Fans of the comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine were heartbroken when Fox announced that the hilarious heroics of New York's funniest police precinct had reached its end. Thankfully, NBC saved the day and even though viewers will have to wait until mid-season (which gives new viewers plenty of time to catch up!) for the debut of Season 6, they will get 13 new episodes to celebrate. (Note: Since doing this interview, the upcoming season has been given an additional 5 episodes, for an order of 18 episodes total.)

While at the NBC portion of the Television Critics Association Press Tour and before heading out for their first script reading as a cast, actor Andy Samberg (who plays Detective Jake Peralta) sat down to chat 1-on-1 with Collider about the crazy journey they’ve been on with the show, what being a part of Brooklyn Nine-Nine means to him, how it feels like they’re making the exact same show as before, why he’s excited to do 13 episodes instead of 22, what fans can expect from the new season, and that he’s game for however long the series runs. He also talked about which NBC shows he’d like to do a guest spot on, whether The Lonely Island will be making another movie anytime soon, whether he’d like to do more HBO specials, what’s going on with the MacGruber sequel, and whether he’s ever regretted turning down a role.

Collider: When you started on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, could you ever have imagined that you would be here with a show that was canceled and then not canceled, and is now on another network?

ANDY SAMBERG: It’s been very crazy!

And the fact that you're in your sixth season seems equally crazy.

SAMBERG: Equally crazy! It’s really cool. It’s such a weird process doing a show. I signed on before there was a script and I just was like, “I’m friendly with Mike Schur and I love Parks and Rec.” But you’re also like, “God, I hope this is good. I hope I like the people I work with.” No one had been cast. We didn’t know what was happening with it, at all. I just took the leap. I don’t know, in retrospect, I probably would have thought about it a lot more, but I’m so glad that I just said, “Yes,” and did it because I’ve really, really loved it. But, yeah, it’s cool. It feels really good to be able to say, “I’m on a show that’s gone at least six seasons.” It feels like it’s a success, in that we have a dedicated fan base that the show really means a lot to. I get stopped by kids on the street who love it, and parents that say they watch it as a family. When you get into making a feel-good network sitcom, that’s what you hope will be the end result. Obviously, I do other stuff that is less kid-friendly, but it’s nice to have that happen. That was the intended goal.

If NBC had not swooped in, would that have definitely been the end?

SAMBERG: I guess so. I don’t know if there were other places that it was possible for it to go. For me, it would not have been a particularly satisfying ending. I thought the wedding was a beautiful episode, and I was really happy with it, but there were so many things that I, personally, as a fan of watching our show, would have been like, “Oh, we didn’t ever get to see that, and this and that.” You always want to end on your own terms. Especially when you’re writing towards an ending, it can be so much more satisfying. Can you imagine if there wasn’t the last season of Breaking Bad? You’d be like, “No, that was the whole thesis statement of the whole thing. He had to break, all the way.”

But then, there’s the situation where they bring back or revive a show, and you’re not sure if it was the best idea to return.

SAMBERG: Those can be tricky. I was worried when they brought back Wet Hot American Summer because that movie was seminal for me, but I was so happy with the series. Both seasons, I was just like, “Oh, it’s like getting to go back and get that same feeling again.” It’s so satisfying.

Obviously, you can’t all do a bunch of nudity or run around using harsh language because you’re still on a broadcast network, but are there any changes that you can do? Does the show feel any different, at all, or does it pretty much feel the same?

SAMBERG: It seems pretty much like it’s gonna be the same show. The one difference, hypothetically, is that on NBC, you can do bleeps and blurs, which I utilized maybe a little too much at SNL. We were just talking about the number of visual shorts where it ends with somebody not wearing pants. As one does. It’s a good cut to wide. But I think that would really be the only change. Other than that, it’s gonna be pretty much the same. And it will be 13 episodes, so we’ll have a little bit less work.

How do you feel about doing 13 episodes?

SAMBERG: I’m excited for 13. Obviously, I think everyone did a great job doing 22, but it’s tough. It’s a lot of episodes. I can’t believe how much it used to just be the norm, but I also feel like almost every sitcom was in front of a studio audience, so the schedule was different. They were not shooting as much. And a lot of these bigger budget hour-long shows, if it’s not on a network, are 10 episodes. Maybe 12, but usually 8 or 10. It’s more of a contained thing. In a lot of ways, it’s been great that The Good Place has shown that that’s a totally sustainable and viable thing to do.

