In the Peacock original series Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin, Bumper Allen (Adam Devine) is back and in Berlin. Several years after we last saw him in the first two installments of the film franchise, Bumper is stuck in a rut and looking to revive his music career when he gets a phone call from Pieter Krämer (Flula Borg), convincing him to get on a plane and go all in, so far from home. But once there, he learns that you really can have a riff-off anywhere, as he digs deep to see if he has it in him to write original songs that people will want to hear.

During this interview with Collider, co-stars Borg and Jameela Jamil (who plays Gisela, Pieter’s flashy ex and Bumper’s music rival) talked about giving Pieter his hero moment, all the things still to learn about the former Pitch Perfect 2 villain, the fun Jamil has in playing characters that really make their mark, what would happen if Gisela met Titania (from She-Hulk) and Tahani (from The Good Place), exploring the Pieter/Gisela dynamic, the riff-off, singing in a dumpster, and what might be next for Gisela. Jamil also talked about which franchises she’d still like to be a part of, to add to all the ones she’s already done.

Collider: Flula, when you joined the Pitch Perfect sequel for the original movie, could you have ever imagined that you’d get to revisit the character now, in this way? How crazy does it feel to get to really have a bit of a hero moment for him now?

FLULA BORG: I still can’t believe I was in Pitch Perfect 2. That’s still something that’s very difficult for my brain to register. I got to play a bad guy, and now I got to play that bad guy going good. I was telling someone else, it feels like, if you watch Terminator, and then you watch Terminator 2, and Arnold [Schwarzenegger] is the good guy, and you don’t realize it. I would like to think I have more personality than a robot, which I think I do, but it’s very fun. I’m very excited. I’m also excited to have an ex-girlfriend in Gisela. That was very fun.

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Image via Peacock

Were there any aspects of Pieter that you wanted to know more about, that there hadn’t been time to learn about before, but now you feel like you have a better sense of?

BORG: Yeah, I wanted to know, does he play the trombone? Can he do the running man? Has he been to Portugal? How many pushups can he do after eating eight donuts? I have all kinds of questions. I hope we get to answer some of these in Season 2. That’s what I wanna know.

Jameela, from The Good Place to She-Hulk to this series, I love that you play characters that cannot be ignored when they walk into a room. Their presence is felt, and you know that they’re there. What do you most enjoy about playing characters that make such an impression, not just on the audience, but on the story and on the characters they come into contact with?

JAMEELA JAMIL: I like complicated people and I like taking on roles that scare the living daylights out of me. Considering how new I still am to acting – this is my third ever job – I’m just trying to push myself and challenge myself. Sometimes playing the good girl, for me especially, means that I don’t get to investigate certain psychological traits of people that I do when I’m playing the bad guy. There’s always a reason why someone sucks, and I enjoy getting to the root of that. That, therein, lies the real source. I was afraid of doing action, which is why I ran away from Marvel for such a long time, but finally did it. I’ve always been afraid of singing and dancing and performing in front of crowds, and I knew that this was an opportunity to face my fears. There’s something about coming out of a pandemic that made me bolder in choosing Marvel and choosing Pitch Perfect. It was like, “God, you know what? We just don’t know how long we’ve got. What’s the worst that can happen? People can laugh at you. You’ve gotta go out there and experience everything you can.” The chance to go to Berlin with Megan Amram, who’s my favorite writer in the world, and then with all of my favorite comedy actors, just felt like beyond a gift.

What do you think Titania and Gisela would think of each other? Would they be friends? Is one of them more dangerous than the other one?

JAMIL: Put Tahani, Titania and Gisela in a boxing ring. That’s the UFC match that I wanna see. I don’t think we need to throw in any Jello. We should watch them all fight to the death. They’d all trigger each other because there is a throughline of insecurity, in which all of them need to be the center of attention, and I would love to see them tear each other limb from limb. Obviously, Titania would win.

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Image via Peacock

You’ve gotten to play in the Jurassic World franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Star Trek franchise, and now Pitch Perfect.

JAMIL: And Wonder Woman in DC.

Yes. Is there another world or franchise that you’d love to be a part of, now that you’re collecting them?

