Many fans of FX’s “Archer” imagine Atlanta actress Amber Nash, who voices sturdy, foul-mouthed Pam Poovey, taping her lines in the company of big-name actors Chris Parnell, Aisha Tyler and Jessica Walter.
The reality is quite different. During a recent voice-over session at Doppler Studios in Midtown, Nash is in a room by herself, the producers in a neighboring space. (Most of the actors do their voice-over work in Los Angeles.)
Nash reads her lines out of context from the script, the result sounding like hearing one end of a strange cellphone conversation.
“I have a big wad of toilet paper stuck on my shoe!” she says.
“Sound more annoyed,” producer Casey Willis suggests.
“Make it big ol’ wad of toilet paper,” adds fellow producer Matt Thompson.
“I have a big ol’ wad of toilet paper stuck on my shoe!” she repeats with greater edge.
She then moves on to another random line that is even funnier when uttered by Nash: “Ahhh! I hope I’m not allergic to clown blood!”
Pam started out as an ancillary character on the popular animated series when the spy spoof debuted in 2010. Her HR director character was originally described as “mousy.”
“I think Pam has changed the most over time,” said Thompson, a co-creator of the series. “She used to be so sweet. She’s still sweet at her core, but over time she has developed a ‘come at me, bro’ attitude and you will frequently find her driving plot lines. In the pilot, I think she had two lines. Now, she takes over scenes. This is all a testament to Amber’s gifts as an actress.”
While 38-year-old Nash acknowledges she is not part of a secret fight club like Pam, she does have a colorful vocabulary and a bawdy streak that works well in her role as an improv ensemble player for Dad’s Garage, her professional home for 17 years.
“She is willing to do anything and everything for the sake of the joke,” Thompson said. “Plus, Amber’s cursing repertoire is on point. She has a way of putting dirty words together to bring new meaning or new laughs to it.”
Indeed, in any given episode, Pam is apt to spout off multiple curse words, but also more benign signature exclamations such as “Whelp!” and “Sploosh!”
Nash is hoping to break into scripted on-camera roles. She has auditioned for roles in Los Angeles and found the process frustrating. “People have never quite known what do do with me category-wise,” she said. “Is she a mom, a hoodlum, a lead, a character actress?”
So, earlier this month, Dad’s Garage released a 10-part web series, “Hart of America,” starring Nash in multiple roles.
It’s a silly mash-up of different genres, including sci-fi, romance and police procedurals. Nash plays the narrator, an edgy female cop, a Bigfoot lover and a dying grandmother. It features many of the Dad’s Garage ensemble cast and cameos by improv experts Colin Mochrie and Fred Willard.
“We wanted to showcase her talents,” said Dad’s Garage artistic director Kevin Gillese, who joined the group in 2010 and married Nash in 2012. “This is a commercial for Amber.”
Even with all the films and TV shows now shot in Atlanta, a vast majority of the acting talent is imported. “It’s infuriating, considering how much talent is here,” Nash said.
As a child, Nash never imagined a life in entertainment. She majored in biology, then psychology at Georgia State University.
But, she was bored and discovered the life of an improv actor while serving drinks at the Marietta Dave & Busters around 1997. There, she met Tommy Futch, who was running a murder mystery show. He put her in the show and, soon, she was taking improv classes at Whole World Theatre and joined Futch’s improv group, Laughing Matters. She then landed at Dad’s — and never left.
“It was like the wild west” in those early days, Nash said. “It was all these crazy young guys who were always drunk or high. Women wouldn’t stick around because it was difficult to deal with these dudes who didn’t necessarily appreciate their style of humor.”
Matt Horgan, who has been a Dad’s Garage ensemble member since 1998 and plays a cop with a weak stomach in “Hart of America,” said Nash was “fearless. If guys didn’t treat her right, she didn’t take it. She carved out her place.”
Her experience has been enhanced by teaching improv as education director for Dad’s Garage from 2005 to 2011.
In 2006, Nash got to know Adult Swim show producers Thompson and Adam Reed, who liked her work at Dad’s Garage and cast her on their cartoon “Frisky Dingo.” When “Archer” came along in 2010, they called her again to play Pam.
While Pam sounded sort of like Nash in Season 1, Nash began amping the vocal quirks the next season. Pam now sounds more like Nash’s mom, she said: “A little more Midwestern, a little more nasally and high.”
Pam has become one of the most popular characters on the show. Nash gets social media photos from people who have tattooed Pam on their arms and legs.
At ComicCon in San Diego this summer, a woman dressed as Fight Club Pam in a wife-beater and bandaged fists came up to her, Nash said, and told her: “‘Thank you for creating a character I can play where I don’t have to be fat Cinderella or a fat Princess Leia. I just get to be Pam!’ Everyone began applauding.”
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