One of our favorite comedies here at IGN TV, Parks and Recreation is currently in the midst of Season 5 – in a new season that is splitting our time between Pawnee and Washington, DC. But even while Ben and April are off in DC, the Parks department still has plenty of dependable folks in place, including Donna and Jerry.

I recently visited the set of Parks and Rec while production was underway on this year’s Halloween episode, airing this week. On the sets built for Ben and April’s new DC offices, I sat down with Retta and Jim O’Heir to talk about Season 5 and how art can imitate life on Parks and Rec.

IGN TV: Season 5 -- as this very set attests to -- has the biggest changes the show has ever had.

Jim O’Heir: I would say, absolutely! Yeah, this is amazing, though. We have brilliant designers and set decorators.

Damn, Jerry! Jim O'Heir in Parks and Recreation.

Retta: It totally looks like we’re in a completely different place right now.

IGN: What’s it like for you guys to have the characters split up and not have that exact same group dynamic this year?

Retta: It doesn’t seem that different, honestly. Even though Ben and April are in DC, they’re here, so we get to see them.

IGN: [Laughs] So they don’t keep them ostracized from you on set?

Retta: No, it’s weird. I mean, we asked, but... [Laughs]

O’Heir: And we hadn’t done scenes with them for awhile, which was weird. We’d see them in hair and makeup. But yeah, my favorite stuff is when we’re all together. I love the conference room scenes when all the characters are together because there’s a lot of riffing and BS-ing, and we chat a lot. I miss when everyone’s not here. Basically, there are A and B stories -- sometimes C stories -- so you can go a whole week and not see somebody. But my favorite is when we’re all together.

IGN: You’re shooting the Halloween episode. I would hope there will be costumes involved?

O’Heir: There are costumes involved, absolutely.

Retta: But I don’t have a costume this year. I’ve only had one costume.

Retta as Donna Meagle in Parks and Recreation.

O’Heir: The first year I was in a dinosaur costume and -- other than a 10-second tag at the end -- it never made it in. And I was in that bastard for six or seven hours. It was crazy!

Retta: He had swamp ass...

O’Heir: I had swamp ass, like you read about! No, literally, I think I lost nine pounds that day, seriously. Dean Holland was directing that episode, and I said, “Oh my God!” And it wasn’t their intention, but they shoot so much and get so much great stuff that not everything’s going to make it. But it was the whole head, it was the whole nine yards.

Retta: He sent me a picture, and he was soaked. I was like, “Did it rain on set?” He’s like, “No.” [Laughs]

O’Heir: Yeah, I showered in my dressing room. I never do that, but I had to shower. I couldn't get in my car. It was nasty. This year I don’t have anything like that.

Retta: Do you have a costume this year, Jim?

O’Heir: No, but I do have that storyline. Hmm. Interesting...

Retta: Oh... Whatever! [Laughs]

IGN: Do you think Parks and Recreation has to end with Jerry’s ultimate triumph?

O’Heir: Yeah, so many people come up with so many endings that they want: An Uzi. Some people just want to see me take everybody out…

IGN: I think you should win the lottery.

O’Heir: [Laughs] But technically, they’ve let Jerry have the lottery: an amazing wife, daughters he loves, a wonderful home.

[Editor's Note: After this interview was conducted, we learned Jerry's wife would be played by Christie Brinkley no less!]

IGN: He's an artist!

O’Heir: He's an artist, he’s a pianist, so talented, and he’s hung like a horse, as we all know -- it’s nice when they could have art and life come together.

Retta: [Laughs] Whatever!

O’Heir: Hello! No, but you could go a lot of ways with that, how the Jerry story could end. But when we’re in Season 25 doing it, we’ll come up with an idea then. That’s how I look at it.

IGN: What’s Donna up to this season?

Retta: I’m still working on getting a love interest -- that I want to feel love with outside of the show. As it’s been reported, there’s also art imitating life with Donna and her Twitter account. She starts tweeting in the Parks department about a movie.

IGN: I’ve been quite enjoying you tweeting along with old Buffy episodes.

Retta: I tried to watch the end of it last night, but I was surprised at how tired I was. I was like, “Oh, I just missed this whole episode. I’m going to have to try this again later.”

O’Heir: Yeah, we’ve got to watch what we do in life because it’s ending up in the scripts.

IGN: Was it pretty direct? You started to really tweet those reactions to TV series and movies and everyone loves them, and then one day you came in and see they’ve put that in the script?

Retta: Mike [Schur] alluded to something. He said, “There’s something for you in my script.” I was like, “What is it?” He’s like, “And don’t try to guess it. I’ll be mad at you if you figure it out before you see it.” Then when I read it, I emailed him. I was like, “Yeah, bitch!” So they sent me the movie to watch, which was terrible, but I watched the whole freaking thing. I actually also watched the wrong movie because they were going to use a different movie and decided not to, so I had to watch two bad movies. Then they let me write some tweets myself. That was fun.

IGN: What’s the one that’s going to be on the show?

