Actor Lauren Lapkus has played everything from a correctional officer in “Orange Is the New Black” to a control room employee at the world’s largest dinosaur theme park in “Jurassic World,” two very different roles that demonstrate a wide range of acting skills.
But thanks to the freedom afforded by the comedy podcast world, she’s also played Ho Ho the Naughty Elf, a plant medium and Tom Hanks (but not that Tom Hanks).
That type of flexibility is on display in Lapkus’ episode of “The Characters,” a new Netflix series that gives comedians of all different stripes a half-hour of streaming time with no ground rules. In 30 minutes, she plays a minor pop star/reality dating show competitor, a teenage boy fond of insulting his mother with barely-edited curse words and a drug-addled, jilted spouse, among others, in a series of interconnected sketches that echoes the worlds-within-worlds feel of “Mr. Show with Bob and David.”
amNewYork caught up with Lapkus in the run-up to the streaming debut of the Netflix series on March 11 to chat about characters — where they come from and who does them best.
Where do the seeds for your characters come from?
I really get inspired by little things, idiosyncrasies in people make me think and get me going — I can take a small thing and make it bigger or the focus of a character. … A character like Todd, the young boy I play on my special and on podcasts before, the way I put him together was by taking the idea of the sound of a kid who makes a whiny noise when they’re being grounded. They’re just kind of like, “I don’t wanna,” over and over again. He came entirely from that one sound.
Many of your recurring characters, including Todd, are younger. Do you have an affinity for those younger viewpoints?
I really do. I end up playing a lot of younger people. I’m not sure why. Maybe there’s something to unpack there, that I should go to therapy for. … One thing I’ve really noticed in myself is that it’s really easy, when you get older, to forget that younger people have fully formed opinions and desires going on inside them at all times. When you look at a five year old, you forget that they have their own worries and goals and ideas going. It’s fun to be able to play characters that can voice those thoughts.
When it comes to creating these characters out of full cloth, are there people who have done it before that you look up to?
I grew up being a huge fan of Tracy Ullman and I love Amy Sedaris. I also watched “Saturday Night Live” growing up — I was obsessed with that show. My idols when I was in elementary school were Chris Farley and Adam Sandler. People like that I really admired. As I get older, I definitely look to people like Amy Poehler and Amy Sedaris, who I think just does amazing stuff.
Streaming
“The Characters” debuts on March 11 on Netflix.
