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Melissa Fumero is again on the comedy scene, and he or she’s going from the police division to the video retailer. Melissa stars within the highly-anticipated Netflix collection Blockbuster, which premieres on November 3. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Melissa about taking up this new function after 8 seasons as Amy Santiago.
“I was very hesitant to join another workplace comedy. However, when they told me that Vanessa Ramos was sending me her scripts, I got very excited,” Melissa informed HollywoodLife whereas selling Crest/Oral-B’s Closing America’s Smile Gap marketing campaign. “I’m a huge fan of hers. I know her from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. I read her scripts, and it was so good. I immediately connected with Eliza who felt very far from Amy. When we meet her, she’s kind of in a big transition in her life. She’s a little bit lost and trying to figure out what’s next. She’s not happy about working at Blockbuster and has all these things going on in her life that I think are very relatable.”
At the Blockbuster premiere occasion, Melissa additionally admitted that she was “nervous” about enjoying Eliza initially. “I wanted to make sure it felt like a very different character, and she very much was,” she mentioned. “There’s a little bit of a darkness to her and things haven’t gone the way she thought they would. She’s a little lost — and Amy was never lost. That felt really relatable and intriguing to me. She felt like more of a woman that I know and that I’ve met, whereas Amy always felt sort of superhuman. Amy Santiago is like who we aspire to be, and Eliza is like we’re all a little bit more messy.”
The actress famous that Eliza’s marriage is “kind of on the rocks, and she’s figuring out who she is. So she’s reluctantly at Blockbuster, she isn’t too psyched that that’s where she’s working at the moment. But she’s got to pay her rent so… I think the first season is kind of her journey of falling in love with her life a bit, and that’s really fun to watch.”
The Netflix collection follows a enjoyable and quirky group working on the final Blockbuster Video within the United States. Blockbuster was a mainstay for hundreds of thousands of individuals, however the rise of streaming led to the demise of video shops. After all these years, individuals who lived by means of the Blockbuster period had such a passion for that point of their lives.
“For me, it was something that I just kind of took for granted,” Melissa informed HollywoodLife. “I didn’t think it would ever go anywhere. It was such a staple of my childhood and my teen years. When you would go to Blockbuster you inevitably would see somebody that you knew. There was a strong community aspect to it, and we don’t have a lot of things like that anymore. I think we all have love-hate relationships with the digital age, but it’s made a lot of stuff easier. It’s also kind of taken a lot of just human connection experiences away from us.”
Melissa hopes to see a few of her Brooklyn Nine-Nine co-stars on the present sooner or later. “There’s a lot of Brooklyn peeps over at Blockbuster. I think if they had an idea and it was right for one of the Brooklyn Nine-Nine actors, I think they would love to have them on,” the actress mentioned.
The mom-of-two has additionally teamed up with Crest and Oral-B for his or her new Closing America’s Smile Gap marketing campaign. Melissa defined that she’s elevating “awareness around the issue that most kids in underserved communities don’t have access to basic dental care, things like toothbrushes and toothpaste. It was an issue that I was very naive to and wasn’t aware of, so I’m really grateful to have met both Oral-B and Crest in learning more about this. It’s just shocking how large of an issue it is. They want to close what they’re calling America’s smile gap. For each product purchase, Crest and Oral-B are going to donate to a child in need. They’ve also had many events in these communities, and they bring dentists and bring toothbrushes and toothpaste. There’s a lot of outreach, and I’m just here to help support the campaign and raise awareness.”
She mentioned dental care is “such a simple and basic need. We really have to fight to make sure that every child has access to that because as we all know poor oral hygiene can lead to a host of other health issues.” As a part of Publicis Groupe’s PGOne, MSL was the lead inventive company with Saatchi & Saatchi and PXP supporting manufacturing.