let’s build a park
? NBC/Getty Images
PLAYING LESLIE KNOPE IS AS FUN AS IT LOOKS. I get to be the lead on a show I would actually watch. I’ve met friends whom I will treasure forever. I am allowed on a weekly basis to both crack jokes and cry. It’s been hard to wrangle this chapter because I still feel too close to the job to step away and share it all with you. When this book goes to print we will be finishing our seventh and last season, and shooting our 125th show. My nose is still pressed up against the painting and I have little perspective. Because of this, I am going to do what I have been doing for the past six years, which is write something and ask Parks and Recreation creator Mike Schur to make it better. Let’s continue . . .
Every acting job feels like the end of the road. If you’re lucky, you get to peek at what is around the corner. It’s a privilege if a clear path is laid out that will take you to another work environment. It’s rare that someone builds a bridge to the next great thing. After Saturday Night Live my bridge was Michael Schur. The next great thing was Parks and Recreation.1
1 Note from Mike: My grandmother wanted me to be an engineer; being called a “bridge” is the closest I will ever get, and so I thank you.
Mike and I were friends and coworkers at Saturday Night Live. He was a writer before I got there and ran “Weekend Update” during the Tina Fey/Jimmy Fallon years. Mike is a whip-smart Harvard grad who manages to be as compassionate as he is funny. He is a lover of justice, the underdog, and the good fight. Never is this demonstrated more than in his love for the Boston Red Sox. I watched the Red Sox win the World Series with Mike and Seth Meyers and other Boston writers,2 and Mike even turned all those e-mails into a book.3 On the last page, Mike transcribed a phone message from his therapist4 congratulating him on the Red Sox win.
2 Note from Mike: We didn’t technically watch together—you were in New York and I was in L.A.—but you did call me after every game and scream things like “ORTIIIIIIIIIIIZ” into my voice mail.
3 Note from Mike: Somebody Did Something: The Story of the 2004 Boston Red Sox. It was every e-mail, text, and phone message our friends had sent me about the Red Sox from September 2003 to December 2004. I had it printed and bound and gave it out to my friends as a holiday gift. It totally made Seth Meyers cry.
4 Note from Mike: Whom I had not spoken with in two years, but who knew how important the victory would’ve been to me.
Mike also knows all of the lyrics to “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-A-Lot. I know this because he sang them into his cell phone while pretending to take a call on the dance floor at my wedding.5 Needless to say, he has a lot of skills.6
5 Note from Mike: Currently enjoying the fact that this took place before every human in the world had an HD video camera in their pocket.
6 Note from Mike: Two, really: compiling e-mails and “Baby Got Back”–related dance bits.
Before Mike left SNL, he, Seth, and I sat in his office and watched the brilliant Christmas finale of Ricky Gervais’s UK version of The Office. We all wept in our hoodies.7 I don’t remember if Mike had already signed on to join producer Greg Daniels on the American reboot at that point.8 I remember thinking that an American version of The Office was a terrible idea.9 Then I heard that Greg Daniels, Mike Schur, and Steve Carell were involved and still thought it was dicey. Then I saw it and realized it was amazing.
7 Note from Mike: The moment Dawn returned to the office and kissed Tim I jumped up out of my chair and involuntarily thrust my hands in the air, like my team had won the Super Bowl. Poehler clapped and cheered. Everyone in the room had a cathartic moment of pure joy. I remember thinking later that I wanted to write something someday that would make people feel that good. Many of the romantic and emotional story lines on Parks and Rec have been my attempt—my and the other writers’ attempt, I should say—to reach that bar.
