Parks and Recreation 10th Anniversary Reunion - Paley Fest 2019

good evening I come to you tonight from the place where I am standing which is here and I did not forget my microphone the story of tonight's event is that it is happening and what is happening is this the cast of a television show is getting together and that tv show whose cast is getting together it's one night writer just kidding just kidding that was a joke I made and not a serious answer the serious answer is Parks and Recreation I'm waiting for your applause and it looks like they're over and that's why I'll keep talking now The entire cast is here which is appropriate because they were the people who appeared on the show so right and now ladies and gentlemen without further ado let's bring out a different person a person who will be your host for the night and the person's name is Patton Oswald yes, thank you, you listened happily, ladies and gentlemen, oh my God, thank you all for coming.

Interior Millennium Falcon Wolverine is fighting with HR Pufnstuf oh I lost the other 17 pages thank you very much this is the second time I've hosted the

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panel Haley let's get them out can we like April Ludgate? Please Welcome Aubrey Plaza Wow, Luckily She Did It as Andy Dwyer Chris Pratt Someone's Getting Their Fitbit Points Tonight as Tom Haverford Aziz Ansari as Ann Perkins Rashida Jones as Leslie Knope Amy Poehler as Ron Swanson Nick Offerman as Ben Wyatt Adam Scott as Donna mEagle Retta as Chris Traeger Rob Lowe co-creator showrunner and executive producer Michael Shure and as Jerry gergich Jim o'heir you guys already know how much of a fan I am of this show, how much I loved watching that basically and I've said before that this show was like being able to watch a perfect, free 22-minute Tom McCarthy movie every week on network television, it was like that, it was such a rich experience. drawn world, I mean clearly Michael, when you started, you knew that you were going to expand and create the kind of universe that you had, what was your goal, obviously, when you started the show or were you going to continue. contained the minute, it continued to grow well, first of all, this is incredible, thank you all for coming, no, obviously, we didn't know, we certainly didn't know that we were going to expand it to the level that it expanded that we thought. they were canceling us like all the time, but the goal when Greg Greg Daniels couldn't be here tonight has a little note that we'll read later, he couldn't be here, he's a Pisces in Vancouver shooting, but when he and I left To create the show, the idea was that I had adapted the office and the office was a fictional business, so we decided to make there was a private sector, so we decided to make a fictional public sector and then we immediately thought, oh, if this lasts a Yes It may well be a whole world, it may be if we're going to invent a fake city and we'll have a fake government and we'll have fake people, people who come to these meetings and we'll have news anchors, welcome to Perd Hapley. guys and so it was the dream, the dream was just to build it and keep seeing the same people in a cycle, we never imagined that it would last seven years and that we could actually do it and When we finished, we had all these hundreds and hundreds of people, it was Like it became like The Simpsons, where there were these minor characters, yes, at any time you can go, this is perfect for Joan Callamezzo or whoever, to come in.

The fact that we actually made it to the show stayed up in the air long enough for us to get to that point. It's just a crazy fever dream. I can't believe it happened. Yes, he is almost in some ways even more than the Simpsons. the geography of this city in your head and at one point you would remember the sewage dump character from Oh Kirk Fox, he must be dealing with the consequences of this sailor. I'm like who's going to have to deal with soap. I want to start with Amy on this and then go to everyone, how much input did you have on your characters once they were written and once you started playing it, you guys clearly kept bringing different things to these two, these characters, they're all so alive and It's real, how much input do you have in that sense?

I think we all have a lot of freedom, you really play and expand and delve into who we were playing, I mean, but I think we also brought a lot of ourselves, I think. to a lot of these characters because we really had to play pretty real things, like a documentary style, so I think there's a real combination of characters that are already on the page, thought out and written, and then who was wearing the suit. I filled it out, you know, but I'm totally overwhelmed. We thought about 40 people would come here, like Katt Williams, later.

I mean, if I remember reading an interview with you, Nick, where you said that you met someone who based on Ron Swanson was something that you saw interviewed or interacted with who was basically Ron Swanson and you kind of brought a lot of that, it was a guy who didn't like the government or the type of work or something. or not Mike Mike and Greg when they were creating the program they met with a government official in Burbank and that's all I can say who's name is Julie Julie yes, that's knowing that you will find her, her name, her name she.

Jay Stephenson, they found a city official who was a libertarian and who hated the government and that was the impetus and interestingly enough, she was a woman and that was the impetus for Ron Swanson's stance, well, we said we did a lot of research. and we said to this woman, let us ask you a question like we have this design of a character who is in the government but is a libertarian and literally wants to take down the government like literally the level of like on one. Right point, what's the talking head like where she says she wants to get rid of traffic lights?

