Replacing an established voice on a high-profile animated show carries immense creative risk. Viewers form visceral attachments to vocal cadences, particularly on character-driven comedies. The production team avoided an open Hollywood cattle call by looking inside their own creative pipeline.
Ayo Edebiri, then a rising stand-up comic and writer on shows like Dickinson and Sunnyside, had already joined the Big Mouth writers' room for its fifth season. During script development, her understanding of Missy’s psychology impressed the executive producers. When auditions began for the recast, Edebiri submitted a tape alongside dozens of other Black and biracial performers.
Edebiri captured Missy’s peculiar mix of earnestness, nerdiness, and repressed adolescent rage while bringing a grounded vocal resonance that Slate’s higher-pitched, squeaky delivery lacked. Crucially, Edebiri’s hiring bridged the divide between script and performance. She did not merely read lines into a microphone; she actively wrote the cultural nuances her character was finally allowed to experience.
