Joel McHale and Alison Brie have become used to pulling double duty on two different TV series on two different networks. McHale and Brie both co-star in "Community," the NBC sitcom about an eclectic study group of community-college students. McHale also hosts E! Entertainment Television’s "The Soup," in which McHale takes a weekly highlight of clips from TV shows and makes jokes about the shows. Brie can also be seen on AMC’s award-winning drama "Mad Men" as Trudy Campbell, whose ad-executive husband, Pete Campbell (played by Vincent Kartheiser), cheated on her and had a child with another woman.
In "Community," McHale is Jeff Winger, a wisecracking lawyer who is suspended from practicing law and is forced to go to community college after it is discovered that his law degree is bogus. Brie is Annie Edison, an uptight student at the community college. McHale and Brie recently chatted with reporters about "Community," including the series’ upcoming special episodes and what it was like to work with guest star Betty White. Brie and McHale also sounded off on what they think about competing CBS sitcom "The Big Bang Theory," which has moved to the same time slot (Thursdays at 8 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time) as "Community."
What kind of fan reaction/feedback did you get after your two characters kissed in the "Community" Season 1 finale?
Brie: Well, I thought it was interesting. The difference of the fan reaction sort of between from our first kiss after the eighth episode to our kiss to the finale, because after the first time we kissed, fans really embraced it. There was a lot of fans scripting online, there was a lot of chipping, I guess people kept [are] calling it, for our characters. So when I read the tally, I felt like, "Oh, people are going to be into this." There is definitely a fan base for it. And then after it happened there was a whole other scam that came forward that was like, that’s shocking. I can’t believe that.
McHale: That was exactly what I was going to say. But yes, it was something completely unexpected because at the beginning of the season, there was the love interest kind of between Troy and Annie, and then of course Jeff and Britta. But then after that debate kind of took off, there is literally a Web site called Bust the Head Jeff and Annie.
Brie: There’s another one that’s called Milady/Milord Jeff and Annie Community, and that’s actually the better one, I think. That’s the one that has stories.
McHale: I never thought it would take on a life of its own like this.
Brie: Me neither.
Who knows what Season 2’s first episode and the nose punch will do for all of that.
McHale: I’m very happy that they didn’t shy away from it and they just went head-on into the issues. I think there was even a line in the show that says, "Real life is not like TV. It’s messy." And so things weren’t kind of buttoned up … like on "Gilligan’s Island," when they’re all just kind of back on the island. The reset button wasn’t hit. No, I love "Gilligan’s Island," believe me. But come on, I mean, they had so many chances. Give me a break.
Joel, has anybody challenged you to a game of pool in shorts?
McHale: Only in West Hollywood. And yes, just a couple of red light districts.
Brie: Although we keep trying to get him to do it again on set but it was a one-time-only deal. "You have to find different ways to get me nude. You can’t pull the pool card again."
McHale: Yes, believe me, when I had to lean over that pool table and the entire cast plus 30 extras were looking at my ass, I thought, "Wow, this is not something I ever planned on."
Brie: They were very real reactions from the crowd, I think.
McHale: Yes, terror.
How do you balance "Community," "The Soup" and touring?
McHale: I don’t. I live a life where I’m constantly catching up on sleep and not seeing my family enough and I thought I could manage it all. But then I started shooting a movie — oh, I just dropped that in. And so that has kind of thrown everything. I was going to have enough time and now everything’s kind of out the door. My wife, she’s thrilled but not thrilled. Yes, she’s not really happy about it.
So you have definitely got a good problem, which is too much work.
McHale: It’s a good problem. I was raised Catholic so I think at any moment I’m going to be fired from everything.
There’s such great chemistry with everyone in the "Community" case. How do you continue to maintain that on screen?
Brie: I think it’s easy. It all comes really naturally. I think our chemistry on the set and our friendships with each other and we really lucked out for us getting this amazing cast that are kind of … We really click together and it’s just always been really easy … It just naturally drips over into scripted material and stuff like that.
McHale: I mean, if we had the free time I swear to you, people would be going out to dinner after every day of work just because we actually get along that well. Some people keep teasing us like, "Oh, it’s all going to come crashing down." But at this point, I don’t think it’s ever going to, I mean, it’s great. I’ll have these friends for life.
