Rather than the conventionally expected patch of tulips or carnations, the four leads of “Grosse Pointe Garden Society” make use of their town gardening club’s plot of land to bury a body.

Anchored in the suburbs of Michigan, the television show details the lives and landscaping endeavors of four members of Grosse Pointe’s neighborhood gardening club. Realtor and vice president of the club Catherine (Aja Naomi King), dejected landscaper Brett (Ben Rappaport), aspiring writer Alice (AnnaSophia Robb) and wildcard author Birdie (Melissa Fumero) use the creativity and orderliness of gardening — as well as the community that the club provides — as an escape from the personal challenges that await them when they put down their shovels. While they face familial strain and career crises in their own lives, at the series’ start, their biggest trial within the club is planning the society’s annual gala. However, the show’s spliced timeline exposes that by the time the celebration rolls around six months down the line, a death has occurred — and all of them are involved.

WSN spoke with series stars Robb, King, Fumero and Rappaport about leaning into their characters and working to craft the mystery. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

WSN: Given that Grosse Pointe is a genuine Michigan suburb with an affluent, prim reputation, how did considering the show’s setting influence how each of you chose to portray your characters?

King: For me, it all exists in the writing. Then I’m just filling out the rest of the details for Catherine, for how she should present herself in this world. She’s a really ambitious woman, and she wants to have the status that she thinks she deserves in this community — she does everything she can to attain and maintain that. Of course, she also gets a little messy because she’s still growing and evolving and maybe realizing that this facade she’s created for herself is too much pressure to live under. It really makes her fun to play because [she’s] so nuanced.

Robb: Alice grew up in Grosse Pointe, but she doesn’t come from money. Her whole life has been dreaming of leaving Grosse Pointe and going to New York and becoming a writer. She’s unable to reconcile the vision of the future that she’s always had for herself with where she is right now, which I think is incredibly relatable. Her connection to the garden is that it’s her happy place… Even though she wants to move out of Grosse Pointe, she’s trying to figure out how to make it work there. How does she find fun inside that box? And is it possible?

In spite of the garden’s pristine nature, “Grosse Pointe Garden Society” finds its four leads down in the dirt. Catherine is secretly entangled in an extramarital affair. Alice faces rejection from writing positions in New York City while coping with entitled students and parents at her current teaching post. Birdie joins the gardening club to fulfill court-ordered community service, and Brett splits the responsibility of raising two kids with his ex-wife.

WSN: Ben, your character’s story takes on a humorous tone while having a lot of heart. Aside from being thoroughly entertained, what do you most expect audiences to resonate with from the show or to take away?

Rappaport: You meet Brett at a pretty low point in his life. He joins [the garden society] to fill that void. But I think the thing that’s going to surprise audiences is that there are a lot of different sides of Brett that you don’t quite get right off the bat, so he’s going to keep surprising you. The thing with all the characters is that there’s many layers to these onions, and you’re going to start to see little pieces come off. That’s the roller coaster ride — these really complex, interesting people showing you who they are over the course of time.

WSN: Aja, this isn’t your first time playing a character who gets entangled in a matter of murder or crime. Did your time as Michaela Pratt on “How to Get Away with Murder” influence the way you chose to embody Catherine? Or what has set your time as Catherine apart from your prior roles?

King: They’re both very ambitious people, but I find them so different, personally. Michaela is so young, trying to figure out her place in this world and prove herself to people, while Catherine is from an established family in Grosse Pointe. She really wants to be a power player and live up to everything Grosse Pointe is meant to be in the way that she was raised. Being a wealthy black woman in this society… She needs to carry herself a certain way, and it’s too much to try to live up to. We start to see that crumble for her, which I really love — the dismantling of all of that and getting to a place where we can see her discover a more genuine version of herself that has less to do with how other people perceive her.

The series’ core cast brings history from past NBC comedies, film and Broadway to the tale. Two of the show’s leads, Fumero and Robb, are NYU graduates from Tisch School of the Arts and Gallatin School of Individualized Study, respectively.

WSN: Melissa and AnnaSophia, could you talk a little bit about your experience with theater while you were at NYU? What part of your time at university was most helpful to setting you on the trajectory you’re currently on as actors?

Robb: I had so many great professors like Stacy Pies, Laura Slatkin, George Shulman and Ben Steinfeld. I have been acting since I was nine, and I was always told, ‘don’t go to acting school.’ But it was in studying Greek tragedy at Gallatin and understanding the importance of art and theater in the polis, in democracy, being able to figure out a society’s values through performance, [was] why it really clicked for me. [My concentration] was called ‘Rehearsing the Play,’ I think, but it was based on a philosophy of rehearsal, of practicing something to see if it would be effective or not. It had a lot to do with Greek tragedy and philosophy. 

Fumero: I really found my confidence as a performer while I was there. I felt so supported and challenged, and I learned a lot about the business. My last semester was at the [Stonestreet Screen Acting & Production Studios], and I learned so much about working with cameras. I learned the format of soap operas, which ended up being my first job after school. There were so many practical things that transferred over into my career in this industry.

“Grosse Pointe Garden Society” airs new episodes every Sunday on Peacock. 

Contact Eleanor Jacobs at [email protected].