AI Summary
5 min readIn ‘The Good Place’ with D’Arcy Carden
D’Arcy Carden spent a decade in New York City performing improv at UCB, babysitting Bill Hader’s kids, and watching her friends get cast on TV shows while she stayed behind. When she finally auditioned for The Good Place, she was so convinced she wouldn’t get the part that she treated the room like a masterclass—she just wanted to impress creator Mike Schur. She got the role anyway, playing Janet, the all-knowing artificial assistant, and earning her first Emmy nomination. But the path to that moment involved a specific kind of self-protective avoidance: she never submitted an SNL audition tape, never told Hader she was an actor for three years, and kept a letter to Lorne Michaels folded in her datebook for a decade without ever rereading it.
The Delusion Required to Keep Going
Carden describes herself as both grounded and delusional—a combination she considers necessary for anyone pursuing the arts. She knew the statistics: her college professor Dennis Smith told incoming theater students the improbability of making it, advising that if anything in you says “maybe not this,” you should take that out. Carden had nothing else in her head. She woke up thinking about acting, read that same description in a book, and took it as a sign she was put on earth for this.
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What you'll learn
- 1 Timestamped Outline: In ‘The Good Place’ with D’Arcy Carden
- 2 (00:00) **Opening Banter: Therapy, Younger Therapists, and Intake Sessions** - D’Arcy jokes about quitting therapy after a younger therapist made her uncomfortable; she’s done five “episodes” of intake but no actual sessions.
- 3 (01:03) **Introduction: The Long Road to Success** - Sam introduces D’Arcy as a late-bloomer success story: *The Good Place*, *Barry*, *A League of Their Own*, and the new Peacock series *The Five Star Weekend*.
- 4 (02:54) **Welcome and Pre-Interview Edibles** - D’Arcy arrives; Sam mentions her co-star Tim’s half-edible pre-interview, and they laugh about microdosing.
- 5 (04:10) **Defining Brooke: The Insecure Character She Recognizes** - D’Arcy explains her *Five Star Weekend* character Brooke is “very self-conscious, very nervous, doesn’t deserve to be here”—a part of herself she doesn’t fully love.
- 6 (05:46) **Warning Sign: The Acting Teacher’s “Great Teammate” Comment** - A college acting teacher told D’Arcy she was a “great teammate,” which she internalized as “you are a bad actor, but people like being around you.” This planted a seed of feeling unworthy.
- 7 (06:33) **Growing Up in the East Bay: Music, Parents, and Nepo Baby Exemption** - D’Arcy’s parents ran music magazines; she jokes she was excluded from “nepo baby” articles because their connections were in music, not Hollywood.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
From “The Good Place” and “Barry” to “A League of Their Own” and “The Five-Star Weekend,” D’Arcy Carden has become one of the most recognizable and beloved performers on television.
We sit to discuss her Bay Area upbringing (6:33), moving to New York to pursue acting (16:05), and finding her community in long-form improv at UCB (21:08). Then, she reflects on the day jobs that kept her afloat—including babysitting Bill Hader’s kids (24:53), watching friends around her begin to break through (29:54), and what kept her from submitting an application for SNL (35:08).
On the back-half, Carden revisits “The Good Place” audition that changed her life (42:49), the pressure she felt on set (51:34), and an enduring piece of advice from her co-star Ted Danson (56:48). To close, we talk about the joy and heartbreak of “A League of Their Own” (58:37), the future of Hollywood (1:01:50), and why, after reaching her wildest dreams, she hopes to keep acting forever (1:10:08).
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