8 Note from Mike: I had not.
9 Note from Mike: So did I. So did everyone, except, thank God, Greg Daniels.
In early 2008, Mike and Greg called me to ask if I’d be interested in working on a show they were creating once I left SNL. Greg now had a deal with NBC to develop a new series, rumored to be an Office spinoff, and had asked Mike to do it with him. We talked vaguely about ideas, but mostly just about how fun it would be to do something together. Greg’s deal meant that the new show had been ordered straight to series with a thirteen-episode guarantee. Most shows start by making a pilot episode. When the pilot is done, a group of mysterious people gather in a room and weigh its merits, consult various oracles, and then send white papal smoke out of the holy chimney when it is decided it will become a series. Being ordered straight to series was great news because it meant we were able to skip that mysterious and painful pilot process, but on top of that, the first episode was slated to air after the Super Bowl, TV’s most coveted slot. It was a remarkable and rare opportunity, a home-run decision for any actor. Then I got knocked up and figured the whole thing was a bust.
Mike and Greg started working on what would become Parks and Recreation and a few months later decided to ignore my “delicate condition” and pitch me the idea anyway.10 Mike called me as he stood on the balcony of his house chain-smoking, a detail he has asked me to not put in my book.11 He told me about a character he and Greg had created called Leslie Knope. She was an extremely low-level Parks and Recreation Department employee who had big dreams. She was inspired by the “Yes We Can” spirit of Obama’s recent election. She believed that it only took one person to make a difference. She wanted to effect change, she wanted to someday be president, but most importantly, she wanted to turn an empty lot in her town into a park.12, 13
10 Note from Mike: By this point, with the idea pretty fleshed out, Greg’s and my general feeling was: Poehler or bust, pregnancy be damned.
11 Note from Mike: Damn it, Poehler.
12 Note from Mike: It’s so interesting to think about it this way, now, as we near the end—it was, at the beginning, really that simple: a woman who wanted to make something out of nothing.
13 Note from Mike annotating previous note: No, I’m not crying. Shut up.
The show was going to be shot in the single-camera documentary style that was working so well for The Office. At this point I had no experience with this documentary/mockumentary-style format. Before SNL, I had done a few multicamera shows as a guest star or featured regular. On “multicam” shows, you shoot with three or four cameras in front of a studio audience, and you can hear people laughing—like Cheers or Seinfeld. Sometimes you shoot things without an audience, but at least once a week you have a “tape night” where an audience comes in and actors feed off the energy and laughs. My first television job was a tiny part in an episode of Spin City—which was a multicam show—in 1996. I didn’t meet Michael J. Fox, but Richard Kind was kind. Two years later I had a part on a show called Sick in the Head, a pre–Freaks and Geeks Judd Apatow–produced pilot starring David Krumholtz, Kevin Corrigan, Andrea Martin, and Austin Pendleton. It was not picked up to series. The pilot process can be rough going.
I had a little more experience in shows that shot single-camera style. Single camera usually means using one camera and shooting each side of the scene separately—in other words, if two people are talking, you shoot over one of their shoulders and do a bunch of takes where only the person on camera is really performing. Then you stop, they adjust all the lights, and the cameras turn around and shoot the other person. It’s extremely tedious and slow. It means long hours and lighting setups, and it feels like shooting a traditional movie. Years before, I had worked on a single-camera pilot called North Hollywood, which was also not picked up to series. Though looking back, it made sense that the show didn’t go—it starred a bunch of losers named Kevin Hart, Jason Segel, and January Jones and was produced by the obviously talentless Judd Apatow. That’s right. I am the common denominator in two failed Judd Apatow projects. Judd Apatow with me: zero dollars. Judd Apatow without me: two hundred trillion dollars.14
14 Note from Mike: Roughly.
Mike and Greg explained their idea for a new mockumentary style. It seemed like a hybrid of Spinal Tap, the British The Office, and something entirely original. Scenes would be blocked and rehearsed almost like a play, with entire scenes performed top to bottom many times. Two or three cameras would find the action and just follow the actors as they moved around. Actors often didn’t know when they were on camera or where the cameras were. “Spy shots” lent a sense of intimacy to moments. Actors were allowed to look into the camera to show their reactions to things and spoke directly to the camera with “talking heads,” used to further the story or display another side of what a character was feeling.15, 16 Camera operators were very close or very far away but a dynamic part of the action. We would shoot eight or nine pages in a twelve-hour day, which is about double what one shoots on a feature film. There were very few makeup touch-ups or lighting adjustments.17 Improvising was encouraged and accommodated, and if you tried something new the camera could swing and catch it.