So we were like we were like that's crazy, that's too crazy and she was like no, I'm a libertarian and we were like really and she was like, yeah. I'm aware of the irony there and that's all we needed, but to your question, although I would say that especially for both of them, those two are in the middle like this, their characters, their Venn diagram of who they are as people and This is true for everyone, who they are as people and who their characters are. It's not a single circle, but it overlaps a lot and you know that Ron Ron Swanson became Ron Swanson because the writers took a trip to Nick's woodworking shop in real life, where he was making things with his hands and he just liked it. do things, yeah, and and, like he's like, well, here's the canoe that I just built at the beginning and we all feel very weak, we feel very weak and fragile, and you know this gentleman here.

When I met with him to talk about his involvement in the program, he had just been part of a group of people who had shopped at Miramax libraries and I said, how does that happen? How do you become a person who would be the type of person who can buy Miramax and what he said he said I'll tell you the story I was literally on a yacht in Cyprus at the time Chris before that sentence Chris Traeger didn't exist and then he said that he was literally on a yacht in Cyprus or whatever he said, my mind went blank and then that's what Chris Traeger was when I finished the show, Mike gave it to me as a big gift and I have it framed. my office and it's your notes that Mike wrote after that first meeting with me and I always wondered how much of Chris was me and how much of Chris was Mike and in your your notes is my see, Alma said it, she says, she says literally.

Well, so there's a question for you, Robin, and for Adam Scott, you came to the show later, in a very established universe and with a lot of established relationships, so what was that like? Melt again, this is one of the most deeply realized groups of characters and so for you guys to fit into that world the way he did, you had, what was that process, like it was crazy because I remember very clearly waiting outside the doors in the hallway of the

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department, yes, Rob and I were waiting outside the doors to be We lined up to get in when we walked in and started pointing out that our first scene was our first scene, Amy and Nick and stuff, and I remember waiting there for the PA to tell us to come in and just being like holy, okay.

Alright, Rob Lowe is standing there like on this show that I like. I watched the show so now that I was inside the show I just had to get out of my head and stop thinking about Rob Lowe and be inside a TV, it was very scary now Chris and Aubrey April and Andy so real and organic and also you know Rashidah from the beginning again. I'm talking about it like it's people I knew like, oh my God, you squatted with him, but then how? organic was that process where you guys realized that, oh no, those characters were going to go in the direction they were going, it almost felt like those characters went off script and were living their own lives, it was really interesting to see. . in general on the show and do you remember what that was like?

Are you talking to me? Yeah, well, I do remember there was an episode where everyone was hunting, yeah, and that was and I couldn't go and we had to stay. back and there wasn't, it was actually the B story that they were cutting back to, since you know they were all in this hunting lodge and I think some of them got shot and it's very funny, but they kept cutting back to us. Running the parks department and it was really like we had it, it was like a chemistry lecture during the making of the show so I don't think we really got along and it was like these. this cat in a dog relationship and you know it was my idea that's true now and I knew you just like your character this is like watching a tape of the show from what I remember and I don't really remember like there was a previous episode , I think it was the end of the first season where we were hanging out or having cake, yeah, maybe for sure, and there was something where you were trying to write the kind of music and the whole time I was saying I'm into this whatever he's saying I'm into this I understand exactly what he's saying and all the other characters were like I don't get it yeah I think the idea came like maybe the instinct was you know Andy .

The music was so terrible that no one should like it and in the spirit of irony that dominates her personality, I think she chose to say no, I really like it, that's the last thing you would expect from me is to like this guy or this guy. . the guy's music and then and then I said, "It's great, she likes my music, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't hard for April, oh, stop, yeah, and now two things about the show that must have felt very surreal while you were doing it. The things that were about to end are throwaway jokes that have entered the vernacular and entered reality, treat yourself, yes, and Galentine's Day.

I even think there are certain people that I see on Instagram that are these weird fitness gurus and it's all just Chris Traeger, they're the ones watching the curtain come down. I'm going to and they're building multi-million dollar empires. How did it feel when something and Swanson's pyramid of excellence? People like how it feels when that kind of moves away from you and becomes the reality that people live in, so I've been doing this for a long time and it took me being on the show that I finally got a catchphrase. , so I was so excited it's like it's my version of what you're talking about Willis yeah yeah I think someone told me that again I almost said it they literally changed you know they had to change the definition yeah oh Yes, this is true.

