The new hit show on Family Channel and on the brand new Disney XD, WHAT’S UP, WARTHOGS! is about a group of students on a mission to spice up their school’s on-air announcements show. Here’s what we learned when we caught with the show’s stars, Karissa Staples (Victoria), Tiago Abreu (Eric) and Eduard Witzke (Charlie)!
How would you sum up the show?
T: I think the show is just really fun. We have a lot of, the actors in it, like Ed Witzke, he’s actually a stand-up comedian on the side, he just brings that to every rehersal, every take, and Dwaye Murray as well, they’re just funny guys…
K: Ana (Golja, plays Laney) is very multi-talented
T: She definitely is, Ana’s like a hardcore life liver and she can do anything, actually.
K: What you see in the show is a grouping of four different people, so you have the genius, the enthusiastic AV club goer, the cool kid, and the really weird, off the wall Charlie, and the very – I don’t know- passionate, driven, motivated character. So the four of us together is just, we’re like Scooby Doo in a way, that’s what makes the show so, I think, so interesting, is you’re like “oh, how would they get along ever?” or “How do we make this work?” but it does… no two people are alike, and that’s, I think, the beauty of the show.
Tell us a bit about your characters…
K: Victoria Jagger is, I think she’s just a really great character to play. She’s a very independent, driven young woman who runs for a campaign for student body president, but she’s also very likeable as well, and she’s not afraid to let her hair down, so throughout the seasons she just develops a really good friendship with Eric, Charlie and Lanie, and she’s relatable as well, so it’s been really fun playing her.
E: Charlie is the oddball kind of, um, zaney wild card in the group. There’s a lot of times where he says stuff that’s very very serious and very important, but usually it’s only important to him and all the other characters kind of take his stuff lightly… he has his own human identification code for when he’s captured by aliens and they ask him that, then he’s very well prepared. His code is 8785A Alpha Den obi Foxtrot. Human Identification codes are pretty complicated.
Do you believe in aliens?
E: Ah, I definitely think there’s gotta be something else out there. I can’t see our universe being that big and it’s all just for us.
Tiago, your characters more of an enthusiastic AV-club kid, correct?
T: A lot of the times you think AV club, you think kind of like the nerdier kid, and I don’t think Eric’s like that at all. He’s really just a natural showman, lots of energy, like you said, enthusiastic, he cares a lot about his friends, especially his best friend Charlie. He has a bit of a weird relationship with Victoria, kind of a love/hate thing. I always compare it to like a brother/sister kind of relationship.
K: Yeah, our characters go way back to first or second grade when you have that kid rivalry and it’s followed us all the way throughout high school, but there are lots of moments where we know we’re friends, but we still go back and fourth and bicker.
T: It’s kind of like, I think, a fun, we like to bicker with each other.
K: Strong personalities working together
How do you guys relate to the character personally?
T: I think I have a little bit of, I’m a closet Eric. I don’t have the same energy as him. A lot of times, in the morning, I have to do a lot of stretching, a lot of running to get into that energetic, enthusiastic character. I’m very laid back usually. But I do like, in high school I was, I liked to be the class clown in some situations and I can relate to Eric like that.
K: I feel like Victoria Jagger is an exaggerated version of me . Definitely me in high school to some extent, running for class president, very involved and very passionate and… she’s me, but definitely take it up ten notches
E: [Charlie’s] not like me, per say, just because he always has these wild and crazy conspiracies that he’s always trying to hunt down and prove, and I’m not that worried about the stuff that Charlie worries about, but it’s so much fun to be able to play that and to be able to believe in the things that Charlie believes in.
Have there been any fun moments on set?
K: Every day is fun. The chemistry between the cast and the crew and the directors, producers, it’s just, everybody, it’s just a joy to work with [them].
T: It’s just a really great environment, like we knew that we were playing good friends, and we became good friends off camera. We hang out a lot when we can, like when we have free time. The shooting schedule is a bit occupying and stressful, so we don’t really get too much time off, but when we do, we like to spend it with each other and grow our own friendship off camera.
K: There’s never a dull moment.
E: Every day [is fun] because the creative team we have behind this are, they’re really really great and they allow us to explore stuff in our characters that aren’t necessarily on the script pages, so if one of us comes up with a really funny idea that really suits our characters and that really goes with the scene, we have that creativity to do it. There’s always something wild that happens on stage and there’s always something unexpected that comes up and we’re all able to have a good laugh about it.
What were your personal high school announcements like?
T: Boringpallooza. Not as exciting. We had one year when we had the token funny kid do the announcements, but he was no Eric Ortiz, if I may say so myself.
K: I can’t even remember, they were so forgettable. No body had the opportunity to even do the announcements, everyone was too nervous, I think so. I can’t even remember at all.
E: I went to a French Immersion high school so our announcements, they wouldn’t be broadcast on TV, they would just be over the intercom, and we’d get them once in English and then once again in French and I’m really happy that we don’t have to do that every single time for this show or else these episodes would be like, 40 minutes.
5. Favourite TV shows?
K: It’s a toss-up between FRIENDS and SEINFELD.
T: Growing up, I loved Will Smith, and I always loved THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR.
E: I’m a really big fan of FAMILY GUY.
If you weren’t acting, what do you think you’d be doing?
T: I was in school, I was at York University [taking] theatre when I got the part.
K: It’s weird, I haven’t really ever found an answer to that question before because I can’t imagine doing anything else at all.
E: Honestly, I don’t know. I went to university for Sciences as soon as I graduated high school and I didn’t have any motivation to pursue it and that’s what kind of lead me a little more towards acting, and when I wasn’t acting or doing stand-up then I’d be trying to do acting or stand up, and I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.
Ed, you also do stand-up comedy, which do you like better: acting or standup?
E: I definitely like acting better, it’s a little more creative and acting to me is a little more collaborative, which is something I really like. I really like working in groups and with other people, whereas standup is just kind of me on stage with a microphone.
Thank you to the cast of WHAT’S UP, WARTHOGS!