With hundreds of television shows available to watch today, there must be a strong reason why viewers keep returning to a particular story. Most of the time, it has to do with the characters. Now more than ever, the audience that watches series wants to connect with the characters and become close to them. So that this can happen, the characters need to be interesting, compelling, and in a comedy, hilarious. A great example of that is the cop comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine is set in the 99th precinct in Brooklyn, New York. With a unique group of characters that create funny situations for themselves while solving cases, the show should have been a hit from the get-go; but that wasn’t the case. After five seasons, Fox decided to cancel the series. That was when NBC bought it, and it remained until the eighth season, which was the final one. Regardless of the show’s trajectory, the characters’ development and story arcs made people eager to continue to watch the show, as witnessing them change and experience new things was always fun.
Here is the cast and character guide that had such great chemistry it was impossible not to laugh with them.
Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg)
Jake Peralta, played by comedian-actor Andy Samberg, is one of the lead detectives in the precinct. Peralta is the life of the party and is always up to have a good time. Nevertheless, his playful and silly personality doesn’t make him a lousy detective, as he is one of the best on the team. Extremely competitive and with daddy issues (resulting in funny moments with his Captain), Peralta learns not to be so stubborn with the people around him. Obsessed with the action movie franchise Die Hard, he always has a line or two from these movies on the tip of his tongue.
Andy Samberg is a well-known comedian and actor. Samberg was in the impressive number of 141 episodes of Saturday Night Live. He has a long resume with successful projects, and he is best known for the movies Popstar and Palm Springs. The actor also has done voice acting for a few projects, including Hotel Transylvania.
Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero)
Amy Santiago, played by Melissa Fumero, is a highly organized and high-achiever detective. Her major goal is to become the youngest Captain of the NYPD. Santiago’s strictness with herself and everyone else sometimes gets in the way of being the best detective she can be. But at the same time, her carefully organized binders may contain the information necessary to solve the cases. She is just as competitive as Peralta, and they share an exciting friendship that develops into something more. Santiago is desperate to impress Captain Ray Holt, as she sees him as a great mentor to help her achieve her goals.
Melissa Fumero has done a lot of work on television, including 210 episodes of the series One Life to Live. More recently, she has been in the now-canceled one-season show Blockbuster and did voice acting for the Max animated series Velma.
Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz)
Rosa Diaz, played by Stephanie Beatriz, is a no-BS type of person, which translates to how she works as a detective. She can be pretty scary when she wants to be, and her cold exterior may fool people around her: wearing black from head to toe and her signature leather jacket. She learns with time that she can open up and ask for help. Rosa knows Peralta from their time at the Police Academy, and since then, they have been quite close, even if their personalities are opposites.
Stephanie Beatriz is incredible at playing the hard exterior and even harder interior detective. Still, she has been in two Academy Award-nominated movies with very different roles since this role. She sings and dances in Spilberg’s West Side Story and does voice acting for the lead role in Encanto by Pixar.
Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti)
Gina Linetti, played by Chelsea Peretti, is the funny secretary to Captain Holt. Gina is utterly clueless about how she should act or even do her job. She is the comedic element in almost every scene she is in. Gina got the job through Peralta, whom she had known since they were young. Obsessed with getting famous, she will do everything to achieve this status. She has a dance group called Floor-gasm, which creates intricate choreography that she is always too eager to show everyone.
Even if Gina was a fan favorite, the character was absent in a few seasons. The actress decided to leave at the beginning of season six after taking maternity leave during a portion of season five. Gina knowing Peralta for a very long time was taken from the actors’ real life, as they have been friends for decades. Peretti has done many voice-acting jobs, including in the movie Sing 2 and 20 episodes of the adult animated series Big Mouth.
Captain Ray Holt (Andre Braugher)
Captain Ray Holt, played by Andre Braugher, is the new Captain at the beginning of season one and becomes deeply loved by his team by the end of the series. Holt is a tough person to get to know. Earnest at all times, he is the most professional in the precinct. He had to fight a lot of prejudice being a gay Black man in the police force and continue his fight for more equality inside the NYPD. He is married to Kevin (Marc Evan Jackson), and they have a Corgi named Cheddar, who loves to play tricks on them and his officers.
While Andrea Braugher’s comedic timing is excellent in the show, he is known for roles that are far from funny. His resume includes the 1999 series Homicide and the movies City of Angels and the horror Stephen King adaptation The Mist.
Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews)
Terry Jeffords, played by Terry Crews, is the sergeant of the precinct. Jeffords had a breakdown during a mission because of the dangers of his job and had two babies at home, so he had to resort to being on desk duty. He eventually surpasses the fear and gets back into the field. Jeffords has a few passions, which include going to the gym and yogurt. He also likes to speak of himself in the third person, which the other officers always point out — but that never stops him.
Terry Crews has done a few very notable comedic projects. His resume includes Everybody Hates Chris and the movie White Chicks. The actor is also a big advocate for victims of sexual assault, especially inside the entertainment industry, as he is also a victim.
Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio)
Charles Boyle, played by Joe Lo Truglio, is an open-hearted officer who sometimes irritates others because he can be overbearing when showing appreciation for his friends. He enjoys culinary extravagances and eagerly wants to share food with his colleagues, even if they beg him not to. An extremely loyal person, especially to his best friend Jake, Boyle learns not to be completely naive and sees that sometimes people are bad – even if he likes them.
Joe Lo Truglio is also a writer. He wrote various skits for The State. He was a guest in many hit shows in the 1990s, including Law & Order. Truglio can be seen in the comedy movie Superbad and the Pixar animated film Wreck-It Ralph. He is about to have his directorial debut with the horror feature Outpost.
Norm Scully (Joel McKinnon Miller) and Michael Hitchcock (Dirk Blocker)
Michael Hitchcock and Norm Scully, played by Dirk Blocker and Joel McKinnon Miller, respectively, are an inseparable duo. The rest of the officers try to ignore them as much as possible, as they usually add inappropriate commentaries to the conversation or request food. Nevertheless, they were great detectives in their prime — only that was long ago. They can be pretty disgusting sometimes, but extremely funny and the final piece of this comedic puzzle.
Both actors were a part of many projects through the years, even if it’s hard to imagine them acting apart from one another. Dirk Blocker is known for a few horror movies, including Prince of Darkness and the ’80s classic Polteirgest. Joel McKinnon Miller was in The Truman Show and, more recently, in the Max series The Staircase.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
