When Adult Swim cut ties with Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland in 2023 after he was charged with felony domestic violence, fans wondered what it would mean for the long-running series given that Roiland voiced both the title characters. Harry Belden’s reaction was a little different.

“When I saw that they were going to be recasting, first thing I did was email my agent and say, Hey, can I do this?” the new voice of Morty Smith tells Polygon. “This is my favorite show. So I was like, Gosh, well, whoever does it, I hope they do a really good job.”

Meanwhile, Ian Cardoni already had plenty of experience voicing the mad scientist Rick Sanchez before he got the role ahead of season 8, just not professionally.

“Originally, it wasn’t much more than a party trick or something I’d do around the house, but when the role became available, I said, Why not put my best foot forward here?” Cardoni says. “This just required a little more work, a little more listening and fine-tuning over a six-month audition process. By the end, it worked out. I’m glad that I was able to do the job.”

As Cardoni and Belden settle into their roles as Rick and Morty in season 9 (they debuted in season 8 in a secretive recasting), Polygon spoke to both of the voice actors about what the characters and the series mean to them.

Belden used to imitate Morty while watching the show with friends, but hadn’t seriously honed his impression until he learned that Adult Swim was recasting the series with soundalikes. He jokes that he should start practicing roles from other long-running animated series to make a career of filling in for established voice actors. For now, he’s just focused on playing the different versions of Morty from around the multiverse.

“Evil Morty is always in complete control, or he thinks he is,” Belden says. “When I was playing him, I liked to look at my fingernails like, I don’t really care. I couldn’t be bothered. This conversation I’m having is actually at the lowest of my priorities, and just staying that calm, cool, collected individual. He was so much fun to play.”

Cardoni agrees that playing different versions of Rick is one of the best parts of the job. One of his favorites was Boss Hogg Rick, a clone from the Citadel of Ricks who Cardoni voiced with a Cajun accent in the season 8 episode “The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly.”

Image: Adult Swim

“We didn’t want to go too overboard where it sounds totally different from a Rick, but different enough to make him his own villain, his own thing,” Cardoni says. “Any opportunity where we get to play in that little sandbox of different Ricks is really cool, but there’s always Rick at the center vocally.”

Both have also enjoyed watching the primary versions of their characters evolve significantly over the series’ long run.

“Morty has become far more self-assertive,” Belden says. “He’s still our little neurotic Morty, of course, but you see him put his foot down a lot more, especially in these recent seasons. That makes me happy. I love doing scenes where he’s just like, All right, that’s enough. I have to say something otherwise this is just going to get even worse.”

Cardoni calls Rick’s character journey a roller coaster as the smartest man in the world has tried to face his demons and improve his relationship with his family.

Image: Adult Swim

“We’ve seen Rick take a bit of a turn since the last few seasons,” he says. “He’s embraced therapy, which is good, but, like all imperfect beings, I think there’s two steps forward, one step back, or maybe it’s one step forward, two steps back. We’ll see.”

The characters are clearly in good hands with actors who sound almost exactly like Roiland and are passionate about the series.

“It has always stood out among sci-fi and adult animation,” Cardoni says. “It’s incredibly smart and it also doesn’t shy away from the very real aspects of the human condition. It can speak to the darker sides of humanity, to our hope, and also do the best of our bathroom humor. It’s really got something for everybody in it.”

Rick and Morty season 9 airs weekly at 11 p.m. EST on Adult Swim.