Andy Samberg Only Accepted His Brooklyn Nine-Nine Role For One Simple Reason

Anyone who's familiar with TV star and musical comedian Andy Samberg knows that, not all that long after he left "Saturday Night Live," he ended up starring on the police-centered workplace comedy "Brooklyn Nine-Nine." So how did this come to pass, and why did Samberg commit to another intense regular gig just one year after leaving something as famously grueling as "SNL"?

During a Television Association Critics' panel in 2013 (via TheWrap), Samberg admitted that he wasn't in the market for a TV gig, but something convinced him: the fact that "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" was co-created by Michael Schur, who had previously created "Parks and Recreation." Samberg, who worked on "SNL" with "Parks and Rec" star Amy Poehler and also guest-starred on the series once, couldn't resist the opportunity to work so closely with Schur.

"I was not looking to do a TV series at all, but I was a huge fan of 'Parks,' and I'd seen what these guys had done with Amy," Samberg told the gathered critics. "They came to me and said, 'How would you feel about doing a series? This is the idea.' And I was like, 'Give me a couple of days to think about it,' but I already knew I was going to say yes, because it was too good to pass up." Samberg ended up playing the show's lead, Brooklyn-based detective Jake Peralta ... until something very surprising happened.

Something famously strange happened to "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" when, in 2018, its original network, Fox, canceled the series after five seasons, leading to outcry by fans, including famous ones like Sean Astin and Lin-Manuel Miranda, both of whom later appeared on the show. After about two days, NBC stepped in and picked up "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," officially bringing it back for Season 6; the show remained in its second home on NBC until it came to a close in 2021 with its eighth season.

This must have been a short, albeit stressful period for the show's cast, including Andy Samberg, but he told Variety in 2018 that he was relieved to see the show land at NBC, the network where he rose to prominence. "I would've been happy almost anywhere because I love this show so much and I wanted to keep doing it, but for me personally having already spent time working at NBC, I really enjoyed that experience," Samberg said; he was a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" from 2005 to 2012 and, as part of The Lonely Island, helped make that show's digital shorts immensely popular.

"Literally when we flew out to New York for Upfronts, I was welcomed back to New York by all of the security guards at 30 Rock," Samberg continued. "They were like, 'Hey! Welcome back!' and gave me big hugs, and I was like, 'Oh, this feels like home in a way.'"

Despite some heavy retooling of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" in its portrayal of policing in the wake of the 2020 protests against widespread police brutality, the show managed to really stick its landing. In August 2021, not long before the series finale aired, Andy Samberg spoke to his old "Saturday Night Live" friend and colleague Seth Meyers for Meyers' "Late Night" and talked about his last days of work at a job he wasn't even initially sure he wanted. 

"As it got towards the end, it got really emotionally rough," Samberg said to Meyers. "Because we all realized it was truly ending, and we all love each other and [loved] spending all that time together for eight years." Not only that, but they ruined a lot of takes: "There was a lot of crying at the wrong times. Like, there's scenes where you can argue you should cry. And then there's other stuff where I just fell out and I'd be like, 'I just realized it's the last time Terry's going to say he loves yogurt!'" (That refers to Terry Crews' character Terry Jeffords, who really, really loves yogurt.)

Samberg also spoke about the show's brief cancellation. "When it got canceled, it was sort of part of the press train about something else, like, 'Hey, fans can save shows! Isn't that interesting?" he recalled. "And then we were the example that was getting news so much. So it was kind of, like, culturally a little moment." So what was Samberg's explanation for this moment? "I've always said it was a really slow news day, but I'll take it," he joked.

You can stream all of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" on Peacock and Netflix.