A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to go visit the set of Community, a show that is easily one of my favorite comedies running right now. Sitting on the couch on where Abed, played by Danny Pudi, and Troy, played by Donald Glover, performed their famous Spanish Rap, I had a chance to talk with the members of the cast about the upcoming season, which starts this Thursday (9/23) at 8:00pm EST. First up is the woman who plays everyone’s favorite devout Christian with hidden rage issues, Yvette Nicole Brown.
During the intimate roundtable, we got to talk with the actress who plays Shirley about where she sees her character headed this season, potential love interests for her character – she has a particular Old Spice spokesperson in mind – and what she would like to see in future parody episodes.
How many episodes are you into the season?
We’re up to episode four. I want to apologize, I’m on coffee for the second day so this could go either way. I could crash any moment, I could get really excited in the middle, so don’t be alarmed, it’s just the coffee.
So you guys have some pretty tough competition this season in your time slot.
Who says? I’m kidding.
What stops are you pulling out to beat them?
Well, we pulled out the big gun, which is Betty White for the premiere, and then we’re just hoping that you fine people will spread the word about our scrappy little show and we can get some more people to watch. We feel like everyone that’s seen it likes it. It’s just getting eyeballs to NBC at 8:00 for our show is what we have to do, so as many of these [set visits] we can do and spread the word would be great. And, you know, Big Bang Theory’s a great show and I understand the excitement about it, but I think we’re a great show too so hopefully our audience will find us and stay with us.
How was Betty to work with?
Oh my God, Betty White is actually everything that you would expect her to be like. You know sometimes you meet your heroes and you’re like, “Oh please, let them be nice, oh please let them be funny.” She’s literally funny, nice, gracious, knows all her lines, everything you would expect from someone that’s so wonderful, she’s all that. She’s kind, remembers faces, she remembers names, she’s just a great lady.
Where else are we going to see Shirley go this season? Is she getting a man? Where is she going and where would you like her to go?
I have sort of gotten in trouble for speaking on the internet for speaking on who I would like to see be Shirley’s love interest this year. I don’t know why everybody that’s so upset, I don’t know anybody that would not want Isaiah Mustafa. But, whatever. I will not say his name again – Isaiah Mustafa [laughs]. I don’t know if Shirley is getting a love interest this season, I would love for her to, but Dan [Harmon] has a very interesting ride in mind for all of our characters. I believe at some point, maybe not this season, but at some point we’ll get to see the kind of guy that Shirley likes and who likes Shirley, and who Shirley married, so that’d be great. I’ve also said that I’d love to see Shirley’s sister, because there’s been little clues dropped that that relationship is not exactly sound. There’s something a little not right about it. So I think that any time you have that type of situation there’s a lot of hilarity that can ensue. So I’d love to see her sister and her ex-husband and her new love interest, that would be great for me.
The show started to do these parody episodes last season and they got better and better. Is this the first big one you’ve done this season?
Yes, the space bus is the first big one but there’s been rumors of at least three other really big ones coming. I think Dan Harmon said in an interview that people love the chicken fingers and they loved the paintball episode, and he figured that if people liked that, then why make it an event once a year? Let’s throw them in as often as we can, because he’s created that environment at Greendale where anything can really happen. Have you met our dean? [laughs] Our dean is insane. Jim Rash, who plays Dean Pelton, is amazing. He’s personally my favorite character on the show. Every episode he comes up with something else to keep the kids crazy and involved in something. In fact, the Apollo 13 homage we’re doing in this episode, when you guys are here, it begins with the dean. It always begins with the dean. So there will be more episodes like that.
Is the dean Dalmatian fetish back or does he have a new thing?
Yeah, it’s still present. I haven’t seen his office yet this year, I don’t know if you guys paid attention, there’s a lot of little sight gags for people that watch the show continuously that pay off, but the dean’s fetish got worse and worse as the season progressed. In the beginning it was one small Dalmatian in the corner, and by the end it was like a life-size Dalmatian. So we haven’t seen the set yet to see if maybe now the walls are white with black dots, I don’t know how bad it’s gotten. [laughs] But he does have a softness for Jeff Winger, if you guys have noticed. He drops little comments all the time about Jeff, Joel’s character, that could also be his big thing this year. Who knows what Dean Pelton is going to do.
I really loved the episode where you and Alison [Brie] got to tag-team and play the security guards. Will we see more of you two together?