Webster's Dictionary changed the definition of the word. literally now to mean literally or figuratively those are the two definitions of the word literally make sure I've known you for a long time since college and what bothers you is when people literally use yeah I don't know how I feel like Poehler but I think that we're all very proud of the idea that Galentine's Day is something that we know, but this, for some reason, this year put me off a little bit because I would go on Twitter and I'd be like Hey ladies, this Galentine's Day, why not share a Mountain Dew code red with you?

It was like, what does that have to do with Galentine's Day? It was like I feel like maybe trying to target you too should literally get like 31 cents every time, yeah it's disgusting, a mug like an owl and it was like a barrel and I was like what and then the other thing beyond the program stuff. to leave the show and exist in the world now is, and I'm sure you've been interviewed about this all the time because I've seen articles about it all the time, how horribly predictive this show was for our current situation, it's a Is it a nice feeling or is it, oh God, maybe you know?

How is that? If you basically called the 2016 election for God, the Cubs were the bright spot, yeah, you just know if we had Bobby Newport with them, yeah, I mean, someone asked. Me on that line of press about Leslie Knope, you know, we need her now and I feel like we don't, she's like the Spider-Man of public service, she's a little bit, she feels a little bit like you're watching. to heaven like Leslie, where a real good person you know fights for the underdog andHe believes that people can work together and he treats them with respect, all that kind of stuff is his motto and his creed and that is that he wishes she were around, but he couldn't have any access to the White House.

I don't know, I think she was and remember we started the show after Obama, it was very you. I know a very optimistic and hopeful time for many of us who believed that change could happen and who knew that the face of our president was so different in our world that it was going to be different and that's why we were starting that show at one time so different it would be. really interesting to start it now, I don't know, either we're great or the same thing, I'm not sure, but hmm and then of course the other big thing I'm sure a lot of us think about is watching the fire.

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ival documentaries were Tom Haverford and Jean-Ralphio, I mean, it's Santana and forgive me, it's literally your company, but it's very strange that for so long there's so many things like when I say, oh, that looks like something from Mike and the writers. I would have thought of something like Tom and John Ralphie, oh, we're definitely friends with Billy Magnifico. I liked that the other day, I was reading a little bit like a fact that college admissions scandals like that are some of Eagleton. Oh, one of the French fire documentaries. i just used clips oh yeah it was just you two ding-dongs in a big white room like playing basketball with Detlef Schrempf and I'm sorry I forgot to say this it's literally 70 entertainment I remember when we started filming in the 720 entertainment offices there was like a video of a yacht, I thought what is this, it's just footage of the yacht, that's what those guys did, yeah they did, it was like they watched the episode and said, oh yeah, we could do what they thought of their minds, yeah, it was a blueprint, here's the blueprint, oh my god, yeah, if Tom and John Tyrrell feel like they could have gotten ja Rule, yeah, they could have found their way to ja Rule, we're golden, we got this now Jim, perhaps the most zen character on television, literally, literally, absorbing. and levitating through the abuse was just that I loved it there is an episode in which the show awaits us.

I'm so sorry, but there's an episode where Ron Swanson and Chris Traeger cook the two burgers and they revealed that Jerry has a Jerry, you have a guy that you abused Kyle, yeah, yeah, and you're like, will you shut up later? Oh, he has a person, imagine Kyle's life, horrible, yeah, it was great, he's married to someone, Crawford, yeah, there were times once. particularly with Chris, I remember you saying: I don't know if I wanted to do this because it was a big hit from Jerry and let's face it, people love them, you felt bad because the man has a huge heart that should really be examined because I'm sure that there's something, remember saying no, it's okay, just paychecks are the same?

Now you guys would always do something called fun, you would do the scene several times. The execution was that from the beginning you would make the fun races, yeah, from the beginning, the idea was always that you know you block out a certain amount of time to film any scene and we filmed the show in a very simple way with two cameras, you know what's called cross coverage, which means they're filming everyone, everyone's facing the camera all the time instead of just shooting in one direction, so someone who has their back to the camera doesn't really appear on the camera. scene and idea were always the last five. minutes it's like you tried to finish the take with the scene with five minutes left and then you said do whatever and it guided you like it was normally good, it was a disaster, a lot of mistake things came out of that, but yeah, that was always the goal was to set aside five minutes for the actors to do whatever they wanted and sometimes something would happen where we'd say oh wait, let's use that and do another full take of the scene with a new line or a new joke or something I tried to bring that technique to life.