Brie: But it hasn’t yet and the truth is it’s funny to me that we have maybe a day-and-a-half off a week, and a lot of the time we still choose to spend it with each other, which is weird.
You both are active participants on Twitter. Why is Twitter such an important place for you and others on the show to not only promote but also interact with fans?
Brie: I think Twitter is such a cool thing because it really is a direct line to the fans and for fans back to you, and it’s such a new thing. I think in the past there’s been usually fan mail and that’s really good, but Twitter, it gets an immediate response.
McHale: Photo of Danny.
Brie: Right. But I mean, we can tweet photos from the set and people can comment on them and we read the fans’ comments, and then we can respond back with the fan and it’s that easy. It’s not like waiting for mail or planning a trip to Los Angeles so you can visit the set and hoping you see them … I think it’s an interesting way to get this immediate feedback after an episode … And it’s those people just telling you how they felt about it the very next day.
McHale: I don’t know if it increases ratings, but I’m sure that it must make our fans like us more or hopefully like the show more because they feel more connected. I know I feel more connected to the fans.
Joel, why do you think people keep tuning in to watch "Community"?
McHale: They’ve got nothing better to do.
Brie: Gee thanks, Joel.
McHale: I mean, I’m biased but it’s my personal goal to make it the best television show in the world. I think it’s a similar situation that a lot of people have been in, in schools where they’re put into a group or study group or a class with a bunch of people they did not expect to ever be with ... But then on top of it, I think Dan Harmon is a genius of a writer and a story creator. And I think that our stories are really compelling, and there’s enough balance of the shifting of the characters and standalone episodes that you don’t feel like, "Oh, I can’t not." You don’t feel like, "Oh, I am enslaved to this and if I miss one I’m lost." But it’s a balance.
Brie: And I also think that it’s the creative team behind our show is so great at making the characters in the storylines relatable like Joel was saying, but at the same time really taking it to places that are so different from anything else that’s going on in television right now. When you think of the comedy it’s about funny people and it’s about funny practices. But our writer is able to make those episodes and keep departure from anything you might have seen like on.
McHale: Like the paintball episode, chicken fingers or even the Halloween episode where you - this is not something that would typically happen to people at a community college, where the whole school was turned upside down and it’s every man for themselves trying to shoot each other with paintballs. I don’t think any other show has [it]. I think the closest thing to it may be with "Pushing Daisies" a couple years ago, which was kind of a fantastical world. But ours is based in reality and fantastical things happen. I liken it to like something like "Hot Fuzz" or "Shaun of the Dead," where the characters are all very real. They’re not they’re not ridiculous but what’s happening around them is kind of fantastic.
Like Ken Jeong was a Spanish teacher, who it turns out doesn’t have enough credits to be the teacher and enrolls in the school.
McHale: Or the new currency of the school becomes chicken fingers. I mean, where have you ever heard that before?
So we’ve heard of so many like scenes, episodes: We’ve heard of the Apollo. We’ve heard the Halloween zombie episode, the stop-motion Christmas episode. Is there one that you think already is going to have the resonance of the paintball episode from last season? Or is there one that’s still to come that we haven’t heard of that you think will have that resonance?
McHale: For me, I think it’s either going to be our Apollo 13 episode or a zombie episode at this point. But I actually haven’t seen any of them yet, so I only say that because they’re both kind of as big as paintball. So those could, but I’m not sure.
Brie: Well, I do have to say that as soon as I found out about our Christmas episode being stop-motion animated, I just got chills and more important I feel like the better way to describe it was I’m just so in love with our show … I just think when we started this show we all got involved in the pilot because our writing was so good and the characters are so interesting.
The Christmas episode news is probably the newest episode we’ve all heard about. Will your characters be in Claymation, sort of like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?
McHale: I believe so. None of us has seen the renderings yet. We know it’s going to be stop-motion and that’s about it. I don’t even know what our characters will look like yet.
Brie: I don’t think they’ve actually made them yet.
McHale: Yes. We’ve already made the dialogue for it because it takes a long time to make it, apparently.
Brie: So we’ve recorded everything, but they haven’t started making our little puppets or whatever yet.
So how close are we to having like figurines of you on the market then, after they’ve created your Claymation versions?
McHale: Oh, they’ll start making millions of those as soon as they get the renderings because they know they will be the next Cabbage Patch doll or Tickle Me Elmo combined.
