‘Animals’ Creators Phil Matarese & Mike Luciano Talk HBO, Duplass Brothers – And Bee Penises [VIDEO EXCLUSIVE]

Mike Luciano and Phil Matarese on ‘Animals… by Uinterview

Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano, the creators of HBO’s new hit animated series, Animals., are as free as the birds they do voice overs for.

While working together in an ad agency, Matarese and Luciano looked out the window to find two pigeons resting on the ledge. Presumably bored with their jobs, and certainly with a greater destiny ahead of them, they began to give voices to the two New York City birds.

Finding the idea of two riffing pigeons funny – as many others have over the past year – Matarese and Luciano turned it into a web series and a 12-minute short. After brothers, Mark and Jay Duplass – who created the production compony behind films like Safety Not Guaranteed and Blue Jay – offered their support, Animals. became a full-fledged series, aired at Sundance Film Festival, and was then picked up by HBO.

“And now we are here and its 20 episodes later,” Matarese told uInterview exclusively.

“And Mike and I are inching our way towards death. It’s a march but I’m happy to be leading the charge.”

In the mean time, Matarese and Luciano have found great partners in both HBO and the Duplass Brothers.

“We’re huge fans of [the Duplass Brothers], first and foremost, which is what attracted us to them. They are also very attractive so we were automatically attracted,” said Luciano.

“We got to have total creative control and I think they were just great at getting us to keep following our own voice.”

While with HBO, Matarese and Luciano have found that their show has retained the same voice they created years prior, how ever explicit.

“We barely got any notes while making the show and the ones we did were just constructive and never censoring in any way,” Matarese said when discussing HBO’s input into their show.

“We’ve done some weird shit for sure that they haven’t really batted an eye at,” he added.

But while HBO has never asked them to tone it down, the network has brought a sense of professionalism that, at times, baffles the show’s creators.

“There is a joke in an upcoming episode when a bee shows his stinger and its a full on dick,” Matarese beings his story. “Our character designers are like, ‘no, it needs to be bigger and it needs to be more veiny,’ like [we’re] having circumcised or uncircumcised conversations about a bee’s penis and that’s when your sort of like, ‘ok, what is this, what is my job exactly right now?'”

At the same time, they don’t ever feel guilty for a little crass.

“We just try to make the show as funny as possible and if its a little blue sometimes than so be it.”