- Hi, I'm D'Arcy Carden (laughs)
(beeps) Hi, I'm D'arcy Carden
and I'm in studio with the Hollywood Reporter.
(upbeat music)
- I feel like I should start with the question
of the blooper reels, the famous blooper reels.
- Are they famous?
- Of The Good Place, yes, have you ever watched them?
- Yeah, we do, we watched them at the wrap party.
- Oh, that's excellent, - It's really fun.
- that's excellent.
I was wondering, is there a particular blooper
that you love, out of that, those groups?
- Yeah, I mean, Ted is like such a giggler that
he's really easy to make giggle,
so I could watch like a half hour
blooper reel of just him giggling.
There is one blooper from this last season,
where Marc Evan Jackson, who plays Shawn, is he's,
I mean I guess spoiler alert? Not really.
He's tied up to a chair and we're all looking at him,
it's in the bar scene,
and he says something about,
he calls us wasp nostrils, I think.
(beep)
- I don't want just any wasp, wasp nostrils. (beep)
I don't want just any wasp nostrils,
I want these wasp nostrils.
(people laugh)
(beep) I don't just any wasp nostrils,
I want these wasp nostrils,
this is personal for me.
(people laugh)
I can't even hear it anymore. (beep)
- And he truly could not say that,
he couldn't say wasp nostrils
and then once he finally could, after like ten takes,
then we couldn't hear it without laughing.
So, there's like a little bit of a blooper
in that blooper reel, but it went on for so long,
like I think, I thought
we were gonna have to change the line.
(Marya laughs) It was funny.
- We are closing in on Season Four, the end of it, the end.
So, of course I'm going to ask you, do you know how it ends?
- I do know how it ends, for a couple reasons.
One, because we fricking shot it, it's done.
And two, because when Mike Schur, the creator,
told us a year ago that this was gonna be our last season,
he told us what the whole season was gonna be like.
Which kind of made it easier.
When I heard that this was gonna be our last season,
I was sad and mad and feeling bad, not glad,
(Marya laughs) sorry, but then once he explained
what the season would look like
and when he explained what the end was,
then it all really made sense and really seemed correct
and right and the perfect ending, so it made it,
I wasn't mad anymore, I was like, "Yep, that's right,
you got that right, Mike Schur."
- It must be nice to be part of,
since it's a television show that's so surreal,
it must be nice to have it tie up,
because I feel like a lot of people end up on shows
and then they kind of go places
and you're not exactly sure how it's going to end up.
- Yeah, yeah. I mean I trust Mike so much and those writers.
Like I always knew,
I didn't know what the ending was gonna be,
but I always knew that it would be,
I've had so much faith in them.
Really from a very early on in the show process I was like,
especially because season one, we didn't know
what the twist was until way way deep into shooting,
and once that went as well as it did,
I really was like, "Jesus, take the wheel."
Jesus being Mike Schur. (both laugh)
Because I was like, I trust him.
- I've asked a couple of the other cast members,
since The Good Place is all about philosophy
and what makes a person good, what makes a person moral,
has being on The Good Place made you a better person?
- I think so, yeah.
I mean it's simple, weird, little, tiny things,
I think I was good before,
like I think my parents raised me real good,
but little things like,
thinking of other people all the time.
Here an example of it, I wouldn't have littered anyway,
but I'm not gonna leave something on the ground
because I know that someone else has to come pick it up.
It's like that times a million.
Everything that you do has,
it causes a reaction and affects everybody else.
- Let's talk about the episode "Janets".
Speaking of Will and Kristen,
you had to play all of your cast member,
the four major cast members--
- The humans. - Yes,
tell me what it was like to embody the humans
and to embody specifically those actors.
- Right, well it was really hard
(Marya laughs) yet really fun.
- [Marya] I read about the process.
It was a very complicated process.
- Yeah, it was super technical
and not something I was used to.
When Mike Schur and the writers told me
that I was gonna be doing this,
or that this is what they were writing,
they were so excited about it
and they were so sort of giddy
in explaining it that it, you knew,
I knew it was a big deal to them.
So then I was like, "Okay, I really have to bring it.
They're excited about this
so that means I can't half-ass it at all,
I have to really make their vision become a reality.
So I think I put a weird amount of pressure
on myself to nail it.
- That sounds legitimate,
like a legitimate amount of pressure
- Right. Thank you for that.
- (laughs) to carry an entire episode basically.
- Yeah, and I'm not used to that
and Janet certainly doesn't,
usually she kinds of just pops in and pops out, so I was,
I over-prepared. I prepared.
I made myself coocoo. I made my husband coocoo.
(Marya laughs) We're still together (laughs)
but he really helped me a lot truly,
my husband Jason was my,
I sort of like cocoon up when I get stressed
and especially when it's about acting stuff,
and so it was mostly just me and him going over lines
for many many many hours a day.
