Skylar Astin takes TBS’ Ground Floor up a level: In TBS’ new sitcom Ground Floor from Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Cougar Town), an office-building romance between young financier Brody (Skylar Astin, Pitch Perfect) and maintenance worker Jenny (Briga Heelan, Cougar Town) makes for some awkward situations for their coworkers. John C. McGinley also stars.
A relationship comedy and a workplace comedy make beautiful music together in Ground Floor, a new TBS sitcom from Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Cougar Town). Awkwardness ensues after young financier Brody (Skylar Astin, Pitch Perfect) has a presumed one-night stand with maintenance worker Jenny (Briga Heelan, Cougar Town) and they later discover they work in the same building. Their budding romance gets further complicated by their coworkers, including Brody’s boss (John C. McGinley, Scrubs) and a maintenance guy with a crush on Jenny.
Class conflict plays out in microcosm, and Brody’s the 1 Percenter who often has to be taken down a peg. “It’s rare that our hero is someone who is pretty well off, and things come fairly easily to him,” Astin says. “I think what gives him a complete character, and less of a one-dimension villain kind of a guy, is that he’s so flawed. His personality is vain to a flaw. … Jenny is never afraid to call Brody out on his flaws, so it’s really fun to watch him challenged. It’s fun to play him as he crumbles under the pressure of a relationship and of someone who’s not just going to ‘yes’ him to death.”
Astin, who was in the original Broadway cast of Spring Awakening, gets to do some occasional crooning in Ground Floor. “I thought it would be a one-time deal, and then when the third or fourth script got delivered, I read that they incorporated my singing into another storyline,” he says. “What’s great about our writers is that they’re constantly thinking story and comedy first and they’re not just using it as an excuse for me to sing; rather the singing is complementing the story and the comedy.”
Complementing the cast is Astin’s Pitch Perfect costar and real-life girlfriend Anna Camp, who guest-stars in an episode as Brody’s money-shark ex-girlfriend. Talk about your office romances …
Ground Floor airs on TBS Thursdays at 10pm ET beginning Nov. 14
Photo: © Turner Entertainment Networks, Inc.