Next series I did, I did a CBS procedural called 731 it didn't translate in some ways, it's not for every show, yeah, not for every show, but it turns out how many iconic and memorable moments came out of the fun runs. although that was what really surprised you, oh this is now part of the program or stopping pooping was fun. I would say that I feel like I am indebted every time we all get together. I feel like I need to tell the story that I wasn't really in. the fun run, the other thing we did was save the actors like there were certain jokes where this is what we're writing, but do something different each time and, like with Aziz, it would be like we wrote a reference. to some rapper or something and it was just a sign to him that this man changes this every time, but in one of those moments Chris Pratt improvised the biggest joke we've ever told.

I have to tell the story even though it discourages me deeply because I am a writer and I should be able to write things as good as this, but I have never managed to, but it was when Lesley had the flu and Adam was taking her out of the office. and Norm, who was on set at the time, said to Chris, you know, as we walked by, say what you want in the story, it was that he was for me and he was filling in and Ron's assistant and Ron like that. because Annie was so profoundly incompetent that nothing was being done and that's why they overlooked him and Leslie like food, she's miserable and she's bundled up and as she walks next to Chris she says hey Leslie, I typed your symptoms into the computer here and you say Is it possible that you have network connectivity?

Actually yeah, and then he got Jurassic World and those now, wait before we do it, we told the story of what you filmed when you were backstage when we did these similar videos where you were backstage on the show and you made a joke, it's the box, this is the crazy story that comes out of this, okay, so this is Wow, I'm really going to date myself on the show, it was kind of like before iPhones, they had this thing called inverted video, right? Remember, it was like a look was like the camera feature on your iPhone, but on a separate handheld device, the kids came up to me and said, Chris, would you do anything behind the scenes for the parks and

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website? , that is, for everyone?

Here I said no to this and then it affected me and I thought this is good. I was making a video in my trailer. I'm covered in dirt and I was just improvising on this part and I and I while I was doing it. On the phone I got an actual text from whoever it was at the time and it rang and you could hear the video and I was like, oh, he just texted me and this was five or four, maybe four years before I got Jurassic World, maybe even six years or something like that. and I said, uh, you can just watch this video online if you watch it online, it'll be a lot cooler than the story, but I said I'll continue.

I said I basically said it's Steven Spielberg and I said I'm going to have to do it. I understand, but I'm in the process of making Parks and Rec and I'm making this behind the scenes video and I'll get back to you on Jurassic Park for success. Send and then like five years later this program predicted things now. you know, all the fun, all the cool stuff, you know, comedic moments, but then there were really amazing and sincere moments, not just touching moments but serious, oh, maybe I should rethink the moments in my life, the one that was the more surreal to me.

I remember seeing this. was the episode where John Larroquette guest starred and Allen County, yeah, and it's Leslie who was dating Justin throws the character in and there's that whole thing where he's going to reunite Leslie's mom with this guy. which in that one is John Larroquette's character and he's a huge mess and Justin saying oh my God, that was so funny, how horrible it was and what a great story, and Leslie starts to realize that this guy is a piece of shit, but isn't that good and out of nowhere, Leslie and Ron Swanson have one of the deepest. conversations in that where he's going he's a tourist he's just here for the story she doesn't care what he destroys and it was like you know when you're writing a scene like that?

How do you fit that in? because then you get back to the comedy and also the comedy takes you to that moment. Is it a struggle because it felt so natural and I didn't really feel like it was worth grinding the gears to get to this moment? She totally followed where the characters are. going and it was pretty impressive to see, well that was part of the design of the show honestly and this came from Greg Daniels in the office it's like he was like, look, it's not easy to do this because it feels like sincerity and honesty. and clinginess is like the opposite of coldness, you know, and and greg always said, we're going to carve, we're going to take a little time on every episode of the office and we're just going to carve it out and be like, there'll be no jokes here, there will be some kind of sincere emotional feeling between the characters and it's hard to do because it feels tacky, it feels like people will think I'm not cool if we write this stuff. but it was so obvious for that show that he said that's why people still watch that show and people still watch Ross and Rachel's friends and I still watch Jim and Pam's office and so on from the beginning.

It was just the design that we did a lot with Leslie and a lot of Hult, the show, yeah the show was like Greg and I pitched this show as a show about female friendship about Leslie and that was the core of the show that's why that the pilot is about their meeting and I think the saddest thing I felt on set was the episode where Chris and Ann were leaving and walking away, partly because it was the end of an era and also. because Rasheeda and Amy were really good friends in real life and Rasheeda was going to take this great, crazy job writing Toy Story 4, which was really great and everything was like yeah, everything was like everything was happy and great, but like that. scene when you look at that, if you look at that shot that's in the episode, it's just two really good friends saying goodbye and they're happy and crying and it's like let's not overwrite this, let's not like it.

