‘The Office’ star Craig Robinson on his new show: ‘There was something about the snakes’
Craig Robinson reunites with “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” creators Luke Del Tredici and Dan Goor for his new Peacock comedy series “Killing It.”
“I love working with those guys,” Robinson, 50, told The Post. “They’re funny, they’re smart, they have great instincts, and we collaborate well together. On ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ when Andy [Samberg] and I got together, we were like two 5-year-old kids, letting the moment lead us.”
“Killing It,” premiering Thursday (April 14), is a rags-to-riches sitcom starring and executive-produced by Robinson. Set in Florida, it follows Craig (Robinson), an ambitious man whose dreams to make more money lead him to an unusual snake hunt.
At the beginning of the series, Craig is a divorced, down-on-his-luck single father. He has an amicable relationship with his deaf ex-wife, Camille (Stephanie Nogueras) and his troublemaking brother Isaiah (Rell Battle) and he’s working as a security guard but has higher ambitions — if only he could get anyone interested in funding his entrepreneurial ideas.
Robinson said that it was the creators’ idea to give his character his same first name (“I would have gone for an Antoine,”) — and that he can relate to Craig’s relentlessness.
“He goes after what he wants, and he doesn’t allow anything to stop him. Obstacles are just that – obstacles that are meant to be hurdled over, or climbed over, or walked through,” he said. “My challenge was that there was a vulnerability he had to show in certain places. And I’m a Scorpio, so I try to keep a hard exterior. I had to be vulnerable, and that made me grow a little.”
When Craig has a chance encounter with Jillian (Claudia O’Doherty), a wacky Australian ride-share driver, he finds an unexpected new direction: participating in a python hunt. The state is offering people money to kill stray snakes, and in this particular high-stakes hunt, whoever gets the most snakes stands to win $20,000. That happens to be the exact amount of money that Craig needs for his business plans. To complicate matters, however, father/son snake hunter duo Brock (Scott MacArthur, “The Righteous Gemstones”) and Corby (Wyatt Walter) immediately clock Craig as a rival.
“There was something about the snakes,” said Robinson, who’s best known for co-starring as Darryl in “The Office,” and movies such as “Hot Tub Time Machine” and “Pineapple Express.”
“I was in Australia maybe five or six years ago, and I went to an animal sanctuary. That was the first time I was face to face with a snake. I put the snake around me and held it. I never thought I would do something like that. Snakes get a bad rep, because of the Bible and ‘Indiana Jones.’ So then, when [the creators pitched] this idea, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s interesting!’ ’’
Shooting the show wasn’t a walk in the park, however.
“This was the most challenging project I’ve ever been on,” he said. “We filmed in New Orleans, so you’ve got the challenge of not eating everything, every minute of every day. I lost that battle. And then, we got pushed back a month because of Hurricane Ida, and we had to deal with the hurricane while we were shooting. And then, we had to make it appear to be a hurricane, [for the show]. I had to learn sign language, and I wanted that to be right. We had to work with animals. And don’t forget about COVID protocols.
“So there was a lot going on.”