15 Note from Mike: Characters on mockumentary shows look at the camera for different reasons. For Michael Scott, it would be because he had just done something humiliating and then suddenly remembered that there were cameras there—his looks were often conveying: “Uh-oh.” Ben Wyatt (like Jim Halpert from The Office) often looks to camera as a plea, like “Can you believe what I have to deal with?” Andy Dwyer looks to camera like it’s his best friend and he wants to share how awesome something is. And so on. My point is that when we created the character of Leslie, we imagined that her relationship to the camera was one of guarded caution—she had political aspirations, and people with political aspirations both (a) like being on camera but are also (b) acutely aware that one slipup or inappropriate recorded moment can ruin their careers. In the beginning, Leslie had that cautious relationship with the cameras, but as time went on, Amy just kind of stopped looking at them. Amy and I never really discussed this, nor was it a conscious decision on the part of the writing staff—it just kind of stopped happening. I thought about why it was happening toward the end of season 2, and I realized that Leslie had evolved into a character for whom there was no difference in her private and public thoughts, motives, or feelings. Amy had made her into a completely consistent, hearton-her-sleeve character who was not embarrassed or ashamed by anything she ever said or did in any scenario. I remember thinking that was great, and from that moment on I used that as a North Star for writing Leslie—it became a mission statement that we would never write a story that involved her being ashamed of how she felt. It’s a pretty badass character trait, I think, and it only works because of the supreme sincerity of the actress who embodies it. (Don’t cut that part, Amy. I know you want to, because it seems braggy or something to have someone else’s notes be about how awesome you are, but don’t cut it, because it’s true, and everyone else can just deal with it.)
16 Note from Amy: You’re the boss.
17 Note from Mike: We told our excellent crew in the first week of shooting that we would be asking them to do things that would ordinarily get them fired. We told the makeup artists and hairstylists not to rush onto the set to fix minor problems. We told the director of photography and the grips and electricians to light the scenes as quickly as they could and not to worry about perfect shadow removal and things like that. The whole point of this style is to maximize the amount of time actors are in front of the camera, acting. This only works if you have a cast full of people who are willing to sacrifice Hollywood magic for maximal comedy—who are, in short, not vain, and who would rather be funny than look flawless and perfect. This is one of my favorite things about the entire cast—every single one of them was happy to make that deal.
Mike told me that once I shot a show like this, I would never want to shoot a TV show any other way again. This has proven correct. He sent me the script and it took me five minutes to realize Leslie Knope was the best character ever written for me.18 My motto has always been “Do work that you are proud of with your talented friends.” My other motto is “I need to keep working or the government will seize my boat.” Both of these things helped me say “yes please.”
18 Note from Mike: I think the best character ever written for you is Jeff Goldblum’s part in Independence Day. Or maybe Fagin in Oliver! Is this helping?
I had a long discussion with my husband, Will, and I will be forever grateful that he agreed to move our family out to Los Angeles to allow me to give this show a try. We shot six episodes in a row instead of the usual method: shooting a pilot, then spending a month editing it, then thinking about stuff for a few months, then the oracle, then writing and shooting the next episodes months later. Also, due to the timing of my pregnancy, we became probably the only show to ever willingly give up the coveted post–Super Bowl slot. Before we started shooting, I was feeling dumpy and exhausted, overwhelmed and sad. I was still grieving not being at SNL and recovering from my rough delivery. And I was lost in Los Angeles, a city I still can’t quite figure out.19 I spent a lot of time crying. I was scared I wasn’t funny. I missed New York and my new baby at home. I wasn’t being a good wife to my husband. I had a full face and round body. It had been a while since I had been asked to settle into one character for longer than a month, and I kept warning Mike and Greg that my performance might be too loud, like when you turn on your car and the radio is already going full blast.
