Brooklyn Nine Nine houses New York’s funniest… And also, all our hearts that they stole.
With the show’s NBC resurrection, I can’t wait until next year to see what season 7 has in store for us. But until then I’ll stick to re-bingeing it and reading these behind-the-scenes secrets.
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Chelsea Peretti and Andy Samberg grew up together.
Just like Gina and Jake, the two have been friends for decades.
Chelsea even had a childhood crush on Andy! Wonder if that’s canon for their characters too?
Stephanie Beatriz could’ve been Amy Santiago.
She and Melissa Fumero were considered for the role at the same time.
Fumero was cast and Beatriz was later invited back to audition for Rosa.
Cast Members had to prove their comedy chops.
The most intimidating part of the audition process was doing improv with Andy Samberg.
Being able to joke around with co-stars is important for a comedy series.
This seems to have worked out for the best.
Especially considering how many improvised moments made it into the final cut.
In fact, Captain Holt’s “hot damn” was improvised by Andre Braugher.
Rosa’s bisexuality storyline was partially autobiographical for Stephanie Beatriz.
Writer Dan Goor specifically sought out input from a bisexual person to write the arc.
And Stephanie just so happened to be the perfect candidate.
Gina Rodriguez gave up her vacation day to flirt with Rosa.
Rosa’s first female love interest was Uber driver Alicia played by Rodriguez.
She shot all her scenes in a single day and had to skip out on her vacation for it.
Melissa Fumero is a professional dancer.
Despite Amy Santiago’s legendary but terrible dance skills, Fumero herself danced professionally until her late 20s.
In fact, her first job was teaching a kids ballet class as a high schooler.
Terry Crews can really paint!
In fact, his first job was as a courtroom sketch artist .
In episode 4 of season 1, “M.E. Time,” had Terry fill in for a sick sketch artist. Art really does imitate life.
The cast may be more dangerous than they look.
All of them have firearm training.
As is standard procedure for police officers, they went through a training course about how to handle guns safely before they could begin their job.
Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool.
Jake’s catchphrase is something that Andy Samberg would say between takes to make his costars laugh.
And now, almost half the characters have repeated it.
Another thing started by Andy Samberg are the “title of your sex tape” jokes.
Samberg would constantly make these jokes on and off camera until the writers finally put it in the scripts.
The running gag is so funny that even Captain Holt tried one.
Andy Samberg is so seriously similar to his character.
During episode 5 of season 1, Boyle tells everyone about the “Transformer-like” granny he had sex with in his 20s.
Andy Samberg’s reaction is genuine as he couldn’t keep a straight face.
Gina Linetti was written specifically for Chelsea Peretti.
Dan Goor briefly worked with Peretti on the set of Parks and Rec and pretty much instantly wanted to write a character for her.
Andy Samberg loves *Die Hard* irl!
Turns out Jake’s obsession with it is partially inspired by Andy’s love for the movie.
The cast hope they’ll be able to get Bruce Willis on the show eventually.
There are plans to introduce all of Amy’s brothers.
We all know she has seven brothers, and but we’ve only met one so far.
The writers have plans to introduce all of them but we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed.
Stephanie Beatriz was teaching workout classes before being cast on the show.
Stephanie has revealed she was a fitness instructor — but thankfully, she was a lot more encouraging than Rosa would’ve been in the same spot!
Jake and Amy’s first kiss wasn’t as romantic as it looked.
Andy Samberg and Melissa Fumero have stated that to try to make kissing a friend less awkward, they had a competition to see who could have “the most stank breath” for the on-screen kiss.
The theme song wasn’t originally composed for the show.
In 2013, the show Community used a very familiar sounding music as the background for a character’s rap song. Looks like that tune has been floating around NBC for a while!
Kwazy Cupcakes became a real app.
The app that Gina and Holt get addicted to playing is a real one you can play on your own phone — although you might be better off just downloading Candy Crush instead!
Stephanie Beatriz is legally blind.
Most of her acting is done while she can’t see much of anything, since Rosa doesn’t wear glasses. Stephanie explained , “Like, I’m legally blind. Contacts really bother my eyes, so I can’t wear them very often or for long periods of time.”
The show hid one of its star’s real life pregnancies.
When Melissa Fumero was pregnant, rather than writing a pregnancy into Amy’s storyline, they simply hid it with camera angles and large bags. Oh, and they had Amy go undercover as a pregnant woman in the season three finale.
Is the voice during the closing credits familiar to you?
That’s because the voice that says “Fremulon” is none other than Nick Offerman, the actor who plays Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation .
There’s even more connection to *Parks and Rec* than that.
As Melissa Fumero revealed on her Instagram, sometimes the show uses old props and documents from Parks and Rec , which makes me believe that maybe these shows are set in the same universe. It could happen!