I hope so. Anytime I get to work with Alison one-on-one is amazing. She’s great at drama, she’s great at comedy, she’s great at physical comedy, and we always talk about how our characters, Shirley and Annie, are pretty much the same character, just at different points in their life. Their both kind of naïve about what really happens in the world, they’re both competitive, they’re both optimistic and type A when they want something. So I think anytime you can see us playing off each other it’s good because we also have this antagonistic kind of relationship where we can kind of push each other’s buttons. So that was a lot of fun. And then having Danny Pudi, who plays Abed, narrating in the back of all the scenes was just genius.
If they’re alike, does that mean Shirley’s going to be kissing Joel’s character?
You know, I guess they don’t want to give Shirley any love because Joel’s kissed just about everybody. He kissed his pool teacher in that episode, he kisses everybody. I think that there should be at least a dream sequence where Jeff Winger is dreaming about Shirley. That’s what I think, and then their can be a kiss there. I think organically, I don’t think that Shirley would be the kind that…after Britta and Annie had both kissed Jeff Winger. Sloppy seconds is not her thing so I don’t think she’d go there.
Are there any movies you’d like to see them tackle in a parody episode?
You know what? I would love if they did some real, brightly colored romantic comedy. Like I think Shirley’s character lends itself to hope and faith and sunshine and rainbows, and if she did get a love interest I would love if it was an homage to While You Were Sleeping or Sleepless In Seattle and the whole look of the show changed for that one episode and it was just sunny and bright and pink and whatever. And it was like Shirley’s dream come true and she finds the love of her life. So that would be awesome. But the things they come up with are so beyond anything I can imagine. When we did the chicken finger episode with Goodfellas, I’d never seen Goodfellas, never seen it, heard it was a great movie, but had never seen it. The show stands up even not having seen Goodfellas, cause I watched Goodfellas this summer and was like, “Oh my God! I get that joke now! I get that song at the end now!” So I think that whether they do the romantic comedy that I want or whatever it’s going to be great and everybody will be able to enjoy it.
At any point in that script did they say, “This is like Goodfellas” or did it just have to dawn on everyone?
I think it dawned on people. I think the guys on the show, of course, all of them love the gangster movies so the first couple of lines, when Danny Pudi’s character, Abed, started doing the narration they were like, “Oh, this is about to get good!” The girls were kind of like, “What?” And then after they said Goodfellas a couple of us had seen it, a couple of us hadn’t. I think it dawned on us as it went on. I was the last one to get it because, again, I had never seen Goodfellas. And I didn’t know the minutia. For me, the scene that stood out in that episode was Joel’s character and Danny over the chicken fingers at the end because I love Sixteen Candles. So for me it was, “Oh! That’s Sixteen Candles!” So there’s little bits like that, in a Goodfellas episode they’ll throw a bone to somebody who may not have seen that. So yeah, I caught on a little late.
With the Big Bang Theory looming, can you talk about the balls-to-the-wall approach that the show seems to be taking?
Well, I’m kind of a multi-camera girl. Most of my sitcom work before this show had been on multi-cameras and I love that work week, I love all that stuff. But you’re confined to what your every day sets are. You don’t go on location. You have the coffee shop and someone’s apartment or whatever – that’s where it is. With our show what’s great, and this is coming from a personal level as well as to camera, what’s great about our show is that we can create a universe that’s wide and vast and crazy and nobody’s going to go, “Wait a minute, where’s the coffee shop this week?” We can be on a space bus and it fits. We can be on the moon and it fits, whereas another show doing that it might feel a little bit weird because you’re used to seeing that proscenium stage, the three walls. So, I think, it’s not so much us trying to be unique and different, I just think we’re blessed to have a show that is automatically unique and different because everyone’s so colorful. When we went to Comic Con someone asked, “What are you doing here? You’re not a comic book show.” And I jokingly said our characters are like cartoon characters, we’re like a living comic. And the more I think about it the more the more I think that’s what’s great about our show. I think the weirdness of it and the balls-against-the-walls of it, as you say, is what makes it awesome.
Is there a dynamic between the cast that’s similar to the dynamic between the actors on set? Are you the Shirley of the group?
Everybody at this point is sort of morphing into a caricature of their real persona. When I read the script initially, I say “pumpkin” and “sweetie” to people, I love people. Like on my Twitter I have 10,000 responses because every time someone writes me I want to say, “Oh, hello!” I feel like it’s rude for someone to say “hi” and you don’t say hi back. So I kind of think that idea, where she wants to take care of everybody and mother everybody is that feeling. So I think that I’m like that and I think that everybody has a touch. The ones that are a little bit more weird, they’re not exactly that weird but everybody has a little touch of who they are in their characters. And the dynamic is the same. We all fight and love.
Community's second season premieres Thursday, Sep. 23 at 8 PM E/P on NBC.
