On Superstore, and gratitude

NBC’s Superstore is ending today. I had the great fortune to appear in 15 episodes of the show. It’s not exaggerating to say that being on the show changed my life dramatically. I’m grateful for the experience and I’ve learned so much both from being on the show and from collaborating with some of the funniest, most brilliant, and warmest people in television.

(I mean, socially warm, not physically. Everyone on set is room temperature, except for Jon Barinholtz who is regularly above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.)

In 2017, I got an audition for Superstore through Greenstein/Daniel Casting. It was to play a church counselor that went to the store; Dina and Sandra found weird things in his cargo pants and question him. I did my best… I tried to be funny and responsive and a little quizzical (they weren’t sure if the character was a creep or a good guy until the end). I didn’t get the part.

A few weeks later, I got an email from my agent saying that they were offering me a different role on the show, a guy that meets one of the regular characters at a restaurant. This was Jerry, in the “Ladies’ Lunch” episode of Season 2. I had a blast working the job… in particular, it was super easy and fun acting with Kaliko Kauahi, who plays Sandra, and Irene White, who plays Carol.

Then I went back to my regular life. A fun job, a one-off… like most of the jobs I had gotten to that point… not a recurring thing right?

Wrong! Later in the season, they brought me back for a reappearance at Cheyenne’s wedding¹. And then again, post-Jerry-being-in-a-coma, at a Golden Globes party that America Ferrara’s character Amy was hosting. I joked to friends that I got to be in any episodes where they left the store. It kept building that way, the connection between Jerry and Sandra (and Carol!) was becoming a vibrant storyline. People were starting to recognize me as Jerry.

That has continued: now, years later, after having a featured episode where Sandra and Jerry got married (with the surreal feeling of seeing the full force of NBC Universal’s marketing pushing your face as part of “event television”), almost every time I post on social media I get at least one comment:

Is that Jerry?! OMG where’s Sandra you better not go back to Carol

It’s been an extremely strange and fun experience becoming a mildly-famous cog in the pop culture machine. I have more to say about that, but there is one main thing I want to make clear today, as the show is ending. All of the opportunities and attention playing Jerry has opened up for me, all the career benefit, the connections with fans and industry folks that appreciate my work… it is all pretty much only because of one thing: Kaliko’s brilliance as an actor.

This is just a reminder that when the show started, Sandra was a minor character. Kaliko essentially carved out the actor’s dream: she took a side role and, through the excellence of her craft, made herself indispensable. In the same episode that Jerry debuted in, Sandra has a long monologue about her completely fictional romance with Jeff, the district manager. I remember reading social media about that episode… okay, I was fishing for people saying how great this new Jerry guy was and how he should have his own show… but instead there were tons of comments about how hilarious and intense and amazing Sandra’s speech was.

Sandra’s compelling storyline bouncing off Irene’s incredible portrayal of Carol was a dynamic that demanded to be explored. Jerry got carried along for the ride, and I’m grateful for that, but I never lose sight of the fact that the need for a character like Jerry was only there because of Kaliko and Irene. (On top of that, they’re amazing people, and friendly as all get out.)

In fact, the entire Superstore set truly felt like a family. I was always greeted warmly when I returned, and I also saw them greet warmly people that were there for the first time, even if they were only there for a day. It was a great place to work. Thank you.

Thanks to everyone at Superstore for all you’ve given me, not just for the chance to play a great character over the years, not just for being supremely professional and easy to work with, not just for taking a chance on actors who don’t fit the conventional notion of romance onscreen… but also for the fact that I could go to set, get a breakfast burrito, eat dim sum “snack” at 11:30 am and then have lunch a few hours later. (You might think I should appreciate other aspects of the experience like working with comedy legends Mark McKinney and Kerry Kinney-Silver, exchanging foodie tips with Ben Feldman, getting to know the terrific Kelly Schumann, or the hilarious between-scene conversations with Nico Santos or Colton Dunn, but y’all… the catering was outrageous, you have no idea.)

Thanks to all the fans that have watched the show. You can ask me “Where’s Sandra?” for the rest of my life.

Thank you. I’m grateful for it all.

And finally, here’s a photo from my wedding with Irene, Kaliko, and my husband Eric Michaud in the background. (Spoiler: Eric and I were the ones getting married. It wasn’t on television but it was quite the event.)

1. Trivia: in my first episode you can see Carol and Jerry dancing ferociously at the end of the show, but at Cheyenne’s wedding apparently Jerry doesn’t know how to dance. We’ll fix this in the Snyder cut.