Brie: I’ll buy a hundred of them. We’ll sell probably a hundred of them.
McHale: Yes, but the Chevy Chase doll’s going to be amazing. It comes with real napping skills.
Brie: You pull a string and just ...
McHale: He just goes right to sleep.
What’s it like for you two as actors to be in a series that can attract such guest stars as Betty White, Rob Corddry and Drew Carey?
Brie: It’s so awesome. I have to say I think out of those three I was the most excited to work with Rob Corddry. He was so great. I was such a fan of his and everyone made fun of me. OK, not everyone but Yvette [Nicole Brown, who plays Shirley Bennett in "Community"] made fun of me. She was like, "You’re so excited about Rob Corddry, like you’ve got all these other amazing people here." I was like, "Guys, just wait. You’ll see the comic genius of Rob Corddry." And he was awesome.
McHale: He was awesome. He’s so funny.
Brie: He’s like Jim Rash in that he takes anything and just turns it into a comedy. Any line becomes...
McHale: Jim Rash is the dean, who is like Rumpelstiltskin and can spin comedy out of anything. And that’s how Rob is. He’s amazing. And with Betty White, I know that she is very picky. And the fact that she picked our show, I was like, "I can’t imagine she watches it, but this is great." And she was absolutely delightful. It was like having the queen on the set and it was just kind of like it was just this honor. So I can tell my grandkids I worked with Betty White. And then Drew Carey. Drew Carey came on with 80 pounds less Drew. It was 80 pounds less of him and I said, "We paid for the full -sized Drew Carey."
Brie: Just as much charm as ever though.
McHale: So funny.
How long will Jeff stay at community college before he can go back to practicing law? Is there an end date for him to be there?
McHale: Well, you have to get a degree … Either you can do them, I don’t know, in three years or horrible things can happen and it will take seven. So I don’t know.
Brie: Keep your fingers crossed for seven.
McHale: Yes, maybe a brain injury will slow me down. But I don’t know. We see about one to two scripts ahead. So sometimes I’ll ask Dan but there’s a side of me, I mean, I look forward to our table reads like a boy does Christmas. So I don’t know exactly what will happen. I don’t know the grand plan yet if the show is successful I’m sure they’ll find all sorts of ways to keep everyone in school.
Would that apply to the students too? Can they just be like lifetime students?
McHale: Yes.
Brie: I mean, I think it’s like Joel said. We don’t really know what’s going to happen and we don’t know the master plan. But I would imagine our writers are talented and creative enough to figure out ways around that should our show continue to be a success.
What would the Joel McHale think of Jeff’s love life? What would he say about it?
McHale: Unless Jeff had a reality show it would be like well, I hope you don’t get too many diseases. But no, if he had his own reality show like Ochocinco or something or Flavor Flav, he’d probably make fun of him. Surely Jeff would never do that though.
How well do you get all of the movie references that Dan puts in the writing?
Brie: I think that Joel gets more of them than I get.
McHale: I think Danny gets more than anybody.
Brie: Danny loves research so he doesn’t get them all at first but by the time we shoot it he knows what’s going on. I find that I’ll get to set and I’ll still be finding out what movie we’re referencing. Even when I try to Google and find stuff in advance, there’s still some that escape me.
McHale: Yes, sometimes it’ll be like really, we’re going to reference "The Morning After" with Jane Fonda? OK, great.
You put those on your Netflix gear after you hear about them?
McHale: Oh, like we have time to watch movies.
Brie: Yes, it’s more like we YouTube the clips from them.
Alison, you have a lot of adoring male fans out there now. What does that do for your confidence and appreciation?
Brie: I think we can probably keep this about at the same level. It’s important to remember that these people are falling in love with a character or a persona and realize it’s just a little bit different. I still wake up looking a certain way and then put makeup on, do whatever so ...
McHale: She looks awesome all the time.
Brie: All right, it makes us feel great. No, it’s definitely fantastic to have a lot of support and it does. I’m very thankful for it.
McHale: And hopefully, they will tell other men to watch and increase our ratings, so if you’re reading this, men who adore Alison, tell other men.
Brie: There might be a nipple slip in an upcoming episode.
McHale: From Señor Chang. Yes, from Ken Jeong. You’ll see Ken Jeong’s nipple.
Brie: Ken Jeong’s nipple slip. Sorry.
