In the first panel of the TV Critics Association summer press tour, for the Netflix comedy “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” I got to ask Ellie Kemper about her summer stint on NBC’s “Today” show.
“I subbed in while some of the anchors were away this summer for three weeks,” she said. “And, yeah, it was a lot of fun. The ‘Today’ show was a great group of people. They were very welcoming there.”
And it was good training for some possible future job, she said.
“I would love to host a talk show … I mean, in 15 years, when this is over,” she added, looking to her “Kimmy” colleagues.
“There’s not much more beyond that. It was just, sort of, they needed someone to fill in.”
So it was a real job? Up before dawn? Lots of preparation?
“It was like a job, yeah,” Kemper said. “I did have to prepare. Sometimes it was preparing, like reading about Ariana ‑‑ is it Grande or Grand?”
Some of the research didn’t apparently stick.)
“Sometimes the research was, you know, learning about her licking donuts, but it was research just the same,” she said.
The stint provided her some knowledge about something about which she was unfamiliar — doing live television.
“I had never done live television before, so that was a little unnerving,” she said. “Just because, you say something idiotic and then it’s out there.”
She didn’t say anything too idiotic. Most reports say she was grand. Or grande.