Kristen Schaal is first-rate funny in ‘The Last Man on Earth’

For one of the most prolific voice actors in Hollywood, Kristen Schaal is mostly mum about her character in the new series, “The Last Man on Earth,” debuting Sunday on Fox.

Schaal — like everyone involved in this offbeat comedy from “Saturday Night Live” vet Will Forte — is tight-lipped about specifics for fear of spoilers. Much of the fun in watching the show comes from the surprises sprinkled throughout.

It’s not giving too much away to say that Schaal’s character, Carol, would take issue with the above sentence. Because it ends with a preposition. She wouldn’t like that fragment, either.

“She’s really into grammar,” said Schaal, a Northwestern University graduate.

“Carol is a lot like my mom; She’s like your mom, too, probably,” the actress told a room full of TV critics last month in California. “She’s got a big heart. And she loves to craft.”

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‘THE LAST MAN ON EARTH’

Rating: [s3r star=3.5/4]

When: Hourlong series premiere 8 p.m. Sunday

Where: WFLD-Channel 32 [/one_third]

As you might have guessed from the title, “Last Man on Earth” tells the story of a guy who’s presumably the planet’s sole inhabitant.

Forte plays an average Joe who managed to stay alive after an unspecified virus obliterated the population in 2018. For two years he’s been on his own, searching the country for any trace of survivors. He kills time by looting museums’ art collections, eating Twinkies in Michael Jordan’s Bulls jersey and soaking in a pool full of margaritas at the Tucson, Arizona, mansion he commandeered. Because who’s going to stop him?

“It’s just a fascinating situation,” said Forte, who sports the boss of all beards in his role as Phil Miller. The character’s name is a combination of his producing partners, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the writing and directing duo behind hits like “The Lego Movie” and “21 Jump Street.”

“I love comedy where there’s a lot of tension,” Forte added. “Even though it’s very far-fetched, it seems very relatable. You’ve always heard, ‘What would you do if you were the last person on Earth?’ I think I would just go around and break stuff. It’s been a very, very fun show to shoot because I get to do a lot of wish-fulfillment.”

What he doesn’t get to do is say a lot of dialogue, at least not in the pilot. After all, there’s no one to carry on a conversation with. I ended that sentence with another preposition to bring us back to grammar nerd Carol. Clearly she’s in the show, so it’s logical to assume Phil isn’t the last person on Earth. How she and other characters come into play — flashbacks, dreams, real-time — remains to be seen.

“TV shows are built on relationships, and it seemed kind of odd to make a show without any relationships in it,” Miller said. “Kristen is a big part of the show. And January Jones [“Mad Men”] and Mel Rodriguez [“Getting On”] and [Australian actress] Cleopatra Coleman are all part of the show.”

Same goes for Oscar-winner Mary Steenburgen.

“I think everyone sort of knows a Carol or has a Carol in their lives,” Schaal said about her quirky character. “She’s a survivor who pulls it together to make it work, no matter what. She doesn’t exactly understand jokes and humor.”

That last part certainly doesn’t apply to Schaal, 37, a stand-up comic and longtime contributor to “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” She’s married to former “Daily Show” writer Rich Blomquist. Schaal’s name has been popping up on many a list of potential successors to Stewart, who’s retiring later this year.

The Chicago-trained comic took classes at iO and Second City Conservatory during college, where she was a member of Northwestern’s famed Mee-Ow comedy group.

She sat in on a lot of performances at Second City, including future “SNL” stars Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey’s two-woman show, “Dratch & Fey.”

“Rachel Dratch was a hero to me,” said Schaal, channeling a bit of the stalker fan she played on the HBO comedy “Flight of the Conchords.” “One day at iO she was standing there and I was like ‘You’re … great.’ She was so cool about it.”

So how does Schaal think she’d fare if she were the last woman on Earth?

“I would probably talk to myself way too much, and then I think I’d get really sad,” she said, pausing before reverting back to her upbeat, chipper self. “And then I would pull myself out of it, learn how to fly a plane and go to the pyramids!”