So you guys keep mentioning the writing and the talent of Dan Harmon, and he is great, but there’s so much improvisational comedy background between all of you guys. Are there any aspects that weren’t on the original pages that you guys bring to the show?
McHale: Well, I think when you’ve got someone like Donald Glover and Danny Pudi on set, it’s pretty unstoppable. And then you’ve got Jim Rash and Ken Jeong. Jim Rash teaches and has been at Groundlings for years. And so you do have this crazy group of folks that can nail it, but Dan’s writing is so good we do it the way it’s written, and then if something else is happening, then there’ll usually be a chance to improvise. And Dan’s great because he’ll be like, "Yes, good, do that." He’s very liberal about how it comes out.
Brie: Again, I think our directors are pretty flexible to kind of give us room to just add some physical aspects … I’ll speak on behalf of all the women, I must say that a lot of the stuff that we add will be after the fact or will be physical … or we’re kind of embellishing, take the words on the page and adding our own spin or adding some physical comedy or ...
McHale: What was that thing you did, Alison, when you were the train leaving the station?
Brie: The gravy train leaving the station?
McHale: Yes.
Brie: From last season it was a move and the line was so this gravy train is going to leave the station and in rehearsal I did this whole big like scream fit where I like turned into a train and the director was like, "Don’t do that." But it made it in the final episode. I was so excited.
McHale: It was really funny.
You two have so many dramatic aspects of your background. Alison do you ever bring your "Mad Men" character Trudy Campbell to the set by accident?
Brie: Absolutely not. I don’t ever bring Trudy. I think that a big part of Trudy is her wardrobe, and the clothes that we wear on "Mad Men" are so amazing and of the period, that that’s part of my getting into character over on that set. And over here, Annie’s clothes are different and the guys on the set are so different. But I will say that I think I apply some of the concepts behind dramatic acting that I use over on "Mad Men" over here. In fact, last season I think I was trying more on the set of "Community." My character was trying harder than my character was on the drama that I also work on.
McHale: And I tried more on "The Soup" than I tried on "Community."
You talked about what a great experience it was working with Betty White. Who do you think had the best chemistry with Betty White on set?
McHale: Well, I had the most sex scenes with her.
Brie: It’s true. I think she and Joel really heated up the set.
McHale: Yes, I think she felt body heat with … Who she had the best chemistry with? Yes, it’s very similar to Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke [in the erotically charged movie "9 1/2 Weeks"]. But the scenes were definitely more graphic in "Community." Which did she have great chemistry with?
Brie: I thought that you and Bet really clicked and had some moments. Even off camera I think everything sort of clicked.
McHale: Yes, my wife came on set and met her and fell in love with her.
Brie: You couldn’t not fall in love with her. She’s the sweetest woman in the world.
McHale: Yes. She needs to write a book on — she is the best example — how to operate on a set. She’s just so professional and so sweet, so polite.
Brie: And is cool to everyone.
McHale: Everyone and just nailed her lines. She’s 88 and she just is great. Really funny.
So she lived up to everyone’s expectations?
McHale: Yes.
Brie: Absolutely.
McHale: Exceeded.
Are there any other interesting romantic pairings that we can look forward to this season that you can reveal?
McHale: No, not that we can reveal.
Brie: I don’t think we can say anything and I don’t know that we even actually know of any. Sometimes the writers will like float some things around, but I don’t know if they’re telling us the truth anyway. You have to just tune in.
Alison, on "Mad Men," who you think would make a better long-term love interest: Pete Campbell or Jeff Winger?
Brie: Wow, I would have to say Jeff Winger because ...
McHale: But on her "Mad Men" call …
Brie: I’ll say Pete Campbell. No, I think Jeff Winger because we have yet to see him as a long-term love interest. So there’s potential there still. However, we’ve seen Pete Campbell and how he is as a long-term love interest, and he’s terrible. He’s a terrible husband. If you consider all the points, I think Jeff actually wouldn’t be as philandering. I think when he has a girlfriend, he’s faithful.
McHale: Yes. He’s only had one, kind of.
Brie: Yes, but he didn’t cheat on her.
McHale: True, he didn’t. He didn’t.
Would you be able to compare Jeff Winger or Joel McHale as a long-term love interest?
McHale: Well, I’m going to go ...
Brie: I would have to say that Joel McHale would be a better long-term love interest ...
