feature image photo by Gonzalo Marroquin / Stringer via Getty Images
Long Story Short is a new Netflix animated series out today from BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg. It forgoes an animal-centric world for a more human-grounded one. So human. Think: Tree of Life with a mix of Family Circus, full of vibrant color palettes. The animated series follows the Schwoopers, a Jewish-American family, their trials and tribulations with each other, and their interpersonal relationships throughout the decades ranging from the 90s to the 2020s. Each episode focuses on a different family member and a moment in their life.
Shira is the middle child and only girl of the Schwooper family. She’s a rude, angsty, and rebellious lesbian who gets along badly with her strict mom, Naomi, and her brothers Avi and Yoshi. She’s voiced by Abbi Jacobson.
Shira is another addition to Jacobson’s wave of LGBTQ+ voices, following Katie Mitchell in The Mitchells vs. the Machines — the first out queer lead in a studio feature animated movie — and Bean in Disenchanted. But unlike those characters, Shira is outspoken (sometimes to a fault).
In a Zoom interview with Jacobson, we discussed exploring Shira’s character, the joy of portraying queer characters she wished she had growing up, and how the show is a balm in these crazy times.
Rendy: What drew you to Shira when Raphael approached you about Long Story Short? How did the role come to be?
Abbi: I was such a fan of BoJack, and Raphael [Bob-Waksberg] and Lisa [Hanawalt], who designed all the characters on that, did all the characters on this as well. And I got to be on BoJack, a smaller role, this character named Emily. It was such a fun experience. And so when Long Story Short came in, I met with Raphael. I honestly can’t remember if I even read it or if I was like, “I’m in” because I’m such a fan and I just trust his voice so much. I loved BoJack so much. It was so smart and dark, and the sadness was right next to the dumbest, silliest, funniest stuff. That balancing act was really impressive and inspiring.
This does the same thing in a way more grounded world, and I was just so excited that it was animated. I don’t think I’ve been a part of an animated show that felt so grounded. What an exciting story to tell about this really nuanced, complicated, specific family dynamic over such a long period of time. And it’s really serialized. And that was something that I could just tell right from the get go.
With Shira, she’s a little bit brassy. She’s a little bit more outspoken than I am. I think I can be a little bit more passive and internal, and she sort of wears it all on her sleeve, which I loved. And she’s a little messier outwardly, which is such a fun role to play.
We get to do these table reads together for every episode, and the process is just so lovely and collaborative. The table reads are my favorite part because everyone really brings so much to it. There’s really emotional moments in this show and you feel it. We’re all laughing and we’re crying and it’s all there. And I think personally from watching it, it’s all there on the screen, too. I feel very lucky to be a part of this show.
Rendy: Tell me about playing into Shira’s brassiness, getting to depict this rebellious side, because watching a lot of your work like Broad City and Mitchells Versus the Machines, there’s so much reservation to these characters. This entire time, I was like, “Oh, Abbi is going for it.”
Abbi: I think my usual wheelhouse is the insecurity is on my sleeve versus the fighting back and the confidence in one’s own opinions. And so it’s such a breath of fresh air to get to play a very different side, even just for my own life. I think in Broad City, that character is an amplification of me, and so I tend to be more internal and insecure. Sometimes I might think those things, but I don’t always say them. And Shira says them. It’s pretty rad.
Rendy: Given that you’re playing different ages of Shira, from a voice acting perspective, how did you play with different ages with your voice and also the maturity that you texture in some of the most somber scenes?
Abbi: I thought about this a lot when I was coming into the booth for specifically the episodes where I play a lot younger and it just didn’t feel right to be putting on a younger voice. It’s more in the energy. When I’m younger, it’s like exasperation and all the emotions feel bigger, the annoyance, and again, the messiness. She feels more out of control. Shira, just like all of us, has moments of that as an adult, but it’s in those moments that you sort of recognize that it’s a historical childhood feeling.
