WondLa is a new Apple TV+ series which centres around Eva, voiced by Jeanine Mason (Roswell, New Mexico), a curious, enthusiastic and spirited teenager being raised in a state-of-the-art underground bunker by Muthr, a robot caretaker, voiced by Emmy Award nominee Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives).
On her 16th birthday, an attack on Eva’s bunker forces her onto the Earth’s surface which is now inhabited by aliens, covered with other-worldly fauna, and no other humans to be found. In fact, it’s no longer called Earth but Orbona!
Otto, a loveable giant water bear with whom Eva shares telepathic powers voiced by Emmy Award winner Brad Garrett (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Rovender, a cantankerous alien with a troubled past voiced by Gary Anthony Williams (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows) join Eva as she leads the team on a dangerous quest to find humans, her home, and her true destiny.
The first instalment of the WondLa trilogy will premiere all 7 episodes globally on Friday, June 28, 2024 on Apple TV+, and earlier this week, we sat down with Teri Hatcher to discuss her role in the must-see sci-fi adventure.
While many of you will know her best for Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Supergirl, Hatcher is also no stranger to animation after previously lending her voice to projects like Coraline and Planes.
We didn't get the opportunity to touch on the actor's DC work during our brief conversation. However, we were fortunate enough to get plenty of fascinating insights into how Hatcher approached the role of Muthr and the way her own experiences of parenthood inspired what proves to be a standout performance in the show.
You can check out the full interview below.
When you played Lois Lane, you had decades of comics to turn to for inspiration and, in this instance, there are Tony DiTerlizzi’s books. Just how useful is that material to you while approaching a role like this?
Well, I think it’s very useful and I always do try to access any research that’s available to me for any project that I’m involved in. That said, I think the books have their life and are brilliant and I think there are some adjustments in the series that made me want to approach it as its own independent project, which is what we did.
I love being involved with Tony and Skydance and animation specifically I think allows an audience to go to a fantastical place and be immersed in beautiful fairytales that they wouldn’t potentially be able to imagine otherwise.
Mother is an android, but has so much personality, particularly as the story plays out; how did you approach that mixture of emotion with the fact she’s obviously not human?
That was really the crux of what we had to figure out right from the beginning. When I say “we,” I mean Tony and Bobs [Gannaway] and John Lasseter and others. To find out just how much robot she would be and to imagine what would Siri be like in 50 years.
Initially, I think we thought that maybe there would be more robotic-ness to it and then it felt not futuristic enough. By making her voice more human and warmer, we could have her behaviours and her actual dialogue be more rooted in a programmed directive.
I like that those energies were competing and there was some tension between warmth but also directive. I think that’s charming and I hope that is what people’s takeaway is.
Mother is such a rich, three-dimensional character - what did you enjoy most about the journey this series takes her on?
My personal journey of doing the work…I love the people. I love showing up to the sound booth and seeing Bobs. I love the engineers and everybody plays a part in the making of it. I love the people.
The finished product…when I think about parenting and how primarily you are tasked with nurturing and keeping your child safe, supplying them with the tools to succeed without you. You do all that and then comes the moment when you have to let them go and do all of it without you. That’s very, very hard.
For a human mother, I can attest to that! I think that’s part of her journey, but also Eva’s journey, the child’s journey of them finally reaching their independence, they look back, and the parent is away and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, I am doing this by myself.’ It’s emotional. I think every parent/child relationship will be able to relate to that one way or another.