Retta: I don’t know. It depends on how they edit it. I do know that Dean, our director, enjoyed the hashtag. I wrote, “#Yuck” for one of the murders.

O’Heir: I only watched three minutes of the damn thing, and it’s horrendous.

Retta: Yeah, it’s really bad.

IGN: Is this a movie we’d be familiar with?

O’Heir: I don’t think so.

Retta: I don’t know… Well, I won’t say the name of the movie because it cracks me up, but it’s a Halloween horror flick, some cheesy, non-union thing.

Parks and Rec: Lucy Lawless on Romancing Ron Swanson

IGN: You’ve got some really fun guest stars this season, including Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad.

Retta: I was very excited about that.

O’Heir: I worked with him 16 years ago. We did a movie in Vancouver. We did a remake of the old Harvey movie, the Jimmy Stewart film, and I hadn’t seen him since. But I saw him on the set last week, it was awesome. What a great guy. He seems as sweet now as he was then. Retta, of course, had a little bit of a crush.

Retta: I think I was a little bit crazy because I did a line from Breaking Bad to him, and he was like, “Really? That’s how you’re gonna kick this off.” [Laughs] But I was like, “Oh my God, I just tweeted out, ‘It’s a big war, Walter. Lot of meth heads,’” thinking I’m so funny. He’s like, “Really?” [Laughs]

O’Heir: And we have Lucy Lawless, who I met today for the first time. She was super sweet. Glenne Headly... Ben Schwartz is back, Jean-Ralphio. He’s here.

Retta: His hair is bananas.

O’Heir: It’s bigger every single time. I don’t know what’s going on. Who else do we have? We’ve got Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close...

IGN: [Laugh] But they’re just extras.

O’Heir: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m not sure of their talent yet. I don’t want to commit to them yet.

IGN: You mentioned the dinosaur costume mostly being cut, and your show has so many great deleted scenes on the DVDs. I’m always thinking, “Man, how much did they shoot?” At this point you must be pretty familiar with the fact that you’re going to shoot too much for the episode?

O’Heir: Yeah, sometimes as we’re shooting, we’re like, “Oh, well this will never make it.”

Retta: The one time I didn’t know, I got an email from Mike saying to me and Chelsea [Peretti], “Sorry, ladies. This didn’t make it in.” But they put it online. So they added it as an extra on NBC.com.

O’Heir: Yeah, if it’s a big scene that they know we’d be thinking about, you’ll get an email. They’ll let you know why. And it always comes down to the same thing: there are only 22 minutes. It’s all timing, and you have to tell a story. There are episodes where certain producers whose friends are on it, they get cut. There’s no, “Oh, we hate them!” It’s just, “What is the best story?” If the other stuff has to go, it’s got to go.

IGN: When you start on a show like this, you have no idea where it’s going to go. Has it been interesting for you to see how the characters have all developed? They’re so specific now, their voices.

Retta: I remember when we all started hating Jerry. It was such a weird thing, you know? There was just one thing, I think they gave Aziz, Tom, a line. But I felt like we were actively hating on you, not trying to win a competition. [Laughs] I feel like there was this one day where we’re all like, “F**k Jerry!” And then it became, “Damm, Jerry!”

O’Heir: Yeah, and it’s gone! But I love when you read the scripts you know everyone’s voice, so that’s fun. We all know the characters so well. When I read a script, I hear Donna’s voice in my head, and I totally know how she’s going to do that line.

Retta: It’s funny, like when I’m tweeting or if I just say something silly, I’ll get two or three people tweeting me back saying, “I totally hear Donna saying that! I hear that in Donna’s voice.” I go, “Well, I do speak like Donna, so I get it.”

IGN: Obviously you have the Twitter thing happening now, but have there been other times where it seems like they have taken little kernels, traits or things you’ve said and done that end up in the show?

Retta: I’ve talked about this before where -- because I say, “He can get it,” all the time -- I don’t know if that’s something the writers heard me say and incorporated it, but people say it to me all the time now because they know Donna says it.

O’Heir: Yeah, Mike Schur did an interview where someone said, “Which actor is most like their character?” He said, “Well, everybody has a chunk,” and then he goes, “except Jim O’Heir.” I was like, “I think that’s good?” [Laughs] Because Jerry’s a sweet guy. I mean, he’s a dumb ass in many ways, but he’s ultimately a sweet guy. He takes a lot of s**t and puts that smile right back on his face -- and he has not killed anybody yet, although he’s killed a burrito in his day. But yeah, I think in any acting role there’s always a part of you certainly sneaking around in there. But I don’t know.

IGN: And as you said, you have up to Season 25, so who knows what’s going to happen?

O’Heir: Yeah! And I’ve got to be honest, I might only stick around for 24. I hate to say that because I’ve always said I’d never leave a show early, but 24 seasons would make me how many years old? Oh, wow, I won’t even say. Let’s just say I’ll be having trouble with my continence. 24 might be it for me!

Parks and Recreation: “Halloween Surprise” airs Thursday, October 25th at 9:30pm ET/PT on NBC.

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on on Twitter at @EricIGN and IGN at ericgoldman-ign.

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