Natasha Kline explores Mexican American family dynamics in Disney’s PRIMOS animated series

After working on the first two season of Big City Greens, Natasha Kline is fulfilling her childhood dream of creating her own animated series with Primos. Based on Kline’s childhood experience growing up in a large, multicultural and blended Mexican American family in Southern California, Primos follows Tater Ramirez Humphrey, an eccentric girl with ambitious dreams. However, her plans of self-discovery take an unexpected turn when her family invites all 12 of her cousins to stay with them during the summer, leading to a wacky and unforgettable adventures.

After addressing initial criticism when details of the series were first unveiled last year, such as changing the name of the town from Terremoto Heights to Hacienda Hills, the show is poised to be yet another winner from Disney Branded Television. Ahead of the the premiere of Primos next week, The Beat had the opportunity chat with Kline about this personal passion project.

Taimur Dar: One of the things that struck me was how much your own specific personal and cultural experiences resonated with even someone like me who’s Southeast Asian American. I’d love to know if having a wide audience for Primos without sacrificing its cultural identity was a goal?

Natasha Kline: Absolutely. I feel like I’ve been wanting to tell this story in a very universal way so that many people could relate to it. Even if you didn’t have the big family experience or aren’t Mexican American, there would be things in there for you to relate to. I just wanted to create relatable characters that are universally lovable.     

Dar: One of my favorite writers, Dwayne McDuffie, expressed frustration that minority characters in fiction often had the burden of representing an entire group of people. His solution was to present a wide range of characters. The fact that Tater is a “no sabo kid” is pretty unique and rarely seen in popular culture. Any particular characterizations of Mexican Americans that you felt were lacking in media that you’re proud to showcase in Primos?

Kline: I feel like the “no sabo” experience is something we baked into the show from the very beginning. It’s something that a lot of the writers in the room related to. We were all excited to tell stories about that. There’s a lot of other layers we wanted to build into the characters too, to showcase the different aspects of being Latino. I’m just thinking of Big Nacho, the older “Nachbro” as we call him. I love his character because on the surface he’s this big burly guy and tough. He can even come off as a little bit of a bully especially in [episode] 101 when he’s giving Tater head noogies. We also wanted to play with how much tenderness he has and his love for his brother and how he needs his brother too to make his own journey through life. It’s been really fun to show one side of the coin and then naturally be able to reveal other layers. That’s fun and will be cool for people to see. If you look at these characters on the surface, then you won’t be able to get all the layers that are in there.      

Dar: Voicing the main character Tater is Myrna Velasco. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing her a few times over the years and pretty instantly became a fan of her as a performer. I’m so thrilled that Primos not only marks her first lead role in a Disney animated series but she’s able showcase her amazing talent. I’d love to hear about casting Myrna for such an obviously personal character.  

Kline: We searched and searched for Tater. It was a really long process. Disney casting is amazing. For every single character, they usually supply 20-30 auditions. Pretty instantly I would find someone in those auditions. Tater was the only one where we might have gone up to just under a hundred auditions. I wasn’t finding that specific voice in my head. She needs to be comedic and also a little nerdy and be able to have the range to go through these extreme emotions. She needs to be able to do impressions. There were a lot of wants for Tater. It even came out of my own pitch style too. I pitched the storyboards myself for the most part. I think there were four episodes I didn’t pitch. That’s what I like to do. I like to do impressions and there to be emotional range. When I was listening to auditions that’s what I was listening for. Finally, we came upon Myrna who in her audition just had this weird inflection. She read things in a way that no one else had done. Sometimes you’ll hear auditions and people will say the same thing over and over again in the exact same way. Hers was the first one where I was like, “Wow, that’s a weird way to say that! There’s something here.” When we brought her in for the audition, she was just so excited to even be auditioning because for her, the story really resonated. [She said], “This is my family. This is my ethnicity. This story is about me. I feel like I’m Tater.” Just her having that connection to the material was really exciting. I’m so glad you’re a fan of her because I think she’s amazing. She really does it all. Mostly the weird. [Laughs]. I love how weird she can get. She really takes it to another level.     

Dar: For me, the hallmark of great children’s programming is the ability to speak to adults as well. Primos definitely qualifies. How do you approach appealing to both kids and adults?

Kline: I have to credit my writers for that. As we were writing our jokes and running our writers’ room, we would just pitch things and everybody would pitch their jokes. Someone would pitch one thing and then someone would be like, “And then it’s this.” Everybody was building on their own jokes until finally we were all cracking up at the very end because we had built this joke together and now it’s the ultimate joke. We’re all laughing at it and we’re all adults. I think that happened naturally. If it’s appealing to adults, it’s because It was written by adults. [Laughs]. We weren’t trying to tell adult jokes but were trying to make ourselves laugh for sure. I think adults will find it funny because we found it funny.

Dar: Finally, though a lot of the episodes are standalone stories, there’s clearly a linear narrative and character development. Will the Tater at the beginning of the season be different from the Tater we see at the end?  

Kline: Absolutely. There’s definitely a very, very subtle arc that Tater is going through. That was intentional. We really did think about that from the very beginning. Tater starts as a character who’s more internal and wants to stay that way. She thinks that’s the way she’s going to be able to grow. I think by the end she realizes, “There’s actually a lot of support around me. So if I become more external and relying on the people around me and learning about the people around me and their specific struggles, then I’ll be able to learn about myself too. Then maybe the way to grow is actually to be present in this world.”

Primos premieres on Thursday, July 25 at 8:00 p.m. EDT on Disney Channel. The first nine episodes will be available on Disney+ next day, Friday, July 26.

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