19 Note from Mike: No one can. Don’t even try. It’s Chinatown, Poehler.
Once we started to cast the show, what was fuzzy became sharper. Rashida Jones, Aubrey Plaza, and Aziz Ansari came on board early. Chris Pratt and Nick Offerman later. Retta, Jim O’Heir, and Paul Schneider rounded out our first mini-season of Parks and Recreation. Eventually we would be joined by Rob Lowe and Adam Scott and the circle would be complete. I don’t remember much about those first shows. I started feeling my groove after a few episodes. I realized the cast was beyond talented and would eventually become like family. I constantly searched for Mike’s face when I was nervous. But the thing I do remember clearly is a small scene I did in the pilot episode. It’s raining and Leslie is standing and looking outside her office window. In voice-over, she speaks about how this park project is going to take a lot of work and last a long time, but it will be worth it.
21 LESLIE TALKING HEAD
B-roll: Leslie staring out her office window at the small courtyard that serves as her “view.”
LESLIE
I’ve been in the Parks Department for six years, and I’ve handled some things I’m proud of. For example, last year I led the city-wide drive to disinfect the sandbox sand after those problems with the cats. I heard some testimony from mothers of toddlers that would make you cry. But this pit! The chance to build a new park, from scratch . . .
(she thinks)
This is my Hoover Dam.
I remember standing and watching the props guys make it rain in our fake outside courtyard as we shot the B-roll part of that scene—the shot of Leslie from outside the window that the audience would see as she spoke those words. I listened to the words being read aloud by Greg and Mike, and realized this was my new job. A tiny whisper, no louder than the Who that Horton hears, told me we were going to make it. I believed.
We almost didn’t make it. That first year was rough. Critics compared us to The Office, and not kindly. Our ratings were okay but not great. Deadline Hollywood decided to publish our pilot testing results, which was basically like having someone publish the worst parts of your diary.20 According to testing, a lot of people liked it when “that Parks lady fell into the pit.” It wasn’t a good sign when people wanted the show’s lead character to fall into a hole. We regrouped. We changed a little. We figured out what worked and soldiered on. Network presidents came and went as we hung on for dear life. Some liked us more than others. Some canceled us on airplanes, only to change their minds before landing. Critics started to watch the show again and notice new things.
20 Note from Mike: Good analogy. I think of it more like a restaurant critic bursting into a kitchen, eating a half-cooked meal, and then writing a review. “The chicken was undercooked!” The only good thing about that cheap shot—both the leaking of it and the crummy decision to print it without even calling us for comment—is that Louis CK came to our defense in the comments section, and joined us as Leslie’s boyfriend early in season 2.
We kept our heads down and did our jobs. We controlled the only thing we could, which was the show. We did the thing. Because remember, the talking about the thing isn’t the thing. The doing of the thing is the thing.
In season 2 we started to gain momentum. Critics put us on lists and we were nominated for awards. Everyone realized we would never be a ratings juggernaut, but we just kept plugging along as we watched new NBC show after NBC show die on the table next to us. To be fair, we were often on life support ourselves. We would finish a season never really knowing if we would have another one, so Mike would always push the writers to take big swings and let characters evolve and change. Rob Lowe and Adam Scott joining us made us better and less likely to get canceled. We just kept doing it.
Mike would call me in July every summer and pitch me the upcoming season’s story line for Leslie. I can’t explain the joy and relief I felt, sitting on a porch in my Nantucket rental, swatting bugs and hearing about what was ahead. After spending years trying to generate my own material at SNL, this felt like someone was picking me up and carrying me Jesus/”Footprints” style.21 Leslie got to run for office, fall in and out of love, fight for her town, and eat waffles with her friends. I got to write and direct episodic television for the first time. I got to work with people like Louis CK, Megan Mullally, Fred Armisen, Patricia Clarkson, Will Arnett, and Detlef Schrempf. I have sex stories about all of them but I am saving those for my next book.22 23
21 Note from Mike: My grandfather really wanted me to be a deity, and this analogy is the closest I will ever get, and so for that I thank you.
