Stephen Root on playing a cult leader in ‘Praise Petey’: ‘Obviously off his rocker’
nypost.com“Praise Petey,” premiering July 21 (10 p.m.) on Freeform.Annie Murphy headlines the series as Petey, a millennial “It Girl” who, through a series of events, takes command of New Utopia, a small-town cult started by her hedonistic late father (Root).
He, in turn, left behind a trove of weird, oft-touching life-lesson videotapes to help guide his daughter on her newfound journey — and looms large over the season arc.The all-star cast includes Christine Baranski, Paget Brewster, Kirsey Clemons, John Cho and Amy Hill.The series, created by Anna Drezen (“Saturday Night Live”), counts among its executive producers Mike Judge and Greg Daniels — co-creators of Fox’s beloved animated series “King of the Hill” (1997-2009), on which Root played sad-sack Army barber Bill Dauterive, pal/drinking buddy of Texas propane salesman Hank Hill (Judge).“He was the first one to contact me [about ‘Praise Petey’],” Root said of Judge. “He said, ‘I’ve got maybe a weird guy for you’ and I said, ‘I’m down with you buddy, whatever you need.
Fortunately the other producers thought I was good for [the role], too. “I was happy to come in and play.”Root’s long showbiz resume pivots back-and-forth between live-action and animation, including his Emmy-nominated role as Monroe Fuches in HBO’s “Barry” and as Mayor Toadstool in “Amphibia” (Disney Channel).
For the uninitiated, he also played mumbling, stapler-obsessed Milton Waddams — who didn’t get a piece of birthday cake — in Judge’s 1999 big-screen comedy “Office Space.” So … he’s accustomed to playing offbeat characters.“What you’re going to see [with Petey’s father] is mostly that he’s passed on and that he was crazy enough to make a series of videotapes to tell his daughter how to live and how to.
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