Long days on the set of New Girl often stretched deep into the night — and for the cast, one of the toughest challenges sometimes came after filming wrapped: making it home safely.
Zooey Deschanel has opened up about the exhausting routine she and her co-stars faced, saying they were “forced to drive home” after work because “none of us had rides to work.”
“The hours were insane,” Deschanel said while speaking with fellow New Girl alum Jake Johnson on Wednesday’s episode of his podcast, We’re Here to Help. “I would drive home from work and be almost like falling asleep.”
At times, the late-night drives became so difficult that Deschanel turned to her mother for support.
“My mom would wake up in the middle of the night because I’d be like, ‘I’m so tired. I can’t drive home,’” she recalled. “And she would wake up to talk to me so I’d stay awake. Isn’t that really sweet?”
Johnson agreed. The actor said the schedule was “too much,” and a recent shoot with New Girl alum Damon Wayans Jr. apparently brought some of those memories back.
Johnson and Wayans recently spent a long day filming their upcoming comedy series inspired by The Cable Guy, and Johnson said he was reminded of what happens when a shoot stretches well past a normal workday.
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“You get so weird because you’re so overtired,” he said. “So all of a sudden, we’d be in takes again and I was doing stuff really just to make Damon laugh and he’s doing stuff to make me laugh. And I’m like, you only get here after hour 13 when you’re like, ‘I have to go home now.’”
Of course, the long days don’t seem to have left the New Girl cast with too many bad memories. The stars have continued to speak fondly about the sitcom, which ran for seven seasons, and there’s even been some recent talk of bringing it back.
Max Greenfield added fuel to those revival rumors in July when he said that creator Elizabeth Meriwether had written new scripts.
“I’m not gonna play the game,” Greenfield said on the Today show. “As far as I know, it’s happening.”
So, if the New Girl gang really does return, here’s hoping they get a little more sleep this time around.
Check out the full episode of We’re Here to Help with Zooey Deschanel above.