I love that show!

SAMBERG: It’s great! It’s Mike Schur, so his fairy dust is sprinkled all about. I will watch Ted Danson do anything, honestly. But, yeah, I’m excited [to do 13 episodes]. I think everyone will be in slightly better spirits on set because we’ll know that it’s this contained amount of time. It’s also not an exorbitant amount, so we’ll be able to forward the story slightly faster, and stuff like that.

Are you on the same sets?

SAMBERG: Yeah, it’s all identical.

You didn’t have to rebuild everything?

SAMBERG: No, we’re still shooting at [the same studio], with the same dressing rooms. It’s all the same. The e studio, NBC Universal, always owned the show, so this is really just switching the network only. Everything else is remaining intact.

What can you tease about the upcoming season and where things are headed for the characters?

SAMBERG: Well, you’ll obviously find out what happens with the cliffhanger with Holt. There’s gonna be an episode that’s focused on Hitchcock and Scully, which I’m really excited about. We’re gonna see Jake and Amy experiencing married life. We’re gonna to continue to see Rosa dating, after coming out, so there’s new dynamics to that, continuing to deal with her family. I think there’s gonna be an episode where Jake and Gina go to a high school reunion because they grew up together. That’s all I know. 

Now that you’re on NBC, is there an NBC show that you would love to show up and do a guest spot on?

SAMBERG: Oh, man, probably, This Is Us, based purely on ratings. I would love to be on The Good Place. It’s fantastic. Honestly, there are a ton of great shows. I love Superstore. That’s a really fun show. Obviously, I’m always happy to go back to SNL.

After Popstar, which has become something of a cult hit, are you, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone (i.e. The Lonely Island) working on making another movie together, anytime soon?

SAMBERG: We don’t have anything going. It’s been tough. We did our first ever concerts, and that took a lot of work and prep. That filled the space that maybe would’ve been used for writing another movie. We definitely want to. Jorma lives in Brooklyn with his family, and his wife is also a successful movie director now, who’s traveling around. They’re all over the place. It’s hard to nail down time, where all three of us are in the same place. But I see Kiv a lot, and we’re working on things. Just nothing is happening enough yet that I would tell you about it because then it won’t happen, and that will be annoying and disappointing to everyone.

You’ve been involved in some terrific HBO specials, like Tour de Pharmacy and 7 Days in Hell. Do you have any other HBO specials in the works?

SAMBERG: Thanks! Yeah, I would love to. We’ve had so much fun doing those. It’s nice to have a platform where truly any joke you think of can go in it. They’re very low budget, so they’re really freewheeling and shot fast. I think we shot 7 Days In Hell in three days, ironically, since it’s called 7 Days In Hell. We really compacted the events. But, yeah, we’d love to do more. There are not plans to, immediately, but especially now that there’s a template in place, it’s easy to ask other people and be like, “Hey, if you want to come do this really stupid thing for a couple days . . .”

At various point in your career, I would imagine that you must have said no to some things. Do you have any regrets, in that regard? Was there anything you said no to, that you saw later and were like, Why didn’t I do that?!,” or do you feel pretty good about the choices that you’ve made?

SAMBERG: I feel pretty good. I don’t think that I’ve ever been straight up offered something and turned it down. Wasn’t it Tom Selleck that turned down Han Solo, or something? I don’t think I was ever in a position, where they were like, “Hey, do you wanna be the star of Guardians Of The Galaxy?, and I was like, “No, fuck them!” I don’t get offers like that, necessarily. I get a lot of my agent sending me a script and being like, “Hey, would you be interested in this?” And I’ll be like, “I don’t know if it’s right for me,” and then it ends up being something that someone grabs, and it does really well. But there was never a hard offer where I said, “No!,” and then it was a hit. 

If you were in a situation like that, and they offered you some big thing and you just didn’t know if it was for you, would you see yourself saying yes anyway?

