How did you decide to make Leslie pregnant now?
Mike Schur: It's the last major life milestone left for her, really. It's the big unanswered question that the show has dealt with from the beginning: What about a family? We assiduously made it not a thing that she was obsessed with or really focused on because her friends and her career are so important to her. It just felt like it was the right moment. She and Ben had a couple years where they were married and she has all these other things going on. Comedically speaking, it felt like a fun thing to do to drop it into her life at the least opportune possible moment.
I really think that the only weapon that TV has in this day in age is surprise. People have seen so many stories and so many incarnations in so many different shows. That's why we like to have our big moments be surprises. Andy and April's wedding, Leslie and Ben's wedding and Ron and Diane's wedding were all, to some degree, surprises that were sprung on people. That's why we decided to have Leslie not get pregnant in that finale, which always happens, but in Episode 19 when you're not expecting it.
Did you guys come up with this idea before you knew about the show's renewal?
Schur: We came up with it before we knew about next year, but it was very organic. We started talking about it at the beginning of the season. We felt that at some point this year, we needed to make this happen. We developed the idea about her professional life and once we did that, we thought it would be fun to have it at a moment of maximum stress. There's a moment in the finale where she's like, "This is the craziest week of my life. I'm trying to decide whether to take this job, and I'm pregnant and I'm speaking at a National Parks conference in San Francisco." She's literally standing on the pier in San Francisco. We decided towards the beginning of the year what would be most fun and exciting would be to make it happen at the moment of maximum personal forking paths for her.
Mike Schur: It's the last major life milestone left for her, really. It's the big unanswered question that the show has dealt with from the beginning: What about a family? We assiduously made it not a thing that she was obsessed with or really focused on because her friends and her career are so important to her. It just felt like it was the right moment. She and Ben had a couple years where they were married and she has all these other things going on. Comedically speaking, it felt like a fun thing to do to drop it into her life at the least opportune possible moment.
I really think that the only weapon that TV has in this day in age is surprise. People have seen so many stories and so many incarnations in so many different shows. That's why we like to have our big moments be surprises. Andy and April's wedding, Leslie and Ben's wedding and Ron and Diane's wedding were all, to some degree, surprises that were sprung on people. That's why we decided to have Leslie not get pregnant in that finale, which always happens, but in Episode 19 when you're not expecting it.
Did you guys come up with this idea before you knew about the show's renewal?
Schur: We came up with it before we knew about next year, but it was very organic. We started talking about it at the beginning of the season. We felt that at some point this year, we needed to make this happen. We developed the idea about her professional life and once we did that, we thought it would be fun to have it at a moment of maximum stress. There's a moment in the finale where she's like, "This is the craziest week of my life. I'm trying to decide whether to take this job, and I'm pregnant and I'm speaking at a National Parks conference in San Francisco." She's literally standing on the pier in San Francisco. We decided towards the beginning of the year what would be most fun and exciting would be to make it happen at the moment of maximum personal forking paths for her.
Source:
More at TV Guide
Streaming Options