McHale: But it’s very difficult since he’s married.
Brie: Well, before it would be that ...
McHale: Wait. So what, Joel McHale getting together with Annie, the character?
Brie: I think for his wife he’s proved to be a better long-term love interest in real life. He’s a stand-up guy. He’s not as much of a jerk as Jeff, and he’s got himself figured out. He’s a little more successful.
McHale: Yes, but I go crazy when I drink the firewater.
Brie: He doesn’t go to community college.
McHale: Yes, I graduated from a state school. Deal with that.
You mentioned Dan Harmon a few times. What’s it’s like to work with him? You’ve mentioned some of the writers coming and bringing things by to you. Do you have any kind of input what happens with Jeff and Annie? Maybe you could illuminate us a little bit.
McHale: As far as like us putting input into the story or something, no, not at all. I trust Dan implicitly. I would follow him into any battle because the things they come up with every week is so fantastic. And so I don’t know where it’s going and I’m always excited to be - what we read the next week at the table read.
Brie: As opposed to it being like us coming to the writers and going, "I have an idea for an episode," or anything like that. What more often happens is that the writers will come to us and say, "I don’t know." Like last year, I know they came to me and they were like, "So and so said you had a really funny story about this gay guy." And then I told them the story and then it was in the next episode. And this year, I got an email from Dan like, "Hey, let me know some stuff about how you feel about the holidays." And that stuff might go out.
So I do think that the writers pay attention to who we are and our sense of person and also what we’re capable of and just things that we mention offhandedly that are funny or interesting. And they try to incorporate those things as much as possible just to keep things coming from a real place. And as far as Joel, I’m always trying to bribe the writers for what’s coming up in the next episodes. But it changes so often that even when they’ll tell you stuff it might change. It’s tough to get; it might never happen.
Jeff is a defrocked lawyer at this point, but he should have had enough cash there that we would spot a bottle of the Macallan 18 in the background somewhere in one of his scenes. Is that a possibility?
McHale: Definitely I hope so, because a lot of the time those are gifts and you can hold on to those bottles for a long time. And you don’t want to drink a ton of it. You just want a little dram of it, so yes, I’m hoping the Macallan 30 even shows up.
Brie: We’re all big fans of Macallan.
McHale: Yes, we love the scotch. We love Scotland, really.
Brie: I’m Scottish.
Joel, your Jeff character has pretty much kissed about every female character on "Community" by now. Will Shirley be next?
McHale: Well, you’ll have to watch and see.
Joel, do we find Jeff Winger having to choose between Annie and Britta later? Or is he going to be finding himself a little bit? If you need help in making your decision, check out this month’s Men’s Health. Alison has some pictures there that...
McHale: What? What are you talking about? She was in a magazine? Oh. Alison? Yes. No, we’ve seen the magazine.
Brie: I was, and thank you for bringing that up.
McHale: Alison has wallpapered her trailer with the photos.
Brie: We’re looking at one right now.
McHale: Yes, we’re just flipping through it.
Alison, who are you rooting for to get Jeff?
Brie: It’s a tough one. I kind of chose not to take sides in the Annie versus Britta thing. I don’t know. I feel like they’re totally gone with those relationships.
McHale: Yes, maybe Jeff has an accident and accidentally castrates himself and has to keep it a secret for years, while climbing a fence and it caught him.
Joel, what clip from "Community" would you probably choose to make fun of on "The Soup," Joel?
McHale: Well, last year, I think we might have just teased the pool episode where I was off and on, half-naked with a pool stick.
Brie: You could do the Annie and Britta sort-of fight scene.
McHale: Yes, there’s a fight scene … I promoted the heck out of it. But yes, maybe the Annie and Britta fight.
Or you and Betty White would be a good one too.
McHale: Yes, that’d be another one. Yes.
Do you find yourself focusing more on the group dynamic of your characters than your individual characters? And how much of that do you play on to the show?
McHale: For me, it’s a case-by-case thing. It depends on the episode and if we’re spending a lot of time with the group then I tend to kind of focus on that dynamic. And then if my character’s having to take a little journey then I definitely focus on what he wants and what he’s up to. I mean, I always think about what Jeff would want in every situation. But yes, it changes from script to script for me.
