I wish I had gotten to see the James Franco Roast before interviewing Andy Samberg, but over the summer I got to sit down with Samberg to talk about his new show “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” Samberg decided to leave “Saturday Night Live” last year, and though he’s been voicing Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and he did a cameo in Grown Ups 2, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” is Samberg’s first big post-”SNL” show.
Samberg plays Jake Peralta, a detective who really does solve cases, but he also messes with his partners and especially the new captain (Andre Braugher). At the Fox party for the Television Critics Association, Samberg shared dinner with me and he reflected on some of his early showbiz jobs and his parallel music career.
CraveOnline: What were your favorite cop dramas growing up?
Andy Samberg: My favorite’s “The Wire.” I know that’s not very inspired, but I love “Police Squad!” I watched “Police Squad!” on VHS well after it aired. Absolutely love that. That’s pretty much the main ones.
Is there any connection between this cop comedy and the action component of Hot Rod?
I suppose so. I always like playing with the archetype of action hero or macho guy. Playing something super cool and then being awkward or lame in some way always makes me laugh.
What are your favorite cop movie cliches?
Braugher says “I’m getting too old for this sh**” on set pretty much every day.
Has it been on the show yet?
No. I guess we’d have to bleep it.
Do you think you’re going to have to turn in your gun and your badge at some point?
[Laughs] I hope so because that means I did millions of dollars worth of damage to the city.
What are some of the cases Jake is investigating in the first few episodes?
The only one we know for sure is a case of vandalism, rampant vandalism in the city against police property. There’s probably a drug bust in there. The other one I think is just a straight up robbery.
Were you actually shooting “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” in New York?
No, we’re shooting in Studio City. Mike Schur runs “Parks and Rec” so he has to be on the same lot.
That’s on the CBS Radford lot. There’s a lot of TV history there. Do you feel it when you go on the stages?
100%. I have my own personal TV history there. I was the writer’s PA on “Spin City” there its last two seasons. For me to now drive on, have my own parking spot and everything is wildly gratifying.
Was that a good paying your dues job?
Oh, I love that job. I actually did that job for a while and then I was an assistant at Ubu Productions under Gary Goldberg.
When was the last time you got to see Gary David Goldberg?
It had been a little over a year.
So fairly recently.
Yeah, it’s very sad. He was an incredible guy. I didn’t interact with him a ton at Ubu, but the little that I did, I was blown away by him. He was incredible.
What was the context of your last meeting?
Just socially at a party. His daughter is writing partners with Jorma [Taccone]’s wife, so the connections to their family continue past us leaving “Spin City” after it shut down.
What’s the pace on “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” like compared to “SNL?”
It moves pretty quick. There’s a lot of crew with a lot of experience, so we’re basically going with the “Parks” format of shooting. It’s multiple cameras up and running at once so you’re getting coverage. We usually don’t do a scene too many times. The real reason that we’ve been doing takes past the first four or five is because we then start improvising and doing alts. At that point it’s just fun.
