sweating the small stuff

Behind the Scenes: 10 Odd Items From the New Girl Set, Explained

Photo: FOX

The New Girl cast has answered plenty of questions about the Douche Jar over the past two seasons. But it seems unjust (dare we say douchey?) that this prop has been given so much attention when there are so many other fascinating tchotchkes and accoutrements in the New Girl world. What about that weird squirrel photo or that picture of Jim Croce in Nick’s room? Or Jess’s James Brown bathtub art? Or those creepy googly-eyed Jess illustrations? Vulture spoke to New Girl’s production designer Michael Whetstone and prop master Ben Lewis about finding — and in some cases, making from scratch — the stuff that defines these lovable weirdos.

Michael: “Our bar set is based on a place called the Prince in Koreatown. It was originally called the Windsor, and it’s been a proper English pub since the twenties. When you walk in there, it’s like walking into a time warp. One of the first things you notice is they have these beautiful, two-feet-tall English infantrymen lamps. We went on eBay and bought about three or four of them and then cast them in resin, and then each soldier was hand-painted. That look is so a [show creator] Liz Meriwether thing.”
In the second season premiere, “Re-launch,” we find out that Schmidt has fully recovered from his penis injury. To celebrate his freedom, he presents his newly sawed-off penis cast to his roommates at the dining room table.   Ben: “My assistant Steve and I made that. We bought a jock strap and plastered it up. We thought it looked pretty good at first, but the writers just went, ‘We need you to make it look like he’s been wearing it for months.’ We aged it up, and it still didn’t look quite right. The director eventually said, ‘What you need is gauze coming out of the sides because there’s always that layer between your body and the cast.’ That made all the difference. We didn’t have a med-tech adviser on hand to tell us what a crotch cast should look like, obviously. We used a lot of Coca-Cola and tea to make the edges look like they’ve been collecting dirt.”
In the second episode of this season, “Katie,” Jess is finding new ways to spend her time while being “funemployed.” At some point, she makes this tapestry.   Ben: “That was done very fast. It got added to the script on a Thursday night, and all it said was ‘Jess walks in with a tapestry of the boys.’ My next-door neighbor Robyn Simms happens to be a seamstress, and she works on Jimmy Kimmel Live making costumes and puppets and stuff like that. I asked her to make me a four-by-five piece of artwork based on this picture we took of the actors in two days.   I was sending in-progress photos to the writers over that weekend, but I was only getting comments back like, ‘This doesn’t look like anything.’ ‘I don’t know what this is.’ For me, it was one of the more stressful times on the show. For things like this, I’m always very concerned about how Zooey will feel because she is such a hands-on person. She can sew and she can knit, so whenever I’m giving her something she could possibly make, I’m always concerned she’ll go, ‘Oh, this is terrible, I would never do this.’ She feels the quality of Jess’s stuff should be coherent throughout the show. The fact that she liked the tapestry, I was very relieved.”
Michael: “Jake came in this season and he had two things in mind. He said, ‘What do you think about adding Bob Seger and Jim Croce to my room?’” While answering the question, Michael e-mailed Jake to ask just why he wanted Jim; Jake instantly replied, “Beautiful singer. Great mustache.” Michael continued: “I loved the idea of adding Jim Croce, but you cannot just put up a photo of a celebrity on the wall. You have to find the photo you want to use and then figure out who to clear that photo with. In the case of Jim Croce, our art department coordinator Jon Bush, after I don’t know how many phone calls, tracked down Croce’s widow who runs a bar in San Diego. She turned out to be a fan of the show and gave us permission.”   Ben: “Jake spends a lot of time thinking about Nick and what Nick likes and does. We were doing a photo shoot yesterday and he goes, ‘I want a shot and a beer.’ ‘I want a low-ball glass of Jack.’ He’s very specific about what kinds of things Nick would drink. Even for a photo shoot.”
Michael: “On the pilot, we didn’t have time to clear anything, so if you looked then, there’s a picture of my wife on Halloween, my nieces were on there, my dogs, one of our horses, and then the last thing we did was a chore list. We’ve since changed it up. I’ve encouraged other people in the crew to put their pets or friends on there. Sometimes I don’t even know what’s on it. It’s kind of a collage now, and it includes a lot of personal stuff.”
Ben: ” I could totally see Schmidt going to Burning Man and being repulsed, but I have no idea if he’s been!”   Michael: “Me neither! People in their late-twenties–early-thirties go to Burning Man. They go to Coachella. We had to get in touch with the Burning Man people. You’d think that would be easy, but the process took well over a month to get the image. And yeah, Schmidt would be where the hot chicks are without a lot of clothes on, and that would be Burning Man. It would be awesome to art-direct an episode shot there.”
Michael: “It’s been there since day one. Jake and I were talking with the set decorator Jane Shirkes about what to put in his room in the beginning, and he said, ‘My wife is this incredible conceptual artist. Her name is Erin Payne, and you should check out her work.’ She had this diorama that she put in an outdoor environment, and when she was photographing it, this squirrel came up and stood in front of it. The piece is called Hollydale, and that’s the image we decided to use because it’s just bizarre. It’s the squirrel that doesn’t really belong there but invited himself to the party. It reminded me of Jake a little bit.”
Michael: “This is a more current piece by Jake’s wife. We were doing a really funny episode this season called ‘Neighbors,’ where these young kids move next door and make our characters feel old. Erin had been visiting, and she happened to tell me about this new project she was doing called “Piles.” When she showed me the photos, I realized they were piles of dirty laundry! It felt the kind of punkish and irreverent and perfect I felt for those neighbors.”
In the episode “Pepperwood,” Nate Corddry starred as Edgar, Jess’s student who Nick was convinced was a serial killer because he had a notebook full of creepy drawings.   Ben: “They were all done by an artist in Los Angeles, his name’s Dion Macellari. Our instructions were actually very specific in terms of what we were going to be able to show onscreen. We were sort of running up against the network, not being able to be super graphic, but we still wanted them to be very freaky. So there were many different sketches done. The imagery of the gimp suit and the deer, that stuff was all in the script. The googly eyes on everything, too. There were a few ideas that were too graphic that disappeared. What you can show on The Following is gonna be a little harder-core than what we can show on New Girl.
Ben: “I think James Brown was actually a second choice! The joke was Jess didn’t have a picture of Winston when he was smiling. Originally, it was an actor we weren’t able to clear in time, but it turned out great with James.” Michael: “I’ve got an early version of it on the wall of my office, I liked it so much.”
10 Odd Items From the New Girl Set, Explained