HE’S IN ’TOON
It's full screen ahead for Andy Samberg with ‘Digman!’ and two new movies
In the new adult animated series “Digman!” — premiering March 22 (10:30 p.m.) on Comedy Central — Andy Samberg voices the title character of washed-up archaeologist Rip Digman.
But the “Saturday Night Live” vet can also be seen in the new bigscreen comedy “Self Reliance,” which premiered at South by Southwest earlier this month — and in the upcoming biopic “Lee,” in which flexes his acting chops opposite Oscar winner Kate Winslet.
“It’s very dramatic … very different from anything I’ve done before,” Samberg, 44, told The Post about his real-life role in “Lee” as Life magazine WWII photojournalist David Scherman. “But when Winslet calls you, you say yes.”
For now, though, Samberg is getting in touch with his inner Indiana Jones on “Digman!” In addition to creating the series with fellow “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” alum Neil Campbell, he also serves as writer and producer for the first time.
“I’ve written on everything I’ve ever worked on pretty much in some way, shape or form,” he said. “I have not always been credited, but that’s fine — that’s how it works.”
In addition to reuniting Samberg with his “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” love interest Melissa Fumero as the voice of Bella — Digman’s wife who he’s still mourning a decade after her death — the series features a star-studded array of guest voices including Daniel Radcliffe, Jane Lynch and Samberg’s former “SNL” cohort Maya Rudolph.
“We got everyone to do it by just backing up the money truck,” Samberg said with a laugh. “Part of it was just luck that they wanted to do it or had time. We started creating this during lockdown, when a lot of people were free.”
But even with his new series, Samberg still hasn’t quite gotten over the “tough” ending of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” in 2021 after eight seasons on Fox and NBC.
“It was a strange way to end … in the middle of COVID,” he said. “We came back for one very thoroughly swab-tested season. So it felt slightly anticlimactic in that sense.”
And Samberg still regrets that, aside from the opening credits, the series never actually filmed in Brooklyn. “We shot that show in LA,” he said, adding that he lobbied to go on location to Brooklyn “every f—king year.”
These days, Samberg is juggling all his various projects with daddy duty: He and his wife of 10 years, baroque pop artist Joanna Newsom, have two young children.
Samberg said that it’s too early to tell if the kids are musically or comedically inclined.
“It does feel like there’s some musicality and some comedy instincts in there,” he said. “I’m hoping for more musical comedy.”
Certainly, Samberg knows a thing or two about that genre with his trio The Lonely Island, which won an Emmy for their “D--k in a Box” ditty that was featured in an “SNL” sketch.
And yes, Samberg still tunes in to watch the NBC warhorse in which he appeared — “live from New York” — from 2005 to 2012.
“I of course still watch,” he said. “I watched before I worked there and after … It’s America’s campfire — you’re seeing what’s going on in our country on that show.”