N ’ T O D A E K R F
Career and life lessons from Brooklyn 99’s Joel McKinnon Miller. WRITTEN BY GILLIAN ARTHUR DESIGNER JENNA BOERLIN Like most people on the planet, I’ve never had the chance to sit down with a celebrity and talk about their career. With that being said I have absolutely no idea how to act like a normal person around celebrities, no matter their level of fame. So it comes as no surprise that when I landed an interview with Joel Miller, who currently plays detective Norm Scully on Brooklyn 99, I was as equal parts nervous as I was stoked. As a longtime fan of the comedy series, I couldn’t help but freak when I heard the news (and yes, I did proudly tell all my friends and family). It’s not like I have zero sense of etiquette in these situations. I have good social skills and know enough to keep my cool but every moment before our interview was filled with “please be cool, please be cool.” After all, getting to meet the 99’s wildly hilarious, opera singing detective is now my most prestigious honor as Align’s editor in chief.
of the lecture hall was a grand piano. Filling the stage were students in gym clothes. There, on that stage, he saw something incredible. Joel remembers, “This wonderful pianist was playing and one of the students in the class was being slowly dragged on the floor. The students would all lift him in the air. The whole time he’s singing an aria - not missing a beat. It was an exercise in focus and being prepared for anything when performing. I just looked at my dad and said, ‘I want to do that.’ So I applied and went to school there.”
Like his character, Joel is full of surprises and sage wisdom. Not only can Joel actually sing opera, he studied it at the University of Minnesota Duluth before delving into television and film. Something of a surprise when talking to Joel as I assumed Scully’s opera talent was a comedic bit. As it turns out, it was something Andy Samburg specifically wrote into the show after the two spoke off set.
During his time at Duluth, the theater department asked Joel to audition for their summer theater. Something he didn’t exactly want to do at the time. But after a little convincing, he ended up having four main roles. “Every night I was playing a different character,” he says. “I got incredible training that summer and then I ended up getting into a company. I left college early and I went to Minneapolis and was with the Minnesota Opera and the Children’s Theater.” In the summer theater, Joel met his wife and ended up getting married just before going on tour. According to Joel, his wife’s parents didn’t want them living on a tour bus together unless they were married. So just like that, Joel and his wife spent the first three years of marriage on a bus.
When I asked Joel where his love of opera started, he told me he remembers his father driving him from Minneapolis to Duluth to tour the university’s opera department. On the stage
Every day on tour was a grind. Doing a different Shakespeare play every night, Joel says, “They sent me to Juillard in the morning of our rehearsal when we were putting our first show
