Knope Knows

From Fancast:

What was the genesis of “Woman of the Year”?
We at first just thought it’d be funny if Ron won an award for work Leslie had done. Then one of the writers pitched that it should be from a feminist organization, as a double whammy. The thing that made us laugh the hardest was picturing Ron’s face with his big mustache on a plaque that says “Woman Of The Year.” I think we’re making T-shirts with that design on them.

Nick told me he’d love to have his wife Megan Mullally guest-star eight times a season. Will she be returning anytime soon?
Almost immediately after that [November 5th] episode we started trying to get her back, but she’s doing a play in New York right now. We’d love to have her back [as Tammy]. She was super funny.

One thing you seem to have stumbled upon is the “Will they, won’t they?” thing with Andy (Chris Pratt) and April (Aubrey Plaza). Was that in your original plan?
It really wasn’t. That came from a moment in the last episode of Season 1: Andy was talking about his band, and we saw that April was staring at him a bit intensely. We thought: Maybe there’s something there? Then as soon as we saw footage of their B-story in “Hunting Trip,” which was so fun to shoot and the two of them were so fun together, we were like, “This is our romantic intrigue for the rest of the year.”

We’re going to be meeting April’s family soon. Any fun casting there?
It’s not stunt casting; we just found two really good actors that we like [as her parents]. We also got a funny girl to play the sister. All you had to do for that entire audition was roll your eyes. We then chose the one who looked the most like Aubrey.

Tell me about the episode airing later this season that Amy Poehler wrote.
It’s the third-to-last one of the year, and the premise is that Leslie is volunteering to cohost a cable access telethon for charity, and her shift is from 2 to 6 in the morning. It’s all about her trying to get through the wee hours of the morning.

To read the full Q&A, follow the link below!

Link: ‘Parks & Rec’ Boss Shares Secrets Behind Sophomore Surge

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