Stuart Fails to Save the Universe: Sussman & Lapkus on Scream Struggle

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Stuart Fails to Save the Universe: Sussman & Lapkus on Scream Struggle

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe's Kevin Sussman and Lauren Lapkus break down Episode 106 and how difficult it was to scream while falling.

Published Sun, 30 Aug 2026 11:37:09 -0500
by Tom Chang
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Article Summary

• Stuart Fails to Save the Universe Episode 106 pushes Stuart and Denise to a breaking point in a bizarre cow world.
• Kevin Sussman and Lauren Lapkus explain why Stuart and Denise choose comfort over the mission to save the universe.
• Stuart stars Kevin Sussman and Lauren Lapkus reveal the episode’s wild Matrix-style set pieces and high-wire stunts.
• Kevin Sussman says the falling scene was so fast and terrifying that he and Lauren Lapkus couldn’t even scream.

When you've been through as much as our heroic foursome has on Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, eventually the constant trauma and fight-or-flight response might cause a dramatic shift in perspective, which is what Kevin Sussman and Lauren Lapkus's characters of Stuart and Denise do in the latest episode, "Spoiler: Corn Is Delicious." The two spoke to Deadline about their characters reaching their breaking point and the difficulty of the actors maintaining their screams. The following contains spoilers.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe Stars Kevin Sussman and Lauren Lapkus Break Down Their Falling Scene

As the episode starts, Stuart, Denise, Bert (Brian Posehn), and Kripke (John Ross Bowie) enter a world where humans have descended from cows and, like all the other scenarios they've been in, take on the characteristics of that world. The four develop huge cravings for cud, grass, and hay, which are the atypical diet for cows up to the point where they literally go to a restaurant with patches of grass served on plates they all decadently chew on. While Bert and Kripke leave as soon as they get the chance, Stuart and Denise decide to stay because the two have been through a lot worse, and this might be the best place they're ever going to get, while conveniently ignoring the Stuart who gave him the mission to "save the universe."

Conveniently, the show has its own Deus Ex Machina event, as the transdimensional machine can be ordered off a catalogue so Stuart and Denise can catch up to their counterparts they discover are continuously falling. "There were so many things that were crazy, I think being in the Matrix was insane, we were all with our bald caps in goo pods, and then we were on high wires, like flying, being dropped 30 feet in the air to shoot the falling-through-the-void scene, that was very scary," Lapkus said.

"The high wire one in particular, the scene was we're being dropped, falling through the air, and we're supposed to be screaming," Sussman said. "And what Lauren and I discovered both simultaneously the first time we were dropped, it was so much faster and scarier than we thought that neither of us was able to scream." Lapkus added, "When you're actually scared, you can't scream. It's kind of like those nightmares that I've had over and over again, where I'm trying to scream and I can't. When you're falling, and you're actually scared, you just swallow it, we're choking. Yeah, it was terrifying." For more, including Kumal Nayyar's second appearance as Raj from an alternate universe, check out the full interview. Stuart Fails to Save the Universe streams Thursdays on HBO Max.

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