Meet Ben Schwartz, the Man Behind Jean-Ralphio

How did you get involved with Parks and Rec? 

They were looking for a love interest for Amy, and Mike was like, “Well, you’re way too young for this.” But then we had a meeting and he had seen these short films I did interviewing these ESPN guys, and he thought they were funny. So Mike said “Listen, you’re too young for this role and there’s nothing for you yet, but we’ll find a way to get you in this world. What happened was, they wrote Jean-Ralphio, I don’t know if for me or not, but it was literally just one paragraph. I didn’t even have to audition and for me that never happens. And so I went in and read the dialogue, and it was that interview scene with Tom and Swanson. It was just a human being saying the douchiest words that a human being can say, like what the worst version of an interview is.

[Read this interview.]