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COMMUNITY STAR YVETTE NICOLE BROWN!

As a young girl growing up in East Cleveland, Ohio, Brown dreamed of a career on stage and screen. She began her entertainment career as a vocalist while still in her teens, when after an impromptu audition for Michael Bivins (New Edition; Bell Biv DeVoe) she was signed to Motown Records as a part of the East Coast Family, a group of new talents that included Boyz II Men. Brown was featured on the Motown album, The East Coast Family Vol.1, which included the Top 20 single, "1-4-All-4-1." As a part of the East Coast Family, Brown appeared on MTV, Showtime at the Apollo, Vh1 and BET, while simultaneously completing coursework that led to a bachelor of fine & applied arts degree from the University of Akron. Following graduation, she packed her bags and moved to Los Angeles.

In just a short time, Brown has emerged as one of the most sought-after character actresses in Hollywood, highlighted by memorable appearances on numerous hit TV shows, including: "House," "Entourage," "The Office," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Two and a Half Men," "Malcolm in the Middle," "7th Heaven," "Fat Actress," "Til Death," "That's So Raven," "Rules of Engagement," "Privileged" and "That 70s Show" among others. In addition, she has had recurring roles on "Boston Legal," "Girlfriends," "Sleeper Cell," "Half & Half" and "Drake & Josh." She also was a series regular on "The Big House."

Duration:: 14m
Broadcast on:: 19 Nov 2009
Audio Format:: other

Go get your life in this Buzzworthy Radio where you can get the latest buzz and all your favorite jokes inside. Buzzworthy, smart, now! Hi, I'm Crystal Shebel from Guiding Light and you are watching the brilliant Buzzworthy Radio. Welcome, welcome, welcome everybody to TheEWR. I'm your host, Nivel J.V., coming to you live right now. It is quarter to 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time here on BaldtokRadio.com. We're going to be joined by Yvette Nicole Brown. She plays the role of Shirley on NBC's comedy show Community, which also stars Joel McHale, J.V. Chase, and Allison Brie as a beauty who we have on the show. She'll be joining us in about three minutes, ladies and gentlemen, so we will be talking to her for the next ten minutes. Also, I'm going to give you a heads-up on our upcoming show next Wednesday, the day I guess we can say Thanksgiving Eve. We are going to be having on the season five winner of the biggest loser, Ally Vincent. She will be joining us on Wednesday morning. I am looking forward to talking to her. What was her information willing to do the biggest loser? What got her through? What was she thinking about through the end of the whole entire thing? What caused her? What made her stick it out and stick it out through the end? I wanted her to work harder to get to where she is now, because I think that's inspirational for anybody who wants to do something like that. I think it's a great thing. I think it's something that a lot of people should invest in watching the biggest loser. It's a great show. I think it's wonderful. I think it's absolutely wonderful that people will actually want to do that to better themselves. They want to better themselves and better their families. They want to be here for their families for a long time. I think it's a wonderful thing that they are doing that. I commend any and everybody that wants to do the biggest loser, the power to you. I love it. I love it. Anyway, here is our guest for the morning. She stars it's Shirley on NBC's community. Many fans may also remember her for doing guest spots and commercials such as Big Lot. I remember her best as playing that role on Nick Lillian's Drake and Josh, which was one of my favorite shows. Hello! How are you? I'm fine. How are you? Feeling very well. Thanks so much for stopping on over this morning. My pleasure. Let's describe this role that you play here on the community. For those of you who don't know who Shirley is, let's get a little rundown of this character. Shirley is a divorced mom and she's very sweet and mothering, but her husband, we don't know for sure, but I think her husband cheated on her. She's got also an underbelly of seating rage. At any given time, Shirley could turn on a dime and really get very angry. That's been fun to play. I never know if she's going to be sweeter or angry on any given line. That's Shirley in a nutshell. She's like the mother hen of the show. Oh, I got you. How is the description of Shirley? It seems like it's no different than the roles you play. Shirley's actually a little bit more angry than I've ever played, and she's also a lot sweeter than I've ever played. It's kind of my character, but it's just got a little more edge turn in both ways. Oh, okay, I see. You see what I'm saying? Usually, like on Drake and Josh, Helen is pretty much just more middle of the roles than Shirley will ever be. Helen's never as sweet or as mean as Shirley can get. Does that make sense? I don't know if that makes sense. It makes sense to my life. Helen just loves Drake, hey, to Josh. It's pretty much black and white with her. Shirley, you never know which way the wind is going to blow or who she's going to go off on at any given minute. It's a little different. Exactly. Let me