Kids might be the most honest critics there are, so Tom Ellis was delighted to hear his daughters laughing as they watched his new animated Netflix series, Exploding Kittens.
“I watched it with my kids and my wife, who are a tough audience, and they were laughing all the way through, so I thought, ‘OK, this is good,’” Ellis, 45, exclusively tells Us Weekly. (The actor welcomed a baby with wife Meaghan Oppenheimer last November, and he has three daughters ages 12, 16 and 19, from past relationships.)
The Lucifer alum, who voices GodCat on the comedy, said he was surprised when his daughters understood more of the adult humor than he expected. “Some of the more irreverent adult jokes, I think they got, which I was a bit like, ‘Hmm, OK,’” he said with a chuckle. “But I think they just like the whole world of it. It’s silly and it’s fun and you can’t help but laugh.”
He added that the mature humor is what makes Exploding Kittens, which is streaming now on Netflix and rated TV-MA, enjoyable for families with teens. “This is the sort of show that caters to kids and adults in the best way that animation does,” Ellis told Us. “You think about the good old Pixar movies, and there’s always jokes in there for the adults, and there’s jokes in there for the kids. This is exactly what Exploding Kittens is like.”
Inspired by the card game of the same name, the TV series follows God (Ellis) as he gets fired and sent to Earth as punishment trapped in the body of a chubby cat. He moves in with a dysfunctional family and must help them solve their problems as part of his rehabilitation, but he gets distracted when he learns his nemesis, the Devil (Sasheer Zamata), is trapped in the body of the cat that lives next door.
(L-R) Kenny Yates voices Travis and Tom Ellis voices GodCat in ‘Exploding Kittens’ season 1. Courtesy of Netflix
Though it’s considered an adult animated series, Ellis couldn’t exactly stop his kids from watching it when they were the ones who knew the card game to begin with.
“I got a call about it [and was told] ‘Netflix are doing a new animated series based on the very popular card game Exploding Kittens.’ And I was like ‘I’ve never heard that game,’” the British actor told Us. “So I talked to my children about it and they were like ‘Dad, I can’t believe you’ve never heard of this, it’s, like, super popular.’ So I was like, ‘Oh, wow, OK.’ And then they sent me some scripts through and I was like, ‘Oh, wow. This is really funny.’”
While fans of Lucifer, in which Ellis played the Devil from 2016 to 2021, know the actor certainly has comedic timing, getting to throw out punchline after punchline was something he hadn’t done in a while.
“I worked a lot in comedy in the U.K. before it came out here [to the U.S.]. Miranda was the first live audience studio sitcom that I had been part of … and I learned a lot through that experience,” he shared.
However, Ellis often ended up playing the straight man rather than the one saying the punchline.
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“I’d learned over the years how to deliver things like that, and I’ve not always had the opportunity — like in Miranda, I was the straight guy so it wasn’t my job to be funny,” he recalled. “It was my job to be the sounding board whereas in this I think GodCat is very much the funny character with the punchlines and so I got an opportunity to sort of use that skill set, and it is a lovely skill set to be able to use, so I would love to do more of it in the future absolutely.”
Tom Ellis Michael Tullberg/Getty Images
Next up, however, are some more dramatic roles. He’ll play a professor on season 2 of Hulu’s Tell Me Lies, where his wife is a showrunner, and he just started filming Netflix’s Thursday Murder Club movie.
Based on Richard Osman‘s 2020 crime novel, the cast includes Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, David Tennant, Naomi Ackie and more.
“I can’t believe it. I feel like I won a competition,” Ellis said of the project. “I’m very excited. I actually go to London [soon] and start shooting with sirs and dames and like — it’s a who’s who of just British acting royalty, so I am very, very happy to be part of that.”
He continued, “I’ve started reading the books, which are hugely enjoyable, and yeah I can’t wait. I’m playing Pierce Brosnan‘s son in it. I had a Zoom with Pierce Brosnan at the weekend, and it was like, ‘Wow can’t believe I’m doing this.’ And Chris Columbus is directing, this is amazing.”
Exploding Kittens is out now on Netflix and Thursday Murder Club is expected to debut next year.