15. They earned the right to dream big. Prince reached out to them. “He contacted Zooey and Hannah [Simone] directly,” Baer told E! News in 2014, “and asked to do the show.”
Turning down a season two episode called “Virgins,” (“Obviously, in hindsight: The episode was too racy,” Meriwether told Vulture) he said he’d be interested in something else. And with the post-Super Bowl time slot, said Baer, “It was perfect timing.”
He was down to have the crew end up at his rave, with one caveat: He wanted to play a role in the central romance. Said Baer, “He’s a Nick and Jess shipper!”
16. And, yes, he had other demands. “He wanted to choose the name of the non-speaking chef character, the chef’s wardrobe, the paintings on the walls, the linens in the bedroom set, his wardrobe, Zooey’s wardrobe, the beat, the pancakes, the hairstyles,” Meriwether told Vulture, “he had a piece of art, a poem written out in the shape of an egg, flown from Minnesota to hang on the wall of the set.”
Midway through the nighttime shoot, he approached Meriwether with another suggestion: Set to surprise Jess in a dark closet, he asked “Isn’t this funnier?” if he flicked on a lighter under his chin rather than a flashlight. “I tried to stay cool,” she recalled. “‘Yeah, that’s funnier. Let’s do that.’ As if there were ever a world where doing exactly what was inside Prince’s head wasn’t one of the greatest privileges of my life.”
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