ask you that. Do you see you've had no background in Shirley besides the fact that they look alike? People come a lot alike, don't they? You know what, as Dan Harmon, the creator of the show is great in paying close attention to all of us as actors, and he's slowly turning these characters into us, which has been great because it makes it really easy to act when you're pretty much playing yourself. So as the episodes have gone on, I must admit that Shirley's becoming more like me. I don't know if that's good or bad. I guess the viewers will decide, but yes, she's a lot like me now. Oh, yeah. That's good. That's good. Now, I have to ask, what's it like working alongside Chevy Chase and Joel McCain on doing the show? Do you find that when you're doing this show along those two Canadian geniuses, they help you a lot with your performance on the show? Yeah, you know, a show is only as good as its weakest link, and so my goal or whatever show I do is to never be that weakest link. And you have heavy hitters like Joel and Chevy, and not to discredit Donald Glover and Danny Poudy. Everybody on the show is able to carry a joke if necessary. So we're all trying to be the one, not to be the one that lets something fall short. So if anything, Joel and Chevy make us strive to be better, but we all want to be better for everybody. We're all working together. We're a true ensemble. We support each other and have a great time to gather the cast. Yeah, they make us, we make each other better, I think. Oh, that's good. I like that. I like that. I like that. That's really good. And I got to, I got to put that out there. I forgot to ask this to Allison the last time I had her on, because I always love asking people if they have a Twitter. Do you have a Twitter? I do. It's Evette in Brown. So it's my, it's my stage name is Evette Nicole Brown, but you just put the middle initial instead of my full name. And Allison is just Allison Brie on Twitter. So if that helps. Oh, she has a Twitter too? She does have a Twitter. Oh, wow. Everyone has a Twitter except Chevy, Gillian, and Danny. Okay. And everyone is, it's their name. I think Donald Glover is Don Glover. So it's not his full name, it's Don Glover. And Ken Jung is just Ken Jung, Joel McHale is just Joel McHale. I'm Evette in Brown, Allison Brie. So everybody is, is on there. And we're trying to get Danny on. Gillian never will, but we're trying to get Danny on. Okay. I just, I just checked out. I'm now following you and I was out in the middle. Yes, I know following you. So that's great. So how did you, how did you get into acting? What was your inspiration? Was it something you wanted to do or is it something that sounds you? You know, I think it sounded, I actually started out as a singer and was in the East Coast family back when I was a teenager. And thought that I would be a singer. Never thought that I would act ever. And did a stage play to one of those touring plays, David Talbert, his woman, his wife. And fell in love with the audience experience and thought, well, wow, maybe I should try to act. And got home back to town because he was a chore. Got back in town and got a commercial agent and started doing commercials. And it just kind of took off from there, but it was never like a calculated plan. I'm going to go to California and conquer Hollywood. That was never a goal. It was just, I'm going to go to L.A. because it's pretty. And hopefully I can sing and, you know, get away from the snow in Ohio. I love Ohio, but it's just really cool. Nice. Nice. Do you have some upcoming films that theatrical releases you're going to be seen in? Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I have a movie called Repo Men starring Jude Law and forced Whitaker. And it comes out in April of 2010. And it's a role, you jokingly said that all my roles are the same. This one is not the same. This is a, I play a militia resistance leader. I have a ratty wig and a scar on my face. And there's nothing silly or sassy or anything about her. She's straight up drama and, you know, she's fierce. So that's going to be my first role like that. And again, it comes out in April and it's called Repo Men. Okay. And then when you do, when you do movies and TV, what's the differences between the two? Like, is it a lot harder for you? You know, the thing for me is the waiting around on set. That's the one thing that I'm not in love with. If you do a sitcom, it's a really easy week. You just go in for a couple hours every day and you're done. If you do a single-camera show or drama or movie, like communities of single-camera comedy, you're in hair and makeup every day. You're working every day. And it's at least a 12-hour day, just about every day. So there's a lot of time on set, a lot of time in your trailer. So it's a more time-intensive situation. But, you know, trailers are nice and you've got a TV and a microwave in there and even a shower. So it's kind of like home away from home and you get used to it. But that's the main difference. Okay. You don't find one higher or one easier kind of thing. Just the out, you know, movies and single-camera shows are harder just because it requires more of you every single day time-wise. But the acting is the same in both. You have to, you know, hit your mark and say your lines and hopefully be