Brie: I think the characters all have a very sadistic point of view so when we’re in any situation, yes. I guess like Joel is saying we’re always going to take into account what our personal character is thinking or feeling about that. And often I think with Annie because she sometimes can be like the antagonistic character in certain situations, it does sort of seem to be her versus the group at times. And I think a lot of different characters have that too. I guess Jeff, a lot of times it’s him versus the group. So when it’s that way for Annie I definitely think a lot about what’s going on with her. But it all relates back to how they relate with each other.
There’s a lot of fun specials coming up for "Community." Are any things that you would like the show to do, like a certain theme or a direction you want it to go?
McHale: I’d like them to recreate an Akira Kurosawa movie, "The Seven Samurai."
Brie: I don’t know. I don’t because I just filmed a little bit for "Scream 4." Just drop that in there. And I thought, "Oh, it would be great if we did some sort of horror movie homage thing." And then, we kind of just did it.
McHale: Yes, the zombie.
Brie: But we did the zombie movie thing instead which was fine. I’m in that too …
McHale: I think maybe [David] Cronenberg, I’m not sure.
How would you want to see your characters develop over the show?
Brie: I think that Annie still has a lot of maturing to do. I enjoy watching Annie kind of go through different stages and meeting different guys and have different fads, but she’s such a malleable character that I would just like to see new things introduced that she can try, because anything Annie tries she really goes for it. She’s all gung-ho about anything that she gets involved with, so just like when she dated John and she was supposed to be in sort of a hippie phase.
I think it would be funny to see her with any different type of guy or get into any different kind of thing where she went full-fledged into it, and then you see like the plastic Annie, or I don’t know, Shakespearean-phase Annie. That’s weird. That’s not a thing.
McHale: Jeff was very used to a lifestyle that he had as a lawyer, and last year was some of the undoing of that. And I think it’s just going to be a long, long road to making him not the most selfish guy in the world.
And how long is that road?
McHale: Twelve years.
Brie: Fingers crossed.
McHale: It’s going to go as long as "Law & Order" did.
So what should have been your favorite episode to film so far?
McHale: For me, it was paintball. I mean, that was like a dream come true.
What is your favorite episode of Season 2 so far?
McHale: Oh, this season. Boy, zombies was really fun. Space dust, Apollo 13 was really fun too.
Brie: I think our zombie episode was the most fun for me so far. I got to do my own stunts so get ready for that. It was fun. It was really fun. I always love the Halloween episodes because it’s fun to see, because I’m easily impressed and it’s fun to see everyone with the silly costumes and being scary.
Which of the other "Community" characters would you want to play if you could?
McHale: I look at what Jim Rash does every week as a dean, and it just blows me away.
Brie: But I think what makes it great are the people who play them. I feel like I wouldn’t want to switch with anyone because everyone is so perfectly cast. Jim Rash is so great as the dean. Danny Pudi is so great as Abed, like there’s no other character that I would want to play.
McHale: Yes, I’d want to play Annie. Yes, I think I could pull that off.
Brie: We’ll trade. Could you see an episode where we play each other’s character?
McHale: We could try that.
In the U.S., "The Big Bang Theory" is on at the same time as "Community" is on Thursdays. What do you have to say to your competitors?
McHale: What do we say to them?
Brie: "Hey guys."
McHale: "Hey, how are you?"
Brie: We’re a friendly cast. We’ve met our competitors.
McHale: Many times, yes. I’ve gotten to know Simon [Helberg] a little bit. Very, very good guy. We did a big media thing about a month ago, two months ago. But very nice guy, and they will definitely obviously be competition. And all we have control over is coming to work every day and doing the best we can at fulfilling these characters in the stories and that’s about all we have control of.
Brie: I’m just excited that there’s a lot of buzz going on about Thursday-night comedies.
Is there ever a danger in being too specific with that kind of the pop culture references? Are you concerned that the show might become dated by going too far with that stuff?
Brie: Well, I was going to say this isn’t much about dating the show, but I was just going to say that I think the writers are good at sprinkling in a variety of references, but some that already date back 20 years and some that are current. So there’s kind of a good mix going on already in terms of not locking us into right now. It’s like we’re referencing "Star Trek," and some things that are timeless "The Godfather." And then sure, there are other things that are very current like Twitter and things like that which you kind of couldn’t not reference because they’re such a big part of people’s lives today — or at least, a pop-culture thing.
McHale: Yes and I think it’s like sometimes like a sense in where the jokes are moving so fast that if you don’t get one you’re going to probably get the next one.