Don't try to spin this, just have these two women in this nice scene together and it's devastating. I mean, I like, that was the saddest thing I've ever had saying goodbye to you, she's a you that I didn't care about that much. was going to be my next question for Amy and Rasheeda, that was one of the best representations of a real friendship in the sense that they are not completely in sync and in agreement and all that, but they love each other so much that they will never agree. it actually improves the friendship, if you guys were careful to know, make sure it wasn't just so perfectly connected to the pieces of the puzzle, but it was real people who would disagree on things and have real fights and then real makeups and Those things, well, yeah.

Like Mike said, there's a Venn diagram of real person and character and because Amy and I are very close and have been friends for a while, I think that really helped inform and shape that relationship, but also, as you know, things like Leslie's thought and like the best, the smartest, the most beautiful, but whatever you know, the naive Moss who breaks the rules, there's something that's so tender and sweet about that to me because, in a sense , it's like she's okay and she and she she just she just reinforces. her as a human being a lot and to me that's the core like all my friends, I mean, talking about this all the time, yeah, that's how we interact with each other, that's how we really interact instead of you know, these two, you already know. these two types of caddies, you know, diametrically opposite women, most girls have friends who are amazing, you're great, like, how can I help you, how can I support your life and make you a better person? or what can we talk about, you know? to make you feel better about your own life, so for me that was dead, that was something I was very happy to play because there really aren't many opportunities to do that, there's not much like this local team and I know I just want tell you that if I ever hear you talk about it, she is perfect and perfect.

Sorry, I think I'll say this. I think the potential pop possibly I think the best episode we did may have been the one. that Amy wrote in season 3 called the fight, the B story of that episode is snake juice and the top of everyone's tower of talking heads, which was almost all improvisation, including Adam Scott, he just said bah bah that The tone for that episode was for Leslie to have Her first fight was quite a story and Amy and Rasheeda walked into the bathroom of the terrible club we were in in Hollywood, very close to where we are now and they just experienced a fight between those two characters and just we cut bits, they were improvising almost completely, right, I think Poehler, I don't remember, yeah, I remember I loved doing that scene that day, it was fun, just tearing each other apart and then when we did it, we just sewed each other up . like pieces of what it was like, so they were like the most real moments.

I think we once filmed on the show because it was just the two of you, saying this is what would happen if we fought, it wasn't writing it down and trying it calculatedly. To move the plot forward, it was as if these two women who love and care about each otherwith each other were really drunk, Perry with each other and then you talk about it in a very funny way because you're like one you're just saying. The word 1-over came back the next morning and n is so Puerto Rican. I thought Rasheeda is my comedy queen, she was my favorite thing, yes in the show you are wearing a sweater and it should also be noted that in that episode Ron Swanson was dancing with a little hat which by the way the gift I get the most It's when one of my friends is happy about something, they just dance like oh there's a new one, oh there's a Deadwood movie like So that's the dance and I'm happy like I got that gift twice today.

Trailer. There is no way to take tastes into account. Amy also directed that episode and everything, and she smartly and brilliantly put this contest together because the best thing she had to work with on the show was having Amy. on the monitor is to make me laugh, yes, you organized a contest where everyone had to turn around to try to make Amy laugh and that's where everyone came from. Oh, look at this, Aubrey, give me your hat, Janet, Janet, the snake hole. true, the C story of that episode is bert macklin Janet Snake-hole now speaks honestly and surprisingly the relationship between Adam Scott and Amy Poehler's characters is too political dumb nerds who have found each other and are so blatant about how much they They love each other and the proposal scene was.

I remember reading The Onion AV Club. They did it? You know they would do the recaps of the show and then they did another whole article about the scene where he proposes and how he was like oh, but yeah, but it's so real and emotional, like how many takes was that, how many I mean, it felt real. , I was sweating, I was so nervous, you were too, we were nervous, it was a big deal, yeah and We thought it was actually no big deal because I remember the hiatus before that season. Amy and I talked over the summer about how Ben and Leslie like their people and we talked about how we wanted them to get married, we cared about them. a lot and then I remember hearing that, that Mike, you told me that Mike was writing a proposal scene and it was the happiest thing.

