An interview with Brooklyn Nine-Nine's main men

6 December 2013

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The Emmy Award-winning writer/producers Dan Goor and Michael Schur (“Parks and Recreation”) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine lead actor Andy Samberg (“Saturday Night Live”) have a natter about E4's new cop show.

Q: What was it about the cop genre that made you want to focus on it for a sitcom?

Michael Schur: When Dan and I first started thinking of ideas for shows, we started talking about the idea of doing a cop comedy, and we pretty quickly realized that there hadn’t been a half hour cop comedy in a while, and that, in this day and age where there’s 10 million shows about every genre, every setting, every location that is possibly imaginable by the human brain, that made it seem like kind of an exciting challenge. 

Andy Samberg: Well, I definitely was going to get to wear a cool leather jacket, which was appealing, and honestly, I’ve always enjoyed cop comedies as well as cop dramas as well as cop films and T.V.  I like the procedural aspect of it, and I also really like the workplace aspect of it. When it comes to workplace comedies there is really no one else I would want to work with than these dudes.

Dan Goor: We also really like the world because we thought it was a cool way to have interesting characters, both in the police department and in terms of the people that they interact with. It’s an interesting subsection of humanity that cops get to deal with.

Q: Each week does Andre Braugher’s character (Captain Ray Holt) get to ask, “What’s wrong with you?” If so how much can you change him without sort of upsetting the balance between the two characters?

Schur: Yes.  Most of the episodes involve Andy’s character, Jake Peralta, doing something which requires Andre Braugher’s character to say some version of, “What the hell is wrong with you?”  That’s a pretty constant theme. I think that the central tension of the show comes from the fact that Jake doesn’t really want to be changed that much and Holt really wants to change him and they butt heads a lot. That will be the dynamic that’s set up in the pilot: that Holt is a guy who wants to make the best precinct in Brooklyn. Jake is his most talented detective but he also doesn’t really do things the same way  that Holt does and that is a source of constant irritation and annoyance. Because as long as Jake is closing cases, which he does because he is good, he has a leg to stand on in terms of the way he conducts himself. That dynamic is the central dynamic intention in the show.

Q: How is working on Booklyn Nine-Nine better and different than working on SNL? Is there any advice that someone at SNL gave you that you’re using now for your new character?

Samberg: It’s better in that, for me anyway, it’s much less stressful because the hardest part of SNL, for me, was having to create something new every week. And with Brooklyn Nine-Nine I have scripts handed to me every week that are already great and a bunch of jokes that are already written, which is the hardest part of comedy in my opinion. So in that regard it’s been a lot less stressful for me.  Certainly, the hardest part changing has been waking up early versus staying up incredibly late with SNL, which is much more my element, but I’m adjusting nicely. I will say that I took a cue from Amy Poehler in terms of feeling confident about making this decision. Not just because she segued successfully out of SNL into a show, but because she literally did it with the same guys.

Q: I imagine growing up that you watched a lot of cop television shows and movies. And Andy probably went through a lot of training to prepare to play Jake, and Mike and Dan had to do some research to write for the show. Taking all of that into consideration along with the first day versus the latest episode that you shot, how has your perspective of being a cop changed?

Goor: We have some great technical advisors. When we’re pitching stories and trying to come up with funny and interesting things for Jake and the other characters to go through, sometimes we’ll pitch something really crazy or dangerous or outlandish and every single time the technical advisors are like, “Yeah, I’ve done that. I’ve done worse. I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen tougher.”  We already had a tremendous amount of respect for police officers in general, but we’ve, I think, gained even more respect and are drop-jawed at the sort of things that these guys have been through.

Q: What’s your opinion about the future of comedy? Do you think some situational comedy is going to win over high-brow intellectual comedy writing?

Schur: I think that there are often lines of demarcation drawn by different people about comedy and what types of comedy there are and whether this type of comedy is better than that type of comedy. But I feel, personally, it’s a really big country and a big world and there are like 7,000 stations making original programing right now, and that comedy is the most subjective art form in the world. There is no other art form where one group of people can look at something and say that’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen in my life and another group of people can look at it and say, that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. What makes comedy great is that there is room for everybody. No matter what you like in the world right now, no matter what flavour you like your comedy, there are a 100 shows that are making that kind of comedy. So I think the future of comedy is that there is going to be a lot of it, and as a comedy writer I wholeheartedly approve of that future. And what’s fun about it is you get to make whatever you think is good, assuming that enough people watch it to keep it on the air, and you just get to put it out there and see who likes it. 

