Whether you started watching New Girl when it premiered in 2011 or you discovered it in the midst of the pandemic, the heartwarming, hilarious and relatable nature of the series has made it one of the most beloved sitcoms on TV.
It all started with a very simple premise, as a young woman called Jess (Zooey Deschanel) moved into a loft with three men she’d never met before after breaking up with her long-term boyfriend.
Over the years, friendship, love, heartbreak and laughs ensued, as Jess and her best friend Cece (Hannah Simone) found lifelong friends and soulmates within the group, which included Nick (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), Winston (Lamorne Morris) and Coach (Damon Wayans Jr).
Four years after the season seven finale marked an end to the story, Hannah and Lamorne opened up to Metro.co.uk about a new rewatch podcast – Welcome To Our Show – that they have recently launched with Zooey, divulging behind-the-scenes moments and fond memories from set.
New Girl was a special show in several different ways, one of them being that it was female-led, from creator Liz Meriwether – who was helming her first TV programme – to the unit production manager and, of course, the lead star Zooey.
Hannah emphasised how much of a difference this made for her as a performer, explaining how it meant that she felt comfortable enough to speak to people ‘confidentially’ when she had something to discuss, saying that ‘representation matters so much’.
This also meant that some of the scenes in the show between the female characters instantly felt more realistic than they may have done if written by a man, such as when Jess and Cece became embroiled in a painful-looking ‘boob fight’ in season two.
‘If a man had written it and told us to do that, there’s automatically in your mind a different way of feeling about doing it, but when Liz wrote it, it’s just about how girls can fight really dumb, and understand how that can actually hurt. So it wasn’t done through the male gaze,’ Hannah said.
‘It was done through that sense of sisterhood and how ridiculous those moments can be when we’re annoyed with each other, and so it just feels different as an actress when you’re being asked to do something by a woman than by a man. It just is.’
While the writing on New Girl is clearly impeccable, the creators of the show gave the cast the freedom to improvise and carve out the trajectories of their characters through their own performance decisions, something that Lamorne revelled in.
The actor – who had prior experience with improv on stage – explained that the moment that got him into the ‘rhythm’ of incorporating more ad-libbing into his role was during a season one scene when Winston – annoyed at having been woken up in the morning while working late shifts at a radio station – goes on a particularly memorable rant about the importance of sleeping on Saturdays, saying that it felt ‘liberating’.
Dubbing Jake as ‘probably the best improviser I’ve ever worked with’, Lamorne added that Justin Long, who played one of Jess’ love interests Paul Genzlinger, would ‘come on the show and just go crazy’.
But it was Damon, who left as Coach after the pilot before returning in season three, who was the ‘silliest’ on set, Lamorne revealed, as the actor would carry out pranks and even moon his co-stars while they were in the middle of filming.
‘He will truly do bits and pranks on set. I remember an episode where he walks past the camera, he walks off camera and we’re on camera and we’re looking at him, and he lifts his shirt and his butt cheeks were out. He just mooned us on camera, and didn’t miss a beat,’ the actor recalled.
‘[He] didn’t act like anything happened. That’s how Damon was. In the middle of a scene he would do a cartwheel for no reason,’ he said, adding that when Damon left and then returned as Coach, it was like ‘being on a basketball team and one of your best players gets injured and they come back’.
The chemistry between the actors on the show is clear to see, with Hannah outlining how their on-screen bonds are helped by the fact that they are ‘real-life forever friends’ as well.
Cece and Schmidt’s love story was beautiful to watch unfold… but the actress admitted that she didn’t see their romance coming at all, recollecting how taken aback she was in season one when Cece’s feelings for Schmidt are first revealed.
‘When that fifth episode came out, “Cece Crashes”, where Cece ends up in bed with Schmidt, the guy that she has been disgusted by for the first four episodes, I remember being so surprised. I was like, “Oh! Well that explains why she was like that!” She was trying to keep at bay this person that she was really into,’ she recalled. ‘So I had no idea’.
While New Girl has gained an incredible and dedicated fandom over the years, one moment that really drilled in how much of an impact the show was having was in season three, when music legend Prince made a guest appearance in the pivotal episode where Jess and Nick declare their love for one another.
The episode ended with Cece still at Prince’s house after the rest of the friendship group had gone home, with the model beating the late Purple Rain singer at table tennis, much to his disappointment.
‘I’ve actually never sat down and really revisited that night with Prince. I’ve never really talked about it. Not for any reason, it’s just we all kind of did it and it was intense and we were all there,’ Hannah admitted.
‘It was exceptionally strange for me what happened and wonderful and something I’ll never forget,’ she added, expressing her excitement over rewatching the episode and hearing about the personal experiences Zooey and Lamorne had with the star, as well as sharing her own.
Even though New Girl has come to an end (a fact that we’re still struggling to come to terms with), there is plenty of demand from fans for more content, with Lamorne referencing a specific axed scene that he would like to see Fox release in some form.
When filming a sequence showing Winston playing basketball in Latvia, the actor explained that after directing a play on court with the seven-foot actors portraying his teammates, they then ‘dumped milk all over me as opposed to Gatorade’, a ‘brutal’ moment that didn’t even make the cut.
‘I remember saying, “You mean to tell me I went through all that?” It was a brutal episode because of that one little gag at the end, but I don’t think that made the cut. I definitely have behind-the-scenes photos of that, I’ll be releasing those at some time,’ he said.
Given the love that there is for the show, one of the questions constantly on fans’ lips is whether or not a reunion could be on the cards.
You’ll therefore be happy to hear that both Hannah and Lamorne are completely up for the idea.
‘I think we are living in the age of reunions. It hasn’t been that long since our show went off the air, but it definitely has had a resurgence. The pandemic I would say caused a lot of people to be home and watch the show often, and so it brought forth new fans,’ Lamorne said.
‘So I would say give it a few years and potentially I would love to. I would love for it to be a continuation of actual storylines, because I like performing and I love performing Winston. It’s such a joy to do, especially over the course of that period of time.’
Expressing how much she enjoyed the flash-forward moment in the finale, which showed the characters with their children, Hannah added: ‘I’m up for anything to do with this show always, because I love every single person that was part of that show, the cast, the creators, the writers. I’m down to do whatever. But I don’t know! All I know is that they had a lot of kids and they’re still hanging out together and I love that.’
Welcome To Our Show is an iHeartRadio original podcast, which can also be found on Apple Podcasts.
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New Girl is available to watch on Disney Plus.
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