I keep thinking about this therapeutic saying that’s like “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical,” which I love. If I’m having a fight with someone or I’m feeling a big reaction and it’s an overwhelming thing, I always recognize this as I’m feeling something that feels very childhood, that feels very young, a young part of me that’s affected. I thought about that a lot with Shira where it was like when she’s older and a lot of those things with her mom or with her brother Avi keeps coming back. That’s why we are thrown back in time to see where those deep rooted feelings come from. It’s sort of like the childhood version spills out in adulthood.
I think Raphael and the whole writer’s team did such a great job of showing that as a childhood trauma. We carry those things and not necessarily big T trauma, but little stuff too. You carry them and then they spill out. And I really like diving into stuff like that.
Rendy: In regards to Shira, throughout the episodes, there’s an intersection between her lesbian identity and her Jewish identity, sometimes clashing. Tell me about exploring that side of her through your performance and if that resonated with you and your background.
Abbi: I think with the queerness, for sure. I think that in a family dynamic where you’re the only queer person, I mean, I definitely relate a lot to that, and there’s always sort of a feeling of not — I’m speaking for myself — but there’s a feeling of being other than the rest of the dynamic. And so that was something I thought about a lot, and her experience, and just the different path that her and Kendra have to go to have a child, it’s very different from Avi and Jen. And so I was so excited that that was being told, because I think that’s a journey a lot of people go through. And it is just so refreshing. It’s just another type of journey. There’s a nuanced conversation between the different members. I’m speaking so broadly around this, I don’t want to spoil anything, but within the familial dynamic that’s expressed, everyone has different opinions on that.
I think I was really excited to be part of telling that story. And that’s such a specific and also universal queer story that I think people can relate to or relate to in their own way.
My Jewishness, I definitely relate to a lot of her questioning and her pushback against certain things, but I feel like, I don’t know, I was really interested in the queer story. I don’t know if I’ve totally walked around this question. I don’t know. I think I was just excited to be a part of this very specific point of view.
Rendy: There’s an overwhelming joy of seeing you put your mark on all these different queer characters in animation. What usually draws you to these different characters and bringing your own flare, but also losing yourself within these characters? Like Katie, Bean, and Shira.
Abbi Jacobson: I’m really lucky that, I think I’m speaking correctly, all these straight white guys keep writing incredible queer characters for me. But it’s always been there on the page. And then with all these characters, I feel so lucky, because I feel the same way where I’m like, “Gosh.” I keep being sort of presented with these really whole characters that I wish I saw. I wish I got to see it when I was younger because I don’t feel like I was exposed to very many queer characters. And the three you mentioned are all these rad characters. They’re just really ballsy and fighting for things. And I wish I got to see that kind of content when I was growing up, and I’m so proud to be a part of them.
And it was there when these parts came to me. And then the creators like Mike Rianda, Matt Groening and Raphael, all are such incredible collaborators that they let me have input and they let me add stuff. I mean, in this, I feel like it was just so much there. I hope we get to make a lot more, and so the collaboration will continue, but it was so there. It was written in there, it’s written in stage direction, but it’s always sort of finding her, and it’s such a testament to the creators that they’ve been such incredible partners.
Rendy: What do you hope that people, whether they’re watching with their families or with their partners, take away from this portrait of just life itself?
Abbi: I really think this show is great, and I know that when you do any interview like this, you usually say that, but I really mean it this time. The world is really quite terrible right now in a lot of ways. And it’s really scary, and it really feels very out of control and sad, and there’s just a lot of horrific things happening. I think when I turn on the TV or a film or I go to the theater, I want to simultaneously escape and think and find something in there that I can connect to. I think this show does that where I’m escaping and I’m with this other family, and then I’m thinking about my own family and friends, and then I’m laughing and I’m crying, and I think I always go for all the things. And I think this is really full, it’s very jam-packed with all the stuff. I know I’m biased, but I hope that other people that watch it feel that, too.