JAMIL: Yeah. After Star Trek, I was like, “Okay, so I’ve done Star Trek, DC and Marvel. I’m on my way to my nerd EGOT. I guess Star Wars is next. I have that in my sight.” That’s something that I’m praying for at night, before I go to bed. That would be an amazing franchise to be able to join. And also John Wick. Is that weird?

That’s not weird, at all.

JAMIL: I was genuinely devastated when I found out they were making the final Fast and Furious movie because I’d always wanted to be part of that, but I just didn’t get into the industry early enough. And so, John Wick is dead in my sight.

Those are all good choices. I love the relationship between Pieter and Gisela because it’s just naughty enough to be fun. What did you guys enjoy about exploring that dynamic? Did you have conversations about how their history affects how they treat each other now?

JAMIL: We talked about it, but for me and Flu, it was mostly about building the chemistry and hanging out with each other. We spent an outrageous amount of time with each other, off set, because we lived in a dorm, all of us in rooms right next to each other. We were all knocking on each other’s doors and bringing each other food, all the time. I think that’s where we did the most work, building that trust and comedic timing, off set. That made it seamless on set.

How would you describe their relationship?

JAMIL: She’s the dom, and he’s the sub. I think it’s important to play these reversals and these roles. She’s almost a bit abusive. She takes it too far. I think that’s what we’re seeing here. If you’re ever gonna see that out in the open, it’s gonna be in Berlin.

BORG: Yeah, absolutely.

JAMIL: We have all the color in that relationship.

BORG: Oh, yes. Leash and everything. That’s correct.

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Image via Peacock

Flula, what did you most enjoy about getting to explore Pieter’s family dynamic? I love that he’s a little bit more emotionally progressed than his sister is, but she also has a lot more going on than we realize. What was it like to find that sibling dynamic?

BORG: Oh, very fun. I don’t have siblings, so it was fun to have one on television. It was also just fun to go from being a straight-up bad guy to someone that’s got family and ex-girlfriends and a sister that is definitely better, in every single way, than Pieter. She’s a better musician than he is, which is devastating for him. That’s a real bummer.

JAMIL: It was a lot of firsts for Flula. He really had to research those things. Also, we all felt like Lera [Abova] is such a brilliant woman. She was so new to all of this. You guys naturally had quite a brother/sisterly bond. You looked after Lera a lot on set, and I know that she feels that way. We all felt the duty to look after her. That organically built between the two of them from what we could see on the outside.

BORG: Totally. She was all of our little sister.

Jameela, what was it like to get to do a riff-off in a Pitch Perfect project?

JAMIL: It’s pronounced wiff-off.

Yes, but I’m not cool enough to pronounce it that way.

JAMIL: It was amazing. It was surreal watching Adam [Devine]. And then, when Flula joined in, I was like, “Oh, shit, this is really happening. Fuck, I’m actually in Pitch Perfect.” That was the exact moment it hit me that this was for real. And I think that was the last day of filming, so it took quite a bit of time filming for it to really hit me as to what this was. Because my parts were so much more isolated from the other four, it took a minute. But there was something so iconic about the Pitch Perfect riff-offs, and I feel so lucky to now be a part of that dynasty.

Flula, what was it like to have that moment between Bumper and Pieter singing “Sweet Child O’ Mine”? What goes through your head, when you’re doing something like that?

BORG: It’s fun because it’s just the insanity of these guys, who are best friends. You would never think, watching the franchise, that they would wind up becoming such good friends. Also, just singing Guns N’ Roses in a very clean dumpster is a very strange way to spend an afternoon, in real life or when you’re filming a television show. The good news was that we could open it and take pee-pee breaks, at any moment. I was allowed out. Adam was not, but I was allowed out. I bribed someone.

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Image via Peacock

Jameela, have you thought about what would come next for Gisela? When you play a character like that, who leaves such an impression, do you think about what would come of her?

JAMIL: I think world domination is next, naturally. Don’t you feel like that? I just think that we are in a generation of really unexpected and average and undeserving people making it all the way to the top, present company included. And so, I feel like why not? If you know certain people can become world leaders, surely Gisela can. Maybe it’s politics. I have no idea. Gisela’s so self-confident that I believe she can do anything she wants. I stan her delusion.

And I’m here for every outfit she wears while doing it.

Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin is available to stream at Peacock.