Q: Now that you’ve had some experience playing a police detective, if we were to drive you to a real cop shop or to a crime scene, gave you a prop gun and a badge, how long do you suppose you could fake it without being found out as a fraud?

Samberg: Well, it depends on whether it’s an area near any college kids because that’s who recognizes me the most from SNL.  But assuming no one had ever seen me anywhere else…. I would say maybe 30 seconds.

Q: It’s fun to see Andre being funny in a cop show.  What do you think of Andre as an actor and as a person and as a funny actor/person?

Samberg: As an actor, I am completely in awe of him. This is like a Juilliard-trained, Shakespeare in the Park heavy. He knows exactly how to play drama and has so much experience in that regard. So I’m learning from him every day watching how he approaches things. As a person, I think he’s fantastic. He couldn’t be warmer. It’s been funny because I feel like so many people have this impression of him that he is very intimidating, but I haven’t really seen any of that.  He’s been nothing but warm and collaborative and interested and interesting. And comedically, he gets better every day but he really started off great, in my opinion. Because of that gravitas that he has and that actual acting training, and because that’s so the opposite of where I come from and how I’ve gotten into comedy, I feel like our characters play perfectly into our experience leading up to this point. He’s able to ground scenes and let me act like a maniac all around him like a yipping little dog in a way that has, so far, been really funny.  And I think there is no doubt about the fact that he understands comedy wholly and gets the timing of it. Every now and again he’ll ask about the logic of a joke and oftentimes he’s right to ask and we’ll make an adjustment and it makes it funnier. I think that pretty much covers it. I am all in favour on all three fronts. I think he is awesome.

Q: How do you feel about your success starting from SNL, going into the movies, and now you’re a lead character in a terrific sitcom?

Samberg: It feels more and more impossible every time I do something new. When I was 8 years old, I decided I wanted to do SNL and that was pretty much all I thought about until I was actually on it.  So everything from the point I got to audition, really, has been icing. I’m incredibly grateful for it all and to be able to have done movies and to have done SNL and now this. It’s so far beyond what I imagined happening for me. I thought that I would probably try and do stand-up for a while, unsuccessfully, and then get a different job and be sad. Yeah, it feels incredible. I feel incredibly lucky.

Q: Is there any room for any spontaneity or any ad-libbing?

Samberg: Absolutely, we try and do as many takes as it takes to get as-scripted exactly how we want it, and then we’ll do multiple takes where were we just go for broke and try different stuff. There is always a writer on set and a director-producer on set and that week’s director on set and the whole cast on set, many of whom are trained comedians and writers as well. So even if we’re going off of a scene that’s written, if we feel it’s not totally clicking, we’ll  brainstorm and come up with alternatives and give ourselves as many choices in the editing room as possible.

Goor: I just want to say, Andy frequently has the best joke in an episode. He will come up with it on set. He’s an incredibly funny performer and writer, and so, thank goodness, there is a lot of spontaneity.

Q: How often does Captain Holt being gay come up?  Is that something you touch on frequently or not?

Goor: Yeah, it is.  I mean, it’s a part of his character.  We think of it as a character trait that’s like a guy who’s from Orlando or something. It’s a fact of his life and it has certainly influenced what kind of person he is and the shape that his career has taken, but it doesn’t overwhelm him. It doesn’t        define him.  It’s not the entirety of who he is. I think it’s usually mentioned once an episode or something and we have plans in the future to get more into his personal life and possibly meet his partner/husband, but that won’t happen in the first batch of episodes. We really wanted to focus on the precinct and the work family before we got into the personal lives of the characters. 

Schur: Our intention is to treat it much the way that we would treat him having a heterosexual marriage. That being said, it obviously informs his backstory and his perspective, and that is a backstory and a perspective that plays in multiple episodes going forward.

Q: Is Captain Holt testing detective Peralta’s ability to do his job or is he jealous of how smart he is in solving the crimes, and will they ever be happy with each other?

Samberg: I don’t think that he’s testing his ability so much as his potential. He sees that Jake is a good detective with a lot of good instincts, but that he could be a really great one and a leader. And he’s choosing to be lazy and selfish and play in his own lane, and he’s challenging him to be more.

Schur: When Dan and I first started conceiving of the character in the show, we had this character detail for Jake that he was the kind of kid in high school that bragged to his friends and would say, “I didn’t even study for that test and I got a B.”  And the idea was that Holt comes along and says, “Hey, you should study and get an A.” That was the essential dynamic of the two characters.

Samberg: I’m finding more and more parallels between Jake and I as the show goes on. He’s based more on me than I realised!