I just wrote Ben and Leslie's proposal scene and then I was like, you think you're nerdy for the show, do you know what that is? It's great even now, like all of you young people who just found the show long after it was mine. I just had a wife today. I was working with it. I remember, I remember she was with her. She was in college and I, my boyfriend, was watching this. show and they proposed to Leslie and it was Hurricane Sandy during Hurricane Sandy, and we were like we were in, the weather was really bad and we saw that proposal and I was like, oh, what happened to you, she was like, oh We're, no We are together.

I wonder what the experience will be for people, especially like you said, this younger generation coming up, many of whom have experienced a lot of this show on giveaways on Twitter or from likes. context, but and, by the way, all of which are very, very enlightening and do the job of capturing emotional moments, but then if you go back and actually sit down and watch the show and see how everyone, I wonder what that experience would be like for someone. how young to see that and because there is a it's so, oh god, I don't make any sense, it's so universal, how, oh, I remember when Ben Wyatt I really identified with everyone, I loved little Sebastian, except Ben Wyatt.

I've been there where everyone is freaking out and I have to go. I'd better not say it. I don't know what's happening, why and it's so real, and especially now I think it's a very, very real experience. I think a lot of people have to deal with it. You know, it was so real, it was funny, but it was very real, wasn't it? People still don't commemorate the small shipment. There's a day in me where they're on Twitter. Suddenly I will see that little Sebastian is a trend, yes, yes, that little Sebastian. The last time I lived was after the show, yeah, one of the things I should show too.

I want to thank Dean Holland, who directed like 30 episodes. Dean Dean became. He was just thinking about it because you were talking about the proposal and the show had something weird going on. One thing like that was we had very strict rules: it's supposed to be a documentary and the cameras are supposed to be you actors, you're supposed to be real people who are aware of the cameras and then every once in a while we'd just do it. You need to look good, so change all the rules and like that scene, the proposal scene. Dean just did this really beautiful job of just moving the camera in a wide way, he stayed back for the proposal, then he would sweep the cameras and when Kissed, we gave Dean all of our important episodes that we needed as something really special.

He was a very important part of the show that I'm talking about as if he were dead. He is not dead. He's probably here. Here's Dean. No, I just received. a text, he's dead, Jim, who texted you. I know a lot of people, Mike, a lot of people. I, by the way, Jim, I remember flying from New York to Los Angeles and you sat behind me the whole time and I didn't notice. We were there until we landed and it was a fucking Jerry moment, it was so perfect. I think I posted a picture of us on Twitter and everyone started with Damn Jerry.

I listen to damn Jerry all day. I hear thanks for ruining the Harvest Festival. I know it was really fun once we started there was a moment where we were like the show oh maybe they wouldn't cancel us and also you know they nominated us first so we got to go to the Emmys it was really fun to hang out . and the Emmy party and there was like a photo booth and we took a photo of something and Jim had the photo on his um you know, that kind of stand and he was like you guys come up because it's like he just got the the best photo of my city says he says oh damn had any of you ever visited Indiana visited them you were there you were in the city there I have us, I mean, of course, I got into the Colts, that true, we actually filmed in times, yes we filmed, we went to Indianapolis at least twice, true, yes I went to Indiana University and they have murals, yes it was cool, but they have Neuros that are frighteningly similar to mirrors , like this, is allowed, what is it?

This, there are some things in those murals that I got, they weren't shown for a very specific reason, there with them, I mean the covered up slaughter thing, it's somehow darker. I remember how amazing that thing was, where are those? murals and they just throw them out well, I don't really order them, they were huge, they were like ten feet tall and like 20 feet long so there was no place to put them, I mean the day after the show ended, literally , the day after the show. I finished, I was editing and Morgan Sackett, our longtime producer in charge, and he said, hey, they're tearing up the set, do you want to come down and watch?

Oh, that was like most of it, I mean, most of the set was just them. that's what they do, they just get on with it, it's a soulless business, but Nick Offerman is worth mentioning without telling anyone. He rescued all the doors on the set. We had these big oak doors. He took all the wood from all the doors and made us. canoe paddles, oh God, they have the Pawnee seal on them, so they're beautiful, that's beautiful, yeah, one day about a year later, I just got a canoe package, this is from a door on the set, it's fine, thanks.

