On Tuesday, Rashida sat down with Amy to talk about their friendship on and off screen. However, although they began working together on Parks and Rec in 2009, you might not know that the two have been seriously close for over twenty years. Speaking about how their offscreen chemistry translated so well, Amy said, “They really did base the entire show off of the fact that Leslie and Ann were each other’s number one,” to which Rashida said, “Not that hard.”
But despite the pair’s longstanding friendship, Amy revealed that back when the show was still in the casting stages, things were a lot more rocky than you might expect. “The beginnings of that show were… I’ll say a little clumpy,” Amy said, as Rashida nodded in agreement, saying, “Crunchy. It was crunchy.”
If you need some context, Amy played the show’s protagonist, chirpy government official Leslie Knope: deputy director of the Department of Parks and Recreation in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Rashida Jones, who you might also know as the daughter of the late music legend Quincy Jones, played Ann Perkins, “friend and beautiful nurse,” in Leslie’s words. And while to fans, Amy and Rashida were cast perfectly in their respective roles, it looks like there was some confusion during the start of the show. “For the beginning we both were worried that we had taken each other’s part,” Amy revealed.
Rashida dove into the story, launching back to 2008 when she was “on hold” for an untitled Michael Schur project, aka, the guy who created The Office, and later Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Michael and Rashida had become close in college, and were both friends with Amy, who was “extremely pregnant” at the time. Rashida explained that Mike pitched the show to her in the early stages of development and that the “boss” character (who would eventually become Leslie) was initially written to be a man.
She then recalled that after she and Amy had arrived back from a holiday together, a day later Amy gently suggested that they go to lunch. Ominous much? “Oh god, and I said, ‘Let’s talk about something,’” Amy remembered.
“You took me to lunch, and said, ‘I’m so sorry but they offered me the part,’” Rashida explained. “Both of us thinking it was the same part I was on hold for, being created by a friend of ours. And so I immediately started crying, and you held my hand, and you were so warm. You were like, ‘I know, I’m sorry buddy.’ But you held your space, and you also comforted me at the same time. Which was a very beautiful thing.” Rashida called the moment a “gold standard of friendship” and praised how Amy took care of her without putting herself down.
But thankfully, the misunderstanding didn’t last long. “I wonder what [Mike] Schur’s version of this is…” Amy began before Rashida quickly interjected, saying, “Let me tell you! Because I left him a message like, almost immediately, because I’m not shy.”
Although Rashida was pretty stern with Mike about not being informed about losing out on the role, Mike quickly set the record straight. “He was like, ‘No, no, no, back up, we changed the boss. It’s a woman, and Amy’s playing the boss.’ I was like, ‘You — Oh my god!’ I still wasn’t cast, I still had to do a bunch of chemistry reads, but that became like this huge possibility of my life being… the best. From the worst to the best.”
I think it’s safe to say that Mike made the right call. Can you imagine a world where Ann was Leslie and Leslie was Ann? What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear them down below. Meanwhile, you can listen to Rashida’s full appearance on Good Hang here.
