Leclaire back as Joseph Gribble for new season

The newest 10-episode season of the King of the Hill revival will be available starting July 20 on Disney+, marking the return of the beloved inhabitants of Arlen, Texas, following the extremely successful return of the series last summer.

That includes Joseph Gribble, Bobby Hill’s best friend, who is voiced once again by Kahnawake’s own Taietsarón:sere Tai Leclaire.

“We’re going to see Joseph in new situations that we haven’t quite seen before, and I’m excited to see more of him interacting with parts of his friends’ relationships that we haven’t quite seen before,” said Leclaire.

“We’re getting a bit of a deeper dive into some of these characters now, and I’m really stoked for it.”

One of the overarching plots of Season 15 will be Bobby’s romantic relationship with longtime friend Connie Souphanousinphone as young adults; the two had dated on and off in the show’s original run when they were in their early teens.

It will be interesting to see their relationship evolve with Joseph, the third member of their longtime friend group.

“I think everyone can relate to being a third wheel every now and then, but I also just think Joseph is someone who being a third wheel is kind of irrelevant,” said Leclaire.

“He lives in his own world, and he’s doing the things he wants to do.”

Other topics being explored this season include artificial intelligence, online scams and identity theft, fan conventions, and reality television.

One of Season 14’s strengths noted by viewers has been the ability for the show to tackle current topics without feeling dated or out of touch.

“I think that’s sort of the secret sauce when it comes to King of the Hill” said Leclaire.

“It’s the writers and the key creatives and the showrunners, and of course Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, staying true to the vision of the show and not trying to do fan service per se, but trying to do a lot more by keeping the bones and the ethos of and the spirit of the show alive.”

With the revival being in a stable production schedule now, with two more seasons ordered beyond Season 15, Leclaire has found himself more involved in the production of Season 15 than during the relatively tumultuous production of Season 14.

“I now sit with the cast whenever we do the script reads, and it’s really surreal to be sitting at the table with Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, next to Stephen Root, Toby Huss, Lauren Tom and Pamela Adlon, and to have my name on a placard next to them,” said Leclaire.

“I think they had faith in me as a performer, and vice versa. It just feels like I’m a little more ingrained in the family now, and I’m really excited about that.”

Being a part of a legacy production like King of the Hill, a show he watched when he was a teenager, is still a strange feeling for Leclaire, something he had no idea he would ever be a part of

“It seemed so out of this world to even consider it,” said Leclaire.

Listening to Leclaire play Joseph, you will hear what he calls “town speak” from time to time, meaning expressions in his vocabulary from living in Kahnawake.

“It’s not intentional. It’s me improvising and riffing and just speaking like how I speak, but through Joseph’s voice,” said Leclaire.

He said he has had some opportunities to give suggestions on the way Joseph may say certain phrases in the script that are more “Native,” or improvise some lines.

“I really like that the team is open to my thoughts and my ideas,” said Leclaire.

“Joseph is just such a fun character to play, because he’s someone who is always stumbling into his words and his sentences, and he’s always falling forward with this tinge of optimism. There’s something I find very inspiring by it.”

Voicing Joseph is not the only thing Leclaire has going on right now. He is currently crowdfunding for his independent movie Cheyenne a horror-comedy movie where an Indigenous shaman fights to stop the colonization of his dream, as he is cursed to only see the ghosts of white people.

The crowdfunding is being done through the platform Seed and Spark.

“The fundraiser is based in community, and I want to share with the community that we are trying to keep our independent funding independent,” said Leclaire.

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