In an interview with Newsday, Parks and Recreation stars Amy Poehler, Aziz Ansari and Rashida Jones talk about their characters and the mockumentary style of the show.
Amy calls her character a “dreamer”:
She is trying to get more power so she can do good with it. She is wildly optimistic. However, she is terrible at reading people. She has no sense, zero finesse, and she doesn’t really have those people skills that are good when you are working to get something done. She is optimistic, clumsy and kind of like every good comic character, completely deluded.
Aziz, on the other hand, sums up his character with one word: “jerk”:
He’s really smart, always making fun of Amy to her face, married, always hitting on women, particularly Rashida’s character, Ann. He thinks he’s supercool and dresses well. Ultimately, he’s this loser who works in Pawnee in the parks department.
Finally, Rashida discusses the show’s style and how they’ve been working to make Parks and Recreation look authentic and real:
We have been trying really hard to make it seem like a real documentary. The documentarian would pick up on things that maybe the subject was not that aware of, dead space and quiet moments where they don’t know they are being filmed.
