Invincible: J.K. Simmons hopes he can get back in the studio with Steven Yeun and Sandra Oh for Season 3

If you’re a fan of the adult animated series Invincible, you’re probably aware the second season of the series took a good long while to get released. Season 1 came out on Prime Video in 2021. Season 2 aired the first half of its season late last year. And now, the second half of Season 2 has begun streaming on Amazon.

Over the course of that process, the way the show has been recorded has changed dramatically, too. While stars J.K. Simmons, Sandra Oh and Steven Yeun were able to record together during the first season, the trio’s extremely busy schedules prevented them from taping together during Season 2.

Simmons is hoping that might change with the already in production third season.

“I know they were talking at my last recording session about hoping that, as we know there's a season three, and if we're able to continue moving forward with that and even beyond, there's always the hope that we can work out the logistics,” Simmons told Bam Smack Pow. “But the reality is the schedule is the schedule.”

To read more about how Simmons approaches the character of Omni-Man, how he’s changed his approach – or not – over the seasons, and more, read on.

Bam Smack Pow: I was talking to Robert Kirkman about the season overall, and he said that they very purposely wanted to step back and make sure people know this isn't the Omni-Man show, that it's called Invincible.

J.K. Simmons: Right.

As Omni-Man, do you disagree with that? Should it be the Omni-Man show?

[Laughs] Well, of course it should, he said sarcastically… During the first season… Sandra [Oh] and Steven [Yeun] and I were actually able to do a lot of recording sessions in the same room at the same time. It felt like a domestic family drama a lot of the time with comedic elements. And then as Steven's character, as we witness the birth [of Invincible], I think appropriately he has become more in the spotlight and yeah, that is who the show is about… And if we were doing – well, now I'm going to open that can of worms. If we were doing the live action version, it would be, Steven would be the guy spending the least amount of time sitting in his trailer.

But again, I think that's totally as it should be, and all of us, in the cast, have had and will continue to have storylines and arcs where we are more and less involved and that's part of the beauty of this world that Rob's created, that there are so many compelling characters… I mean certainly on my part, and I can't imagine on anybody else's part, there's any kind of, anybody's egos being damaged by the fact that sometimes their character is not the focus of the story.

Nolan is changing so much from season one and particularly in season two from when we meet up with him halfway to everything he experiences with the Viltrumites. I felt like your vocal performance has grown and changed. Are you approaching it differently or is it more just rolling with it when you get into the booth and following the script as it goes?

It sounds overly simplistic and maybe disingenuous, but truly it's like, I feel like our jobs, all of us, is to try to be true to the journey that they have chosen to take these characters on. And obviously since they have zero boundaries, because it's in the world of animation and they can do whatever the hell they want, that complete freedom that they have is great and fun to be a part of… I mean, I've already made this analogy, or I guess it's a simile technically: it's like being on a runaway train sometimes because they take some sharp turns and some abrupt stops and some major crashes, and it's our job as the actors portraying these characters to make them work.

I did want to go back to something you said earlier in terms of recording in the booth with, or in adjoining booths with Steven and Sandra. As an actor, do you have a preference? I mean, I imagine it is having the people in the same physical space as you, but does it make a difference in the process of doing that, versus doing it solo?

The times that we were able to do that, and I mean the timeline gets so blurred in my fragile brain anyway, I'm pretty sure we didn't do that at all in season two. I think we had a couple opportunities in season one and got really most of the meat of the mom, dad, son stuff done in the same room, which I think, that continues to pay dividends in all of our work. And I know they were talking at my last recording session about hoping that, as we know there's a season three, and if we're able to continue moving forward with that and even beyond, there's always the hope that we can work out the logistics. But the reality is the schedule is the schedule.

And one of the good things about producing [an] animated show or being an actor in an animated show is that basically you can, within a certain window, you can do it whenever it's convenient. So a lot of times I'm in New York and Steven's in LA or Atlanta and Sandra's in Vancouver or whatever, we're all juggling different gigs around the globe. So yeah, that's a long-winded version of, it's good to have the freedom to do it wherever you happen to be, but I do hope in the future we might have some opportunities to be together again, or whether, even whether it's me and Seth in a room together. Anytime you're doing scenes that are kind of quote unquote "character-driven," it's always more fun to be able to really bounce it off the other actor.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Invincible streams on Thursdays at 3 am ET / Midnight PT on Prime Video.