Do you have any dream guests that you’d like to see coming up on to the show, like other stars?
McHale: Yes, I would like to have Bono be our music teacher. If Bono could be the music teacher I’d be totally into that.
Brie: I wish Jason Bateman would come on the show. I love Jason Bateman. He’s so funny.
McHale: I think Paul McCartney should try to come on. That’d be great.
Brie: Oh, what if Paul Rudd came on the show?
McHale: Yes, that’d be all right.
Brie: That would be fun.
McHale: I think Mick Jagger would do well on our show. Bruce Springsteen.
Brie: Or what about Bruce Willis?
McHale: Yes, Johnny Depp. Reese Witherspoon would be all right.
Brie: I was serious about the Jason Bateman one.
McHale: I was serious about Bono.
Brie: So yes, ninjas.
McHale: Look, it’s either Jason Bateman or Bono. Let’s let the reporter decide.
Can you see more students joining the study group?
McHale: I don’t know. That would sure make the days that much longer.
Brie: It’s true. We already have a lot of people to cover.
McHale: I don’t know. Boy, I haven’t thought about that.
Brie: I don’t know. We tried last year in the Jack Black episode. The introduction of a new student to our group and it kind of rocked the group. I think that the group does well. We kind of have all our components set. So I don’t know if other people are going to try to get into the study group. But I feel like we can certainly encounter some other students, although any of these people that we just named could be lay students. That’s the greatest thing about the community college thing is that a lay student is that it doesn’t put them into a spot.
A lot of times with ensemble comedies there will be the people who get picked on all the time. Can you talk about how that helps keep it fresh for you?
McHale: Yes, I think you’re right. I mean, and I think like the show "Cheers," any of those people could be the butt of jokes.
Brie: The same thing with "Friends" or something like that.
McHale: Yes, or even "M*A*S*H," they all are targets and they all are weapons to hit those targets. I never even had thought about that. Yes, and so, I mean, that’s why Dan is such a brilliant creator of the show. I mean, he said he wanted to make a show that his uncle in Wisconsin would watch. And so I think like real life those everyone in life has the strengths and weaknesses and people could be both.
Brie: I think that a big part of comedy is being made fun of and it is looking silly or looking stupid. And it’s great that we all get a chance to do that. Everyone gets a chance to be funny, in terms of taking turns playing the straight man. Nobody’s just the straight man all the time. We all get to see the comic relief as well.
Even Pierce got a couple of moments …
McHale: Yes, it’s a moving target. You never know when it will show up. It’s always actually very poignant when he does make a really good, when Pierce says something really cool.
Lauren Stamile is on "The Event." Is she coming back to "Community"?
McHale: We haven’t seen Slater in any scripts yet but I already know that some characters are coming back that we haven’t seen in a while from last year. So I would not put it past Dan and the writers to bring her back. She was absolutely tremendous on the show and such a great actor.
Brie: And I’m looking forward to watching her on "The Event." I got it set on my Tivo.
McHale: There you go.
Brie: And then I sang a song about it just now. It’s still happening.
McHale: I don’t know. We’ll have to think of some lyrics of some song, , something neat to what she just said so you can get the full effect.
Brie: Joel, I don’t know how you’re going to print that gold.
Can you divulge who’s coming back that already or at least give like one name?
McHale: Yes, the cast of "The Event" is coming back. They will all be on. No, the guy from "[Beginner] Pottery" last year.
Brie: John Oliver’s back.
McHale: Oh, John Oliver’s back. No, but I think I can say Greg, I can’t remember his last name. He’s great.
Brie: Well his character’s name is Rich.
McHale: His character’s name is Rich. Rich will probably be back.
Alison, can you talk a little bit about your role in the "Scream 4" movie?
Brie: I work for Neve Campbell’s character, like her assistant. And it’s sort of like Annie in five to 10 years, quite a little bit bitchy, but she’s definitely a Type A personality, a very much a go-getter. She’s a hard worker.
For more info: "Community" website
RELATED LINKS ON EXAMINER.COM:
Interview with Joel McHale for "Community," September 2009
Interview with Katharine McPhee for "Community"
Interview with Joel McHale for the 2011 Spirit Awards
Interview with Alison Brie for "Scream 4"
Interview with Joel McHale for "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D"
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