Community's Yvette Nicole Brown Breaks Down Sass, Joel McHale, and Weird O.J. Speculation

Can you talk about watching Joel McHale progress on the show? He appears to have become very comfortable as the season has gone on.

Joel is just one of my favorite people on the planet. He's a very caring, loving family man. All of his snarkiness and smart-aleckiness hides, or is wrapped around, this amazing heart. So that's the first thing. In regards to his evolution, I've been so impressed with him as an actor. I've seen him in a couple of things way before he did The Soup, but to see his level of skill? When you're in a scene acting with someone, a lot of times, when the camera is on them and not on you, you get to actually watch them as a spectator and enjoy them. And Joel's ability to, what we were talking abouy, change on a dime, but he is the person who has the supercomputer brain. I don't know if you'd paid really close attention to the chunks of dialogue this man has to deliver, but [creator] Dan Harmon is so intelligent, and so witty and interesting, a lot of things are so deep and crazy, they're hard to say. Joel has had more tongue-twister-type monologues stuff than everybody -- he and Gillian [Jacobs] actually have the most. He is able to deliver it in a way that's real cerebral, but you're like "Oh, I get that." But he's able to deliver it because he's such a skilled actor. He says things that are mean-spirited, but because Joel is so likable, you're OK with it. His innate likability is serving the character Jeff in a way the producers probably never thought was possible. He can do everything as far as I concerned.

I only found out recently that he's 38. That was surprising to me.

You know what's so funny? He and I are of the same generation. When we did all the stuff about the show, they'd say I was the middle-aged housewife and he was the hot, young lawyer. And I'm like, "Really? We were kind of in high school at the same time." So if I'm middle-aged, he's middle-aged. If he's hot, I'm hot. Let's be fair. He is a hot 38, and I am a hot thirtysomething as well.

Tell us something about Chevy Chase that I don't know.

Chevy has been with his wife for 30 years, and I don't know if that's brought up a lot. And they're in love, I mean in love. When you ask this man about his wife, there is a softness that comes over him and an almost childlike innocence that I don't think most people get to see. Most people don't ask him, "How's Janey doing?" And if you do that, he turns into a puddle of goo. He's a sweet, sentimental man, and you can't make it 30 years without being that type of person.

Lastly, NBC's Thursday night lineup is, without a doubt, the most solid in primetime -- though it's not the most highly rated. Is that disheartening?

A lot of shows didn't start out huge. Seinfeld was seen by almost no one when it started, The Office too. I think we're going to be a slow burn. There's going to be people who watch season two, and if we're lucky to get a season three, people who are then going to go, "What is this show?" and they'll catch up. I don't know why more people haven't found us, but there are a lot of shows that aren't highly rated that I love. We happen to be on a network that loves to give comedies a chance. Other networks are quick to cancel shows that don't immediately come out of the box with fifty thousand, million viewers. We're on a network that says, "No, we love this show, and we're going to give it a chance to get numbers." I'm grateful we're on NBC and thankful we'll be able to find the audience we're supposed to have.

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