Danville’s D’Arcy Carden celebrates ‘surreal’ Emmy nomination
San Ramon Valley High grad honored for her 'The Good Place'
Many fans of the acclaimed sitcom “The Good Place” were totally bummed out last year when Emmy voters declined to honor D’Arcy Carden for her extraordinary turn as Janet, the show’s relentlessly cheery, not-quite-human personal assistant.
Ah, but good things come to those who wait. Carden, a native of Danville, finally picked up a nomination this summer — a few months after the NBC comedy ended its four-season run.
So what was her reaction when she got the news that she nominated in the Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy category? Basically, stunned disbelief.
“It was very surreal,” Carden recalls in a new Q&A with The A.V. Club. “I think there was a part of me that thought, ‘We’ve been off the air for a while, I haven’t gotten it before… .’ There was all these reasons I was not expecting it. So my husband and I were just sitting on the couch staring at each other. We just kept going, ‘Holy (expletive).’ We weren’t screaming and dancing and jumping around.”
Soon afterward, Carden learned that castmate William Jackson Harper was also nominated. That’s when the real celebration began.
“… We started screaming and jumping and FaceTiming him and his girlfriend Ali,” she said. “Neither of us were expecting it. It was just such a nice surprise. It’s just a nice thing. We got to do this show that we love, and we got to do this final season that we’re so proud of. But there’s almost a part of you that’s like, ‘Does anybody even remember?’ And then you get a little kiss from the Emmys angels and they say ‘Oh! This is
for you!’ ‘You forgot this!'”
Of course, Carden’s first brush with Emmy won’t come with the same kind of glitz and glamor that it normally would. Due to the pandemic, the awards ceremony on Sept. 20 will be a virtual affair. Carden told The A.V. Club that she doesn’t know yet how the telecast will play out.
“I basically know what the public knows, which is just that it’s not going to be at the usual place, and it’s going to be at peoples’ homes,” she said. “Will and I were talking about if there’s a way to socially distance watch it together, like in the backyard? My husband Jason and I keep talking about how funny it is: Am I going to be wearing a dress and he’s going to be wearing sweats? (Laughs.) What’s the whole feel? What’s it going to look like? It would be really fun to watch it with a few friends, but you just have to be safe and careful and wearing masks and all the stuff that everybody’s doing. I’m just not sure how to do it.”
For Carden, a graduate of San Ramon Valley High School (Class of ’98), “The Good Place” proved to be her breakthrough moment as an actress. After years of doing improv and sketch comedy with
the Upright Citizens Brigade, and scraping by with guest roles on shows like “Broad City,” “Inside Amy Schumer” and “Crazy ExGirlfriend,” it was her first chance to be a regular cast member on a major broadcast series.
And Carden has capitalized on the opportunity. She’s a regular on HBO’s Emmy-winning “Barry,” and she will also be seen in Amazon Prime’s highly anticipated “A League of Their Own,” a series adaptation of the 1992 bigscreen film about a 1940sera women’s professional baseball team.
“I play this character named Greta — very different from anything I’ve ever played before,” Carden said. “I’m so excited for people to see this show. I can’t wait for people to see this cast. Everybody’s so unique and special. It was such an interesting experience to meet each other as baseball players, because we trained in baseball way before we started acting together. We were playing baseball for months before we shot anything, which was a really unique experience: To be a team before we were on set. I miss those girls.”