But it was, I watched a lot of old episodes.
I had the editors cut together a reel of simple things
that each character would do,
truly just walking and sitting and turning,
and just kind of studying them.
Which was so fun but it's just a weird,
if it was like one character
maybe it would've been a different thing,
but I was like trying to keep all fours straight.
- Janet has been put in to the history of books.
Did you have to do anything mentally
to place her in to history?
- Knowing that something is ending for so long,
there's a lot of ends, there's a lot of,
there's the big giant end and that's a wrap on everything,
but there's also these little wraps along the way,
wrapping up things along the way.
There was one moment where I took my name off of my trailer,
which felt really heartbreaking, my name being Janet,
and I'm trying to think,
it just was, it was equally painful,
and so we were really happy, like it was,
we being the cast and the crew and everybody,
knowing that it was ending, it was like we really took,
we didn't take anything for granted this last season.
- So let's talk about Barry.
Are you excited about season three?
- I am excited about season three, yeah.
- What should we expect from our acting troupe?
- So I don't know a ton.
I should just say I don't know anything
but that would be a lie - But you know a little.
(both laughs)
- But I truly can't tell you anything, but it is,
I mean that show, oof, that is such a good show.
And they have so much fun writing it,
I've known Bill for a really long time
and it's very fun to see him so excited about something,
and so fulfilled by something?
And I kind of knew, our little weird origin story is that
I used to be his babysitter, like almost 10 years ago,
and I always just knew that
this type of thing would be in his future.
Like directing and writing and darker things,
and so it's so cool not just to get to see it
but to also be a part of it, it's really fun.
- Henry Winkler is your acting coach?
- Yes.
- What can you learn from Henry Winker himself?
- So much. So much, so much.
Like from top to bottom.
And you know weirdly on that, when we were first cast,
the acting class was first cast,
after our first table read, Bill sort of surprised us
with an acting class taught by Henry Winkler.
So we were meeting each other for the first time,
meeting Henry Winkler for the first time,
which was exciting in itself,
and then Bill was like,
"Okay, well we're all gonna leave
and you guys stay here
and Henry's gonna teach you an acting class,"
and it was really fun.
He's a great teacher, but he,
the thing about Henry is, he is,
have you met him before?
- No.
- He is truly one of the world's best people,
- That's right, I've heard such a nice man.
- He's so nice and he's so grounded and so warm.
He is so wonderful and cares so much
about the people he cares about and so generous,
he's just, I love that man, deeply.
He is wonderful.
And I think, we bonded in real life,
but our characters have this weird, special bond too
so we sort of, we have this extra little fun thing,
and we like getting to act together.
- Natalie and the rest of the acting troupe,
what play would you like to see them in,
if you could choose? - Oh, that's a great question.
You know, we had so much fun with the Shakes--
Season one, we did this big like Shakespeare festival,
I don't really know what it was,
but on the cutting room floor,
truly pray that they will be released someday,
there is so much footage of us
doing long Shakespeare scenes.
Like we, the acting class, does a lot.
And it doesn't always further the plots
so it doesn't always make it in,
but we do a lot.
(laughs) We do a lot that doesn't make it in,
and those Shakespeare scenes were so fun
and we rehearsed them.
I mean rehearsed Barry a lot,
usually on a show, you just rehearse like the day of,
and we rehearsed before, days before,
and we sort of rehearsed it like a play,
which is so fun and different.
And so doing the Shakespeare scenes,
Bill and Alec had us like go away
and sort of work on them on our own, and then bring them.
It's really fun, it's very fulfilling,
very nerdy and acting class-ish.
But one thing that I loved from the pilot was that
they were, and from season one especially, is that
they were doing a lot of movies, not plays.
They were doing like, in the pilot, they were doing
True Romance and maybe there's a scene from Magnolia,
and that is so funny to me that,
it's like an LA acting class
doing mid 2000s and '90s movies
is so funny to me.
So something like, something really,
doing like Boogie Nights as a play.
- [Marya] Amazing, - Oh my god.
- [Marya] would love that. - In fact,
I'm gonna pitch that to Bill right now, when we're done.
(both laugh)
- Excellent, excellent.
Okay, so my last question to you,
we would love to know if there was anything in the works,
any projects between you and your pals,
Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer.
Anything happening?
- Yeah (laughs).
- I'm so glad. - Yeah, yeah.
- I'm so glad. Can't say anymore?
- No but yes.
No but yes.
But and also, always and forever.
- Yes, of course. Wonderful.
Well that's very exciting and I'm super happy with that.
- Cool.
This is fun! - D'Arcy, thank you so much
for being here.
- Thank you for having me.
- And check out Barry
and the final season of The Good Place.