Oh perfect. Well I've never done it again, just today HBO announced that the Deadwood movie will premiere on May 31st, if ever a show was rich enough to support an actual narrative film, it's this world , but it's very, very strange because in your final episode you moved forward and showed where everyone ends up, but you moved forward into the more distant future, you know, a couple of years from now, especially these ones, and I would love for you to bring comedy out of the characters being positive. and trying to help each other so that those characters have to live in these times would be very, very interesting and I think funny, I don't know, but I made a Parks and Rec movie, my God, I think that would be amazing, I think. that you know, in the world that we live in now, nothing disappears, everything comes back and two cycles happen again and you know, I would just say that I think we would all be in this scenario and how six other people would have to feel. like there was a story that needed to be told and as part of what I felt personally, I won't speak for anyone else, but what I felt was that the show had a plot to present and the plot was about teamwork and friendship and about positivity and being optimistic and not becoming cynical and believing in people who can do good and believing in the power of public service and believing that if you work hard and put your head down, you will have good results. the people around you and who are part of your team say that good things are possible and that you will achieve the things that you want to achieve and I don't feel like we left anything on the table, I really, you know, I feel like the show.

Somehow he made his argument and so did we and maybe this was like a preventive measure or something, we skipped to the year like 20 74, yeah, it was like we watched Jerry's funeral, he died at the age of a hundred peacefully in his I slept holding the hand of his wife Christie Brinkley, who looked exactly the same. Oh look, I got little wrinkles. I look like a corpse. I mean, you know there was nothing I loved more than working on the show, it feels like you know that. I felt like it was the most important thing we knew I would do in my life and that's why I would never say never.

I don't want to say that the opportunity to do it again if it arose would be amazing, but I think we would just do it. If we all felt that there was something that forced us to do it. I don't want to do it just because it's tempting as it is. I don't want to just do more episodes of the show or something I want if literally everything I would do like everyone on this stage has a veto, why is everyone looking at me? I would say, I would say we would do it literally, everyone has a veto, like if one person says no, then we would do it, then whatever.

It's just that we wouldn't do it. I feel really weird right now because we could ask this quite a lot because the reboots have become pretty fast, yeah, right, right, and my new answer is because of what Mike just said, that's why the show was like that. well and the hours, yes, now I want to, I want to follow the line starting with Rob in his era, is there any aspect of your character's personality that from the show you have carried into your life and used in your life, yes? I think I'm going to live 250 here, a computer chip, yeah, Retta, um, I mean, the obvious thing is to treat yourself.

I'm an online shopper and I'll have my time anytime, but I mean, friendships like friendships are very, very important to me and I feel like that's exactly what the show is about, but I mean, I feel like they were important to me before. me, but if anything reflects the life of my park, it would be yeah, honestly, I didn't do it the first time. That's why I talked about it. Game of Thrones I actually hadn't seen it seriously go back go back and watch those episodes you can't say I haven't seen them I don't want to brag but it's not a big deal but after mentioning a couple Several times in the show I started watching it and couldn't be more interested in the game, on the contrary, after the program I cleaned up my diet, there were some habits that I had to get rid of and the interest of longevity, but there was one, an ex herbal strength. throughout the world of the show that I resisted as best I could and finally realized that I simply had to give in to Tammy's powers to Amy.

You know, the other day, a couple of years ago, there were teachers on strike here in Los Angeles and I guess I'm the daughter of two public school teachers and I drove past the striking teachers and I and I honked in support. while they were asking us to do science and a woman was holding a Leslie Knope sign and I honked. her and she was like and it was just a great example of how that character has come to represent so many things that I think are way above what we would have ever imagined she would be and so, you know, I had Leslie really really good for me. mental health for my physical and mental health she really played with it she was able to come in and tell everyone how great they were and also boss everyone around the combination of those two things was like it really extended my life.

I think she really did it, I really think she did it well, obviously Anna and Leslie always completely survived the show, but I think also Ann Perkins went in the direction of positivity, I mean choosing Chris Traeger as a partner and her always tries. She did her best to make things right even if they weren't right and many times they weren't right. I mean, she basically went out around town just to do things right and I feel like not particularly in that way, but in other ways, I'd like to think that I, as a person, have embodied some of Ann's adaptability in the world. and the ability to continue to be positive even in the face of some twisted animals but also, as you know, when Mike just described the kind of mission of the program and the ideas of workas a team and working hard and staying positive and dealing with negativity, just putting your head down and doing the work, it made me realize how much I internalize those ideas in my Life after Parks and you know you work on a lot of different sets and they all We've moved on and we've done different things and you know Alan and I, one of the Parks writers, and then we continued throughout our show and I really tried to capture, but you know, we've really tried to capture what we took from the experience of the parks and it's really true, if you follow those things, you can do great work with great people and have a wonderful time in your life and do something that you're proud of and I think Mike that's why I thank all these people for influencing me in that way. manner.

