The Hollywood Reporter launches its new video series with a visit to the new set for NBC’s Parks and Recreation.
PHOTOS: Amy Poehler, Rob Lowe and Adam Scott on the Set of ‘Parks & Recreation’
For the fifth season of the NBC comedy, several characters have moved on from the tiny town of Pawnee to the big city of Washington, D.C.
With Ben (Adam Scott) taking a job in Washington, and April (Aubrey Plaza) tagging along, Parks and Recreation needed a new set to feature the glitzy new office building.
THR tags along as Scott and Plaza walk our cameras through the new and old sets, which reside next to each other on the Los Angeles lot.
STORY: ‘Parks and Recreation’ Boss Offers 5 Things to Know About Season 5
April now sits in large open room with several other ambitious young people, while Scott’s Ben has his own office where he runs his boss’ congressional campaign. As THR found, both characters have brought along some mementos from their Pawnee relationships.
Additionally, THR revisits the Pawnee set, unearthing some of the specific details that have been added to the set over the years. (Amy Poehler’s real graduation photo is kept on her character Leslie Knope’s desk.)
As for their character’s now long-distance relationships, Plaza says April and Andy (Chris Pratt) are “still very much in love and married,” but Scott says that when Leslie comes to visit, she feels a bit out of place.
STORY: ‘Parks and Recreation’s’ Adam Scott, Aubrey Plaza Name Their Dream Political Guest Stars
“You would think [D.C.] would be Disneyland for [Leslie]. She comes here with a proposal for Pawnee, and she kind of feels very, very small when she comes. She’s in the middle of the machine of Washington, D.C., and sees April and I kind of thriving here and really being among the power players. It’s a really interesting contrast to being a big fish in a small pond in Pawnee,” Scott says.
The new setting will see Ben and April interacting with each other more than previous seasons. In terms of the characters’ dynamic working together in the upcoming season, Scott teases that “April pretty much makes Ben’s job much more difficult than it needs to be.”
Watch the THR set visit above, and check back for the next video in the “THR Sets” series.
Parks and Recreation’s airs Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. on NBC.