22 Note from Mike: Your seven-year, real-life “will they, won’t they” saga with Detlef Schrempf could fill a hundred volumes.
23 Note from Mike annotating previous note: This is a joke. He is married I think. Hi, Detlef! (He’s definitely reading this right now.)
In the middle of season 2, I got pregnant again. I was excited and surprised.24 This meant that we had to sort of force NBC’s hand and try to get them to agree to shoot more episodes before I really blew up. With its cameras-looking-everywhere shooting style, Parks and Recreation was not the kind of show where you could hide a pregnant belly behind a few bags of groceries. We got an early pickup for season 3, and as soon as season 2 ended we just kept rolling and shot some extra episodes that we would bank for the beginning of the next year. If you have any doubt as to what a great actor Adam Scott is, go back and watch him join a show and immediately figure out how to flirt with a tired pregnant lady. It’s not easy. If I have learned anything from hip-hop, it’s that there’s nothing sexy about a baby that ain’t yours.
24 Note from Mike: So was I. Probably not in the same way.
Season 3 found us fighting for our right to party. We had been pushed to midseason, which is usually not exactly a vote of confidence from the network. The story line was all about a government shutdown, so both Amy and Leslie were frustrated about not getting back to work. The whole time Mike kept reminding me to keep my head down and control the only thing I could, which was the work. Somehow we survived.
Season 4 was all about Leslie’s running for city council. The wonderful Paul Rudd and Kathryn Hahn joined us for a while. Leslie won. We all won. We soldiered on.
Seasons 5 and 6 were about the frustrations of Leslie Knope’s new job. They also were about Ben and Leslie finally getting married and pregnant. They dealt with Ann and Chris leaving, Andy and April trying to figure out what they wanted, Donna finding love, and Tom entering a new business venture. I forget what happened with Jerry.
We had Sam Elliott, Michelle Obama, and Ginuwine on our show.
I can’t believe we have done all these episodes and of course I can believe it because I always knew we would. (It’s a miracle.)
In season 5, Leslie kicks off the season by visiting Washington, DC. Her boyfriend, Ben, decides to surprise her by setting up a meeting with her ultimate crush, Vice President Joe Biden. We shot that scene with Vice President Biden in his ceremonial office on the grounds of the White House, and he was charming and funny and a true pro—he didn’t even flinch when Leslie slightly leaned in for a kiss. That’s some old-school improv commitment right there. While we were walking out of the building, we learned that our show, which had been talked about as a front-runner for winning the Emmy for best comedy, did not even get nominated. We were upset, because as we know, no matter how much you think you don’t want the pudding, once people start telling you that you might get the pudding it makes you want that pudding bad. Instead of being upset, Mike said, “I am going to go write the scene where Ben proposes to Leslie.” He went back to his hotel room and wrote this.
INT. LESLIE AND BEN’S NEW HOUSE—NEXT DAY—DAY 3
Leslie and Martha the real estate lady.
MARTHA
Anything I can do to change your mind?
LESLIE
Sadly, no. My boyfriend might not be able to move back for a while, so . . . I have to back out. I just wanted to look at it one more time.
MARTHA
I can’t give you your deposit back.
LESLIE
I know.
MARTHA
And there’s a three hundred dollar penalty for—
LESLIE
All right, Martha. I get it.
She moves around the apartment, sadly. Then turns around—
LESLIE (CONT’D)
Actually, is there any way—
Ben is standing there.
LESLIE (CONT’D)
What?! Hey! I didn’t know you were—
He gets down on one knee. Looks up at her. Takes her hand.
