‘The Good Place’: How Did D’Arcy Carden Get The Role Of Janet?

When D’Arcy Carden went in for an audition for NBC’s “The Good Place,” the actress wasn’t expecting that she would get a role. But after a series of callbacks following her initial tryout, Carden landed the role of Janet. But how did Carden emerge as the final choice for the role?

In a recent interview with KING5.com, Carden admitted that she has no idea why she was picked to play the scene-stealing sentient database on “The Good Place.” “I don’t know,” the 37-year-old actress told the news outlet when asked why she thinks she was cast in the role of Janet. “I mean … the thing with Janet is she’s unflappable. There’s nothing you can say to her that she cannot fix or doesn’t have the answer for. If you’re mean to her, she’s not mean back. She’s just positive and happy. So I guess in the audition that came across.”

Carden revealed to Vulture last month that her “The Good Place” audition was unlike any audition she had done before. “For one, we didn’t get a script. And two, the sides were fake,” Carden said. “So occasionally you’ll audition for something and they won’t send you the whole script because it’s top secret or it’s not done yet, but this one, there was no script to be read. You couldn’t find it anywhere. No agents, no managers, nobody had it.”

In her first audition, Carden played an operator at a hotline for broken dolls. “The scene was basically me answering a bunch of different calls where different people would have a problem with the doll they bought … and I would just have a very easy solution,” the “Broad City” alum said. “So it makes perfect sense: It is a very Janet-esque character, but there was no indication that she was not a human. There was no robot element to it at all, not in the character description or anything. So I just got this impression that she was a helpful, positive woman and that felt really fun and easy to play.”

Although Carden admitted that her tryout for “The Good Place” was just another day in her life as an actress, Carden told GQ Magazine that her audition for the Michael Schur-created series felt a little different right off the bat. “My true dream was to work for Michael Schur,” Carden revealed. “So I put a little extra work into this audition, because I was like, ‘I know I won’t get the role, but I would like to impress Michael Schur.’ I would like him to give me one line in an episode at some point. And you tell yourself that that’s gonna happen at some point, like, ‘This’ll be good.’ So I did the thing of, ‘Of course I'm not gonna get the job’ It’s not even about that!”

Carden learned that she was cast in the role of Janet in an email she received late at night. “I lost my mind,” she recalled of her reaction after finding out the great news. “My husband and I screamed and danced around the room. We live in a duplex with two of our best friends, Paul Downs and Lucia Aniello from ‘Broad City.’ So we ran upstairs, had champagne, screamed. It was just a very good moment in my life. I’d never want to say the word ‘blessed,’ but I truly felt so grateful.”