what is known as season 11 will debut years later this Monday on Hulu, though Comic-Con attendees in San Diego can catch the premiere at tomorrow's panel in Ballroom 20. "It's as good if not better [than the original]," says DiMaggio, who can't help but add in one of Bender's catchphrases: "We're back, baby!" The streamer has promised payoffs to decades-long mysteries, including developments in the love story of Fry and Leela (Sagal), what's in Nibbler's litter box, Robot Santa, and what ever happened to Kif (LaMarche) and Amy's (Tom) tadpole children. Teasers for the show have also included gags on a viral pandemic, bitcoin, cancel culture, and streaming TV.
"Everybody's always like, 'It's changed,'" DiMaggio mentions of some particularly irksome viewer feedback from over the years. "It hasn't changed! We've got the pedigree on our show. We got the smartest writers in the business. It doesn't hurt when the head of the Writers' Guild, or at least one of them, is one of your head writers. Mr. Patric Verrone for crying out loud. It's always good."
DiMaggio says he has "this completely different relationship with the character" of Bender than he did when he first voiced the role in the late '90s. "Bender's that Bender in me," he says. "When I started this, I was really alone. Like Bender, pretty out of control. But now, Bender's like my kid. I still love it. I still cherish it. He's like a best friend. So, it's a real gift to be able to do this and be better."
Still, he makes clear "it's never hard" to fall back into the rhythm and voice of Bender, no matter how long it's been since he did it professionally. And just to prove it, he starts belting one of the character's gibberish scat tunes without hesitation. "That's always at the tip of my tongue. It's always right there," he says. "It's hard to replicate. I work with some of the best in the business, in the world, and they can't do it. After I die, they're gonna have to do a big autopsy for science. They're gonna have to figure out how it worked."
It's true that no one can voice Bender quite like DiMaggio, which was why the negotiations between the actor and the Disney-owned studio to return came with so much emotion. "It was heartbreaking for many reasons," DiMaggio admits. "Bittersweet, frustrating. People don't know how long we had been [going] back and forth. People just assumed it was when it was announced until I said yes. That's not the case."
"What's interesting," he points out, "is that what was going on is what we're all kind of going on strike for." He says this mere days before the SAG-AFTRA union announced Hollywood's actors would go on strike not just for fair compensation in the age of streaming and peak TV, but also for their rights surrounding the use of A.I. in entertainment. "It was like throwing rocks at Goliath," DiMaggio remarks of his own contract battle, which he says was difficult to do on his own. "A lot of my colleagues, a lot of the people that I've worked with in the past, a lot of the community backed me up. People were not coming in to read for it. It made it very difficult for our poor casting director. I've apologized to her, but it was tough. It's one of those things where you learn how resilient you can be."
DiMaggio reiterates how stoked he is to have the matter resolved and to be back for the Futurama revival. He can't wait for the fans, who are still growing in numbers with rewatches on streaming, to see what they have in store. "There's always something that's new [with the show]," he says. "The longer you have this universe, the more there is to do within it."
Disney did not respond to EW's request for comment.
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