LESLIE (CONT’D)
Oh my God. What are you doing?
BEN
Thinking about my future.
He opens a ring box. Leslie GASPS.
BEN (CONT’D)
I am deeply, ridiculously in love with you. Above everything else, I want to be with you, forever. So, Leslie Knope, w—
LESLIE
Wait!!!!!
He freezes . . .
LESLIE (CONT’D)
Just . . . I need to remember this. Just wait a second. Please.
He does.
BEN
. . . Leslie Knope, w—
LESLIE
No no no—hang on. One second longer. Please. I have to remember everything. Every tiny little thing, about how perfect my life is, right now, at this exact moment.
She looks all around. Ben smiles. Waits.
BEN
You good?
LESLIE
I think I am good, yes.
BEN
So, I can . . . ?
LESLIE
Yes. I am ready.
BEN
Leslie Knope, will you—
LESLIE
Yes.
She attacks him and kisses him for a really long time.
BEN
—marry me. Okay good.
They kiss again.
He also wrote these vows in the wedding episode:
TOM
We are gathered here tonight to join Leslie Barbara Knope and Benjamin Walker Wyatt in matrimony. It’s been a long and winding road for these two, and they’re so impatient to begin their lives together, they moved their wedding date up by three months. So I say, let’s keep this short.
ANN
Hear, hear!
TOM
I assume—and hope—they have prepared their own vows. We’ll hear first from Ben.
BEN
In the ten years I worked for the state government, my job sent me to more than fifty cities. I lived in villages with eight people, rural farming communities, college towns—I was sent to every corner of Indiana. And then I came here. And I realized that this whole time, that’s what I was doing—I was just wandering around, everywhere, looking for you.
She smiles and collects herself.
LESLIE
Oh boy. Okay. The first draft of my vows—which I wrote the day after we got engaged—clocked in at around sixty pages. But I don’t have them with me right now.
There’s a collective sigh of relief from the congregation.
LESLIE (CONT’D)
Wait! Maybe I have a copy in my office—
People wince . . .
LESLIE (CONT’D)
Nope. It’s at home.
Relief again.
LESLIE (CONT’D)
So I will just say this. The things you have done for me—to help me, support me, surprise me, and make me happy—go above and beyond what any person deserves. You are all I need. I love you and I like you.
BEN
I love you and I like you.
Do you see the kind of maniac I am working with here? I have been shoulder to shoulder with a wonderful writer and excellent boss who loves big emotion as much as I do. Nightmare!
Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I’m proud that Mike Schur and I rejected the idea that creativity needs to come from chaos. I like how we ran our writers’ room and our set. People had a great time when they came to work on our show and that mattered to us. I like to think the spirit we had on set found its way onto the show. We used to leave enough time for “fun runs,” improvised last takes where the actors could try out all the brilliant ideas they had been thinking about for the whole scene. Ninety-nine percent of the time these scenes were longer and less funny than what was written. But it made the actors feel funny. It kept the crew laughing and on their toes. It felt fun and alive and warm. Most days I was handed an amazing script that allowed me to stand in front of people I really loved and tell them how much I loved them. I got to work with the best writers and the best directors and the best producers. I won’t miss memorizing those tongue-twisty “talking heads”25 but I will miss everything else. This kind of job is magic. It comes around once or twice in a lifetime if you’re lucky. And thank god, because it’s all-consuming and sometimes work should just be work.
25 Note from Mike: I’ll miss writing them and then watching you try to memorize them. Made for great blooper-reel material.
David Letterman liked the show and I received a steady paycheck for six years. That’s about all you can ask for in life. Anyway, I’ve moved on. I’m working on a new HBO show called Farts and Procreation and it deals with some pretty dark stuff . . . whatever, no big deal.26
26 Note from Mike: I bet you win an Emmy for the role of Detective Janet Toughwoman, Special Ops, Fart Squad Delta.