Melissa Fumero and Ben Rappaport On Dual Timeline and Murder Mystery Theories In Grosse Pointe Garden Society
Four members of an elite garden club get caught up in a murder in NBC’s new series Grosse Pointe Garden Society. We flip between two timelines: the present where we’re introduced to their lives and the antagonists in their lives, and six months later as they work together to cover up the murder. The questions of who was killed, how, and why are teased throughout each episode. Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke with Melissa Fumero and Ben Rappaport about defining their characters and dead body theories.
Grosse Pointe Garden Society finds Fumero in a role we haven’t seen her in before as Birdie, a wild it girl who is sentenced to community service at the gardening club after a DUI. “It was a very, very different role than a lot of the roles I've gotten to play, which, of course is an actor’s dream and was very appealing for me. She felt challenging and really different from me personally and far from me. It was tricky to figure her out, but so rewarding. I've just had so much fun with her. Every script I get is so fun to learn more and more about Birdie's crazy, messy ways,” she told me. “She's also real and she's vulnerable and she's lost and she's searching for so many things in her life right now. It's not just the socialite exterior, it's everything that's underneath it too. It's just a dream role for me.”
Meanwhile Rappaport plays Brett, a divorced dad who put his dreams aside for his ex-wife. “Brett is not that much of a stretch for me. The only difference [between me and Brett] is that Brett knows a lot about cars and gardening and I know nothing about cars and gardening. We share the same DNA,” he shared. “I have to say that I'm really excited at this point in my life to be playing a role like this. A father of two children who are age 11 and seven. This is a first for me and I'm really enjoying it. I really enjoy graduating from what I was doing into this. There was a string of roles for a couple years where I was playing somebody that you probably wouldn't want to bring home to Mom and Brett's definitely not that. I'm really excited and happy to be playing such a warm hearted, deeply feeling guy.”
“Jenna Bans and Bill Krebs, our creators, are some of the funniest people I've ever known. They have given Brett a lot of great one liners, especially in the garden, so that is just a blast to do. Then there's this romance aspect,” explained Rappaport. “There's this deep longing that Brett has for his dream car restoration business, his children, and also there's something there with his best friend Alice. There is a bit of a longing there so all those things combined are just really delicious to play.”
They shoot out of order in the series, jumping back and forth between present day and six months later, which Rappaport said “can get a little confusing.” “We have an incredible script supervisor Lisa who always keeps us on track,” he said. “[We] can always go to her and we're like, ‘Where are we? When is this?’ because it's a lot to keep track of. She's definitely our hero in that regard.”
The cast’s bond really helps when it comes to keeping everything on track. “We really have such a great group dynamic too where we lean on each other a lot. When we're doing those flash forward scenes we’ll dialogue and be like, ‘Oh, this happened before this.’ Even when we were shooting the pilot and we didn't know anything really about the murder and who or what or how, the four of us made something up so we were all thinking of the same thing,” shared Fumero. “It's been so wonderful to have this team energy with Ben and AnnaSophia [Robb] and Aja [Naomi King] where we really lean on each other in those scenes to figure out anything […] where we might not have all the information yet.”
While we already know whodunnit, the big question this season is… who is the dead body? That secret was locked down to the point that even the cast and crew were surprised by the reveal. “All season up until very recently, like we're talking two weeks ago, no one knew. So the entire time leading up to that — cast, crew every day on set — it's literally all we would talk about. Everyone’s casting votes and bets. Each new episode, each new script that would come out […] we would be like, ‘Oh, now I know!’ and then another script comes out like, ‘Oh wait, no it couldn't be that,’” revealed Rappaport. “It was probably one of the most fun games of the whole thing. If we're having that much fun, hopefully you guys watching it will feel the same.”
Fumero continued: “There was a point where I was like ‘I totally know who it is!’ and I was wrong. I just hope that experience translates to the experience of watching the show. There's a lot of people it could be, but it's a really fun ride to the reveal. At the end of the season, the timelines will come together and then we'll just be in present time.”
Best known for her role as Amy Santiago in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Fumero imagined what it would look like for the type A cop to step into the world of Grosse Pointe Garden Society. “Listen, it's a good thing that Amy Santiago is not around and this show doesn't take place in New York City ‘cause she probably would have figured it out,” she shared. “It's real good that we're in Michigan, far far away from Amy because she probably would have been like, ‘I got it!’ She was that good, but, yeah, she would be appalled at the whole thing.”
Both Fumero and Rappaport can agree that one of the highlights of the show has to be the wardrobe. “My favorite thing about this season, besides working with my core four teammates here, has been Birdie's outfits. The costumes have been incredible,” said Fumero. “Eric Daman, our costume designer, is a genius and it is such a fun, different aspect of a character for me. I just love it. It's way more fun than I even thought it was going to be.”
“Eric is a huge piece of the puzzle as to why our characters are such real, complex, multi-layered people. Eric has an incredible eye and sense for detail and is a wonderful collaborator. Janet and Bill are incredible collaborators as well,” Rappaport said. “For example, there's some Easter eggs in there with Brett. Brett is a fan, like I am, of late 90s, early 2000s Midwestern emo rock so you'll see him […] wearing a lot of different t-shirts with specific bands on there that are very much a shout out to all of us Elder Millennials out there and hopefully a little fun Easter egg for all of us folks.”
Have they taken anything from set yet? “We're still filming,” shared Rappaport, “but I've got my eye on a couple things, especially in Brett's apartment.”
New episodes of Grosse Pointe Garden Society air Sundays on NBC and are available the next day on Peacock.
