“When I read Community, when the script came my way, I was terrified. Because I was like, this is it! This feels right,” Pudi explained on the podcast. “It was a show that I knew I would watch and be a fan of. It felt very personal. It just felt like Dan Harmon literally wrote it and threw it at me.” It would be just like Harmon to throw a fresh script directly at an actor’s face, but that would have been less stressful to Pudi than the possibility that his dream role wouldn’t work out.
Pudi said of his stress, “In some ways, you try to play these mental tricks where you’re just like, ‘Whatever, if it happens, it happens. It’s probably not that great (anyway),’ just to calm myself down.” But the part was more than great — it was perfect. Pudi’s performance as Abed quickly became a fan favorite, and as the show progressed, the Community writers increasingly used Abed’s unique point-of-view to unlock the show’s weirdest, smartest and most meta potential.
“I think that there was this idea of this character that’s in the middle of the action, the middle of this study group, who just sees things differently,” Pudi continued. “And I could always relate to that. … I just think that there was something really playful about how he saw the world, which I loved.”
Community fans are eager to see what Abed has been doing since the events of Season Six, as is Pudi, but the butterflies still persist. “I’m definitely a little nervous. It’s been a while. But I’m also very, very excited,” he said.
Don’t worry Danny, it will all be cool cool cool.