Rick And Morty's Spencer Grammer Loves That Summer Is Similar To Rick
A couple months after its sixth season concluded, Adult Swim announced that hit adult cartoon series "Rick and Morty" will continue without Justin Roiland, who was its co-creator alongside former "Community" showrunner Dan Harmon. This decision came in response to serious legal allegations against Roiland publicly surfacing. As it turns out, subsequent reporting revealed that Roiland supposedly did very little on "Rick and Morty" for much of its existence. While he voiced its two titular characters as well as plenty of single-episode roles, his degree of creative control apparently diminished considerably over time.
While recasting the voices of Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith won't be an insignificant change, "Rick and Morty" should be plenty fine without Roiland, given that the vast majority of talent will remain the same moving forward. Of course, among the many people responsible for the sustained success of "Rick and Morty" are its voice actors, including main cast members like Sarah Chalke as Beth, Chris Parnell as Jerry, and Spencer Grammer as Summer.
As it turns out, Grammer is an avowed fan of Summer's character, revealing in one particular interview that she enjoys the ways in which Summer is unexpectedly similar to her grandpa Rick.
Spencer Grammer thinks that Summer has grown into a unique and dynamic character
Prior to the premiere of "Rick and Morty" Season 5 — notably before news of Roiland's exit broke — Summer Smith's voice actor Spencer Grammer discussed her involvement with "Rick and Morty" at length in a Comic Book Resources interview. Midway through the piece, author Brandon Zachary reflects on how Summer matures over the course of "Rick and Morty," and even becomes more similar to her smart and cynical grandfather.
"I love how much Summer is like Rick," Grammer told CBR. "I mean, I've wanted her to be more like Rick. I think it's interesting to put that into a teenage girl, the idea of wanting to be successful or travel the world or just rebel. It's a sort of anti-feminine way of looking at her, and I like having her be three-dimensional."
Grammer then went on to describe how, concurrently with Summer becoming more Rick-like, so too is Morty developing some of his father Jerry's characteristics. She also praised Beth's character growth, which doesn't necessarily benefit from a younger foil, but nevertheless sees her becoming an increasingly powerful presence among the rest of her family.
It's entirely possible that recasting Rick and Morty ahead of Season 7 could open up larger roles for Summer, Beth, and Jerry, meaning that these character arcs as Grammer describes them may well become key to the show's trajectory in the near future.