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'Parks and Recreation': Aziz Ansari says Tom makes a move this season
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Here's how long "Parks and Recreation" has been of the air: When the show started filming its third season, star Amy Poehler was about six months pregnant. Her baby boy is now five months old.So you'll forgive fellow cast member Aziz Ansari if he's a little fuzzy on the finer points of Thursday's (Jan. 20) season premiere. "You're talking about stuff from the first episode, and that seems like so long ago," he told Zap2it when we visited the show's set in December. "But I'm really happy things worked out the way they did."
"Parks and Rec" went into filming Season 3 right after the second season finished last spring so it would have some episodes in the can before Poehler had to go on maternity leave. The cast and crew thought they'd be back in the fall -- but NBC decided to hold the show until midseason. Production resumed in the fall and is winding down now.
When we pick up with the characters, Ansari's Tom Haverford is working at a Lady Foot Locker, a job he took during his furlough from the Pawnee parks department. He's happy to go back to his real job, but he says Tom will actually try to act on his other ambitions this season.
"He's always been dreaming about this life, owning this nightclub and all that stuff, and there's a lot of him just trying to finally make some serious moves to go for it," Ansari tells Zap2it.
Tom's dreams have never really matched up with the reality of life in Pawnee, which is a big source of comedy for the character. That comedy, however, comes from a place of Tom not quite knowing how to go after his dreams.
"He's trying to reach for a lifestyle that you'd probably have a lot better chance of getting in a place like New York or Los Angeles," he says. "But he stays in Pawnee. It seems like he's probably not confident enough to make a big move like that. So he does what he can in Pawnee, things like [owning a small piece of] the Snakehole Lounge or whatever.
"Through the season, it's kind of cool, you see him slowly gain a couple of wins. You see him do a couple of things that go kind of well. ... He's a minority investor in a tiny nightclub, but to him that's a huge deal. He treats it like it's being Jay-Z owning the 40-40 Club."
"Parks and Recreation" premieres at 9:30 p.m. ET Thursday on NBC.
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Photo/Video credit: NBC
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Aziz was so hilarious hosting last year's MTV Movie Awards. Can't wait for the new season of Parks and Rec come Thursday.