'Rugrats' Stars Ashley Rae Spillers and Tommy Dewey Discuss 'Refreshing' Take on Iconic Nicktoon in Paramount+ Reboot Series (Exclusive)

In 2021, Paramount+ debuted a new Rugrats reboot series, offering fans a fresh take on the iconic Nicktoon with all-new animation. The show — now in its second season — has released Rugrats Season 1, Vol. 2 on DVD, so that families can bring the show home to enjoy anytime. In support of the project, series voice actors Ashley Rae Spillers and Tommy Dewey sat down with PopCulture.com to discuss the new show and its "refreshing" perspective on parenting and family life.

"It's just so much fun," said Spillers when asked about her experience voicing DiDi Pickles in the show. "It's so much fun and it's such an honor to get to say that this is something that I'm doing right now. I still can't believe it. It's just been so great. It's such a great show. The group of people, the writers, it's so well written. The material is just solid. It's not just a kid show. It's truly good writing and great people, real artists, all the actors on it are so great. It's like nothing short of a thrill. I love it."

Noting that he fully agreed with all Spillers, Dewey — who lends his voice to DiDi's husband, Stu Pickles — added that, on a personal level, the show came along at a great time for him. "I'd say that it's been a really tough two, three years for all of us, and this has been such a great steady presence," Dewey explained. "The way the workflow works in animation is you do the initial recording and then you come back and revisit episodes. He went on to explain, "On-camera jobs are kind of really quick few weeks and then you don't hear anything for a while. But Rugrats, for me — daunting to get into for sure, trying to fill the shoes of the great Jack Riley who did the first version of it — but once I got comfortable with New Stu, I'm coining that, New Stu, it's been such a lovely, steady presence of my life."

Offering some insight into how he settled on a voice for New Stu, Dewey shared, "The worst version of things is a bad imitation of the original, so I purposefully stayed away from... once I got the job... kind of stayed away from watching any of the original. I think, if I remember correctly, [as] Ashley says that the writing is so specific, I detected this kind of anxiety in Stu and this up-tempo kind of thing, but also layered in with some optimism. It just kind of spoke to where I was and I laid down my version of it, and then I think the rest was in the hands of the great people that put the show together and cast it."

He continued, "I'm just so honored that they picked me and that there was enough overlap with what they were looking for with Stu that we've been able to make it work. I don't speak for how other people work, I think for me it's got to hit some chord, but for me personally, and I'm a relatively new parent, I have a one-year-old... So I'm kind of experiencing a lot of what Stu is experiencing, so being able to unload all of that in a recording session is kind of awesome."

While the new Rugrats show is just as much fun for kids as the original, it also updates the family dynamics and hold true to a depiction of parents who aren't perfect but are constantly in pursuit of being strong links in their support system for their children and one another. "I think the show does such a great job at that thing specifically," Spillers said. "It's showing the adults as people. They're people. They're people who had children. That's what we do. That's what we all are. They're not getting it right, and you don't always know what to do. There are major anxieties. 

She went on to note a specific angle she approaches her character from, saying, "What I think I see in Didi so much, and what's a recurring theme, is she's a very creative person herself and is always trying to find the time for herself to fuel her own creative life. She doesn't always know how to do it, and it's hard to balance and mistakes are made. I just think that that's so good to see on a show this." The actress then quipped, "It's like, 'Does anybody really know what they're doing really ever?' Not just parenting, I'm just wondering even for myself. I love that about it. I really, really do."

Dewey then added, "I think it's so refreshing. The flaws are the key to the whole thing, I think. Because you tune in and you see that these are flawed characters and then you pay attention. I think when something is cloyingly sweet, you're like, 'That doesn't look anything like a world that I live in and so I can't relate and thus,  what am I going to get out of this?' Whereas these people are just such lovable messes and you're right, their hearts are in the right place. We should all aspire to the kind of family and community values that they aspire to, but man do I love playing up this kind of screwed-up corners of them." Rugrats Season 1 Vol. 2 is available now on DVD!