brilliant or funny, you know, in each of the genres. So, you know, actually, the funny thing is I think the hardest acting I've done has been in commercials because you only have 30 seconds to create a character and, you know, sell a product. So I think actually out of all of them, acting-wise commercials are the hardest. Would you say that's sort of like with commercials, in provision is key kind of thing with commercials? You said precision? In provision. If you think about it, like when you, because you said like you have like 30 seconds to come up with like some thing, you're kind of like, would you say commercial is sort of like in provision, maybe? Yeah, I would say. I would say that. And what else do you like to do besides the whole acting and everything else? Because it just seems like you've done so much. What does Ethanocle Brown do? Who does Ethanocle Brown both? I can't believe that Ethanocle Brown gets mad at me. I promise I would never do that. I bowl. I like to knit, which is like probably everything I'm going to say is going to be corny. Bowling, knitting, I like to go to movies, dinner with friends, you know, just regular basic stuff. I'm a Midwest girl. I never changed when I came to LA. So my life's pretty much the same as when I was in Ohio. Just hanging out with good people and doing regular stuff. Nothing exciting. Hey, look, you know, everybody loves- I like bowling. Okay. No problem with nobody that. I love bowling. I don't know how to knit. So I won't start. It is very relaxing. Don't knock knitting. It's very relaxing. And it looks like you can do while doing other things. You can knit and watch TV or knit and talk on the phone. It's a no brain needed, you know, activity. Oh, I see. No, no, that would be perfect for me then. And it really will be- No, let it out. Stop it. And I'll tell you, right, your own music is so not mistaken. Yeah, I used to- Wow, look at you. I used to write my own music. I haven't written or sung or done anything musical in, like, ages. I need to get back into that because it really is, like, coming home for me. And you watch- And of course, like everybody else, even though they say they don't do this, but you watch TV. I love TV. You can- I've never understood actors who say they don't watch TV. I love TV. I love it. And my TV was my best friend. No idea how many people come through here on this show and say they have no time to watch TV. They may not have time, but, you know, I make the time. I'm a busy girl on the show. I work a lot on the show, but when I have a Saturday or Sunday and a few hours to kill, I'm all about my TiVo. I love TiVo. Oh, yeah. What do you do? What do you do? What do you do? Yeah. I love Friday Night Lights. I'm a freak about 30 Rock. I just freaking love it. And I'll watch it and re-watch it because there's always some gags in the back you don't expect. I love the CSI's. All of them. And even a lot of the new shows I've been watching, Modern Family is awesome. You know, there's a lot of really great stuff on TV right now, so people who aren't watching are really missing out. Oh, yeah. I'm a huge contender for TV. I mean, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't watch TV. That's right. Yeah. I agree. I agree. There'd be no way I'd be doing this show if I did not watch TV. It was. I would look very, very stupid and I probably would be interested in my life. Yeah. But like you said, there are a lot of stuff on TV that they should be watching. And I would love for you before we send off here to do a promo for us. If you go on the lines of this is the technical ground. From community, you're listening to buzzworthy radio, or you can improvise that in many ways. You perform the floor as you are, so whenever you're ready. Alrighty. I see that Nicole Brown from NBC's community and you're listening to buzzworthy radio. Love it. Thank you so much for stopping here. Anytime you want to come back, the door is always open. I don't want to set up for anybody. Thank you so much. It was awesome. Talk to you. Nice to see you. Take care. Bye. Bye. Alright, guys. We're heading out here for the day. We're going to be back on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving with the biggest loser, season five winner, Ali Vincent. Make sure you guys check that out. On Wednesday, November 25th at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. And for those of you who want to follow her on Twitter, our guest that we just had on, Eva and Nicole Brown. You can follow her at Yvette and Brown on Twitter, as well as Alison Brie, also another one of our favorites here, at Alison Brie and at Joel McHale. And you know what, community is going to be all over Twitter. It's going to be all over Twitter. So make sure you guys follow all of those guys that she said that has a Twitter. So make sure you guys follow them right now. I am ordering you. Well, maybe not ordering. But I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting. But that is it for now. I'm about really starting off thinking sure you guys get the latest buzz with buzz or the radio. We'll see you guys on Wednesday. Take care. Can't get enough of Buzzworthy Radio. Now gun down to WWW. That Buzzworthy radio is at net. To get the latest news, I'm upcoming guests, past shows and videos of all your favorite stars.