I read that the show originally stemmed from your own experiences at Glendale Community College and the group you became a part of. I was curious how many characters really stemmed from that actual study group, and how many were completely fictionalized?
Dan Harmon: Well, the sad answer is that none of the characters really stemmed from the study group that I was in. At Glendale, it was just two guys who cornered me during a smoke break who said they wanted to study with me. The characters on Community are more culled from amalgams of people I've known, ex-girlfriends and relatives and classmates, things from the past.
Can you talk about the aspects of these characters you really wanted to stand out. In some ways, they are are a very unique group, but in other aspects, they are also characters we have seen before. They come together in a very unique way, though, so can you talk a bit about formulating these characters?
Dan Harmon: Well, yeah, that was the entire goal, to create a group in which no two of them pulling up in a car would make you think anything else than, 'Oh, man, somebody must have gotten a flat tire.' These people don't belong together. Something happened here, there is some story here, 'Why is this person with that person?' With the possible exception of Jeff (Joel McHale) and Britta (Gillian Jacobs), who kind of cut a similar silhouette, everybody else in that group, there's a dynamism to any pair you can generate. The other aspect of assembling the group that I knew was important was creating a staircase of ages, so that, in any way you needed to, you could create a family dynamic. That's not limited to saying, 'Oh, he's the old guy, so he's the father of the group.' Obviously, Pierce (Chevy Chase) has yet to be the father of the group, in any capacity. He's often more the youngest child, but he could be the father of the group, in certain circumstances. Sometimes Britta is the unwilling mother, sometimes she's the skanky sister, sometimes she's the baby sister. Sometimes Annie (Alison Brie) is the mother. Sometimes Annie's the big sister to Britta. More often than not, Jeff is the unwilling father to all of them, but sometimes he's the petty little kid, throwing tantrums and stuff. I knew that would be more possible if the characters had a span of ages. There were very few of them you could just lump together, the exception being Annie and Troy (Donald Glover, who went to high school together.
Source: Full interview @ MovieWeb
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