SAMBERG: It would depend. I never thought I would have done a movie like Celeste & Jesse Forever, but then Rashida [Jones] sent me the script. Honestly, in the beginning, I thought she sent it to me, as a writer, to be like, “Hey, will you give me your thoughts on this?” I was like, “I have no notes. Can I be in this?” I read it and was like, “Oh, I could do that. I feel like I could pull that part off. There’s drama, but I feel like I could do it.” The same would go for a different kind of movie than what I’ve done in the past. I’ve long said that I would love to be in a disaster movie, or an alien invasion movie, or a monster movie. When I see the fifth lead in Godzilla or something, I’m just like, “I would love to do that!” With Kong: Skull Island, I was like, “I wanna be the comedy relief in one of those big monster movies.” I just wanna stand on a gigantic green screen and pretend to be scared. That’s why you do it! That’s why I got into this!

So, is there any chance of the MacGruber sequel ever happening?

SAMBERG: Oh, man, that’s a Jorma question. Honestly, it’s really a Will Forte question. I know that there have been legit discussions. I don’t know that they have ever resulted in a viable production plan. I know that there are ideas for it, and scenes and stuff have been written. I’ve read some really funny stuff. It seems like Forte could do it now, if he wanted to. I don’t want to put the pressure on him. I can tell you, as a fan of the first one, I would love to see it, but I really have nothing to with those, other than being good friends with everyone who made them. The first time they screened that for a bunch of friends of ours in New York, I was crying laughing, to the point where I went to Jorma and was like, “I’m mad at how good that was.” It’s fantastic! I’m a big MacGruber fan.

After going through all of the trouble to move you over to NBC, it feels like it would be mean for this to be the only and last season of the show there. Do you feel like you’ll be there for a little while? Are you game for however long it turns out to be?

SAMBERG: Yeah, I’m game for however long it goes. If this is the last one, I would be at peace with that. No matter what, it’s better to have more than just ending where it would’ve been.

I guess that would depend on where you end it again.

SAMBERG: Fair enough. It’ll be an interesting thing, trying to write to the season finale, this time, because we will have wrapped production before any episodes have aired. We may find ourselves in a similar situation, but we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes. This is a new life for the show. We’re living on borrowed time, as it is. I think if NBC is into it and they want it to keep going, especially at 13 episodes a season. I’m happy to do it, for as long as everyone wants to make it. It’s a dream job for me.

Do you feel like there’s some pressure to do a few different endings, in case you start to hear things might not go your way, mid-way through the season?

SAMBERG: I don’t know the answer to that, but I certainly hope so. It would suck really hard to end on a dissatisfying note, after everything that’s happened. But it’s TV, so it’s out of your control.

Since you signed onto this show without really having an idea of what you were actually signing on for, what’s been the most surprising thing about this whole journey?

SAMBERG: I don’t know that I would say it’s surprising, but for me, the most satisfying thing has been watching the cast grow, and see the world get to know them and fall in love with their characters and performances. I guess you could say that was surprising for me, just because it was an unknown. And for the social issues to become such a thing that’s at the forefront of our show, that was definitely not what we went into it thinking would happen. We definitely wanted the cast to be very diverse because it was representative of what the Brooklyn Police Department looks like. We talked a lot about how we never wanted to be like that’s what the show is about. We just wanted it to be something that was. But the way the world has changed, during the time since we started, it’s become something that everyone has focused on more, in a really beautiful, positive way. A lot of people say to us, “Your show looks and feels how I wish the world was.” For me, to be able to have those elements be a part of it, and also get to just do really fun, hard comedy, which is my main goal in all things in life, is very gratifying.

And who knew Andre Braugher was so funny!

SAMBERG: He’s so funny. Sometimes he doesn’t even know that he’s being funny, he just is. That was the most surprising thing for me, not because I didn’t think Andre was brilliant, but because we didn’t know what he would do with comedy. The combination of his take on Holt and the way that they’ve written Holt turned into the centerpiece of the show, in my opinion. It grounds it, but it also gives it its tone. It’s able to be extremely wacky and silly and slapsticky, but also somehow come across intellectual, which I think is a really important balance to strike. It turns out that our personalities are very well-suited. We got lucky.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine will return mid-season on NBC.