I think about this show, there's three things, one skate. I was thinking about the day I thought I needed to do a role play together, like I saw these roles, these guys skating in Santa Monica. I was so jealous, I thought about flames, but that's probably not the most important thing. but that's one thing and the second is that my relationship with the FBI in real life is legitimate. I think maybe I don't know, maybe even especially now. I think they're very happy to have someone in the zeitgeist who says, "I love the FBI. I want to be in the FBI like I'm going to a city.

I'll go to a city and I'll go to a hotel room and the FBI will have prepared a care package and he'll leave me a care package at my hotel man, I don't know how they got there, the FBI, I think it's the FBI, but did they have FBI stuff, hats, mugs and FBI stuff, stuff they didn't. They are like the ones they use, but they have their logo and other things? I could use it, but that's number two and then the third thing, the third thing is that there is a technical thing, actually, like making a program that It's a multi-camera show that's constantly shooting and it's digital, you learn the value of freshness, you learn the value of making each take slightly different, so as an actor going forward, I really learned that I feel like it was something that I was , it was a really good format for me when I started on the show, as if it wasn't like that.

I had some experience, but not that much, and it really suited my strengths. I think that as an actor I carry it with me now and in every job, as you know, I feel completely comfortable speaking in colloquiums and making the dialogues my own. I really learned that at home in this very specific format because you can't do that anywhere else and it can be a pain for people like editors and things who hate it because they say I can't edit this together. I said nine different things, none of that is in the story, if I could waste everyone's time, but I'm too old to shoot, and also say it was cool for a moment, we got to see what it would be like to see Andy.

Dwyer uses the word colloquially well. I never felt like April and I had too many similarities, but I feel like I've done some things that she would be proud of recently. I did a satanic ritual on live television for the Independent Spirit Awards. I think she would have liked me to also convince Jim to do a video on that show where he had to say that he had to do it and she didn't even question it at all. She was literally in the writers' room thinking I had to find someone to help me. Make this video and I texted him and said, "I'm going to need you to make this video and I'll send you the monologue and you have to memorize it in two days and we'll film it and he'll just do anything for you." ah Bri and then she did it on live TV and it was so nice, well you made out with me on national TV so yeah, I don't know the dark arts that I carry with me and I think it's just April's general philosophy of life, which is that nothing matters and we are all going to die so who cares about who in my case you know that life and art combine the episode in which the doctor said he had the biggest penis he had ever seen No, you know that I have no pride come on no seriously Jerry it's like you know such a sweet guy and there's a little bit of what you know in my life where I'll think you know WWJD what would Jerry do and I mean it cause I can being Jim or 'The Heir can be a little hotheaded here and there and I try to think about what I've done, you know different, you go to universities and they do questions and answers and stuff and a lot of times we go, oh, you weren't as kind as I thought you'd be, well, number one, you say for the record, those people, but I think Jerry, you know if boy, if much of the world was a lot of Jerry, it would be a sweeter place and a lot more to Mike.

Okay, you really put on such an amazing show. I couldn't be a bigger support to this show and this universe and these people that I don't know, I mean, and there's all of these. I didn't want to sit here and throw all the nerdy questions at you and I want to talk about the t-shirt cones that some people developed, didn't someone reverse engineer the game just by looking at it? episode or something and then they never ended up buying it. The oldest professional board game makers made a version of dunshire cones just for us, yeah yeah.

I always feel like I have to tell this story to Dave King, one of the writers was the The guy who wrote that episode and he's a board game enthusiast and a woman named Julian Robinson was directing it and I got really excited about the board game cones. Dunshire, which was like our cold open and definitely factored into the reading, was about what Ben was like. losing his mind and he was like and and like a joke but also a little seriously when we sat down to talk about the episode I said Julianne, I don't know you very well, this is the most important thing we've ever done.

That's right and I was joking but I don't think she totally knew I was joking so one day I went to work and they were filming that scene and I got a note that said Amy wants you to come to set and I went to On set and I was like : "Hey, what's going on?" She said, "We've been filming this scene for like four hours. I don't know what's going on, but we can't," and Julia was nervous, like she had to reassure me. I got this right because they were and I was like oh no, sorry, this is nonsense, these cones, so when you move to the right and I thought what's the answer, no, they were one hundred percent with me, but it turned out really good. , yeah, oh my gosh, that's the philosophy of the show in a nutshell, right there it says: you know what, that's a perfect place to end, ladies and gentlemen, the cast of Parks and Recreation, thank you so much guys.