Scott Speiser is an actor and a writer who’s most known for his work on NCIS and Criminal Minds. He was cast in Amazon’s The Tick and it was revealed that he would be portraying Overkill, an overly serious adversary of sorts to the titular The Tick.
Screen Rant got a chance to chat with Scott at San Diego Comic Con 2017, where we discussed Overkill, how he was able to keep the character grounded, and how much fun it was to play Overkill.
Talk to me a little bit about Overkill and how does that character stay grounded in this darker superhero satire?
Scott Speiser: Yeah. So Overkill is, what I really enjoy about Overkill is he’s impatient. He’s angry. He’s violent. He doesn’t have much tolerance for The Tick and his clueless and buffoonish ways. He takes no prisoners and what I like about it is he is able to express his rage in almost everything he does and everything that he says and, of course, it causes major conflict. So it’s fun to like, you know, I have things that make me angry in life, little pet peeves or whatever and it’s fun to use this character as this way to let that out. Everything he says, he’s so vengeful and so angry.
![The Tick: Overkill ‘Takes Himself Very Seriously’](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/The-Tick-Overkill-character-poster-cropped.jpg)
One thing about I love about The Tick is he’s definitely a superhero that makes fun of himself and it seems like Overkill is not that kind of guy. How much fun was this for you to play?
Scott Speiser: You’re right. So Overkill is not able to make fun of himself. He takes himself very seriously and it is serious business. For him, there is nothing joking about it and he has to deal with all of these other people. Like he has to deal with this guy The Tick that thinks everything is funny and is having a good time and there’s nothing fun about this. There’s a lot of butting heads throughout the whole thing.
Do we go blow to blows? Do we go blow to blows between The Tick and Overkill?
Scott Speiser: I think you’ll have to wait and see. Yeah. Overkill is a fighter and he gets a thrill out of that. I mean, his name is Overkill, which to him there is no overkill. He will kill and kill and kill and he hasn’t gone overboard. That is just what he has to do.
MORE: The Tick Cast Explains How Show Stays Grounded
The Tick premieres on Amazon on August 25, 2017.