NEED TO KNOW
- Andy Samberg is speaking out about his late Brooklyn Nine-Nine costar Andre Braugher and how much he misses him a year and a half after the actor’s death
- Braugher died at age 61 in December 2023 following an illness, his rep confirmed to PEOPLE at the time
- Three months later, the Brooklyn Nine-Nine cast gathered to honor and remember him
Andy Samberg is remembering his late Brooklyn Nine-Nine costar Andre Braugher.
A year and a half after Braugher died at age 61 in December 2023 after an illness, Samberg, 46, reflected on the actor’s prowess and their time together on the sitcom during the July 8 episode of Amy Poehler’s podcast Good Hang.
Samberg played Detective Jake Peralta on the series, which was created by Parks & Rec‘s Mike Schur, alongside Braugher’s Capt. Raymond Holt for eight years on the beloved Fox police procedural.
Samberg had a long list of compliments to pay his late costar, who he said he misses “a lot.”
Poehler sensitively broached the topic of Samberg’s late costar during his appearance on her podcast, as she praised Braugher as “so good in the show” and “so poised.”
“He seemed like he was just playful and fun,” Poheler said of Braugher.
“He was,” Samberg agreed. “And just a good person. Like, so deeply moral and kind and pleasant and smart.”
“We all absolutely loved him. I miss him a lot,” he added.
The chemistry between Samberg and Braugher was instant from the first table read.
“Our dynamic worked immediately. It was like one of those things where you’re just like, ‘Okay, this is kismet.’ I don’t know how to explain it,” Samberg recalled.
At their first table read for Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which premiered in 2013, he said that things clicked for him and Braugher “as soon as we started reading” the pilot script.
“From that moment forward, the only thing me and him had to even talk about creatively was in the beginning, he didn’t trust himself to do comedy,” Samberg continued.
In Samberg’s eyes, Braugher was the “funniest” person on the show.
Braugher’s self-doubt when it came to comedy was rooted in his acting background. “He came so strictly from drama and Juilliard,” Samberg explained.
When the rare serious scene came up on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, “He would flip that switch and everyone would be like, ‘Oh my God, what is Andre doing here? He’s so good. Like he should be in, like, drama, he’s the best.'”
“Then he would do his Captain Holt stuff and it was the funniest thing in the show,” Samberg added.
Three months after Braugher’s death, the cast of Brooklyn Nine-Nine reunited to celebrate and honor him.
In March 2024, Terry Crews, Melissa Fumero, Chelsea Peretti, Joe Lo Truglio, Stephanie Beatriz, Joel McKinnon Miller, Dirk Blocke and Samberg all gathered for a reunion in Braugher’s memory.
In a joint post shared on Instagram by Crews and Fumero, they wrote of the special night together, “We laughed. We cried a little. We reminisced. We laughed some more. Nine Nine Forever.”
Beatriz, 44, later told PEOPLE that the cast dinner was “a chance for all of us to get together and make each other laugh.”
“And it was also a chance to talk about Andre. It came up immediately, and then we put it away for a while,” she said. “But at the end of the dinner, by the end, we were all just sharing stories about him and our memories of him. And he lives in our hearts forever and ever.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Crews, 56, similarly told PEOPLE that the “beautiful” reunion gave the cast “time to reminisce and just think about how special our time together was.”
“We laughed, we cried, we missed Andre Braugher, who we lost a few months ago,” he said.
Read the full article here
