Castmates Eddie Leavy (Anthony), Sari Arambulo (Grace), Nick Peine (Marcus), and Allisyn Ashley Arm (Heather) recently held a press conference for A.P. Bio where they offered some insight into life vs art and working with their cast. Here’s a quick look at what they had to say!

The real-life classroom……

Sari Arambulo (SA): I study Cinematic Art at USC (University of Southern California), and one professor I had for one of the courses was insane. This is the class that everyone takes. He’s great, but he’s just super dramatic, kind of similar to Jack Griffin. Over the top, super dramatic. He has an entrance when he comes into the classroom. And if you ever participate he’ll remember your name and continue calling on you the entire number of months that you’re taking the class. It was a nerve-racking experience to be in his class.

Eddie Leavy (EL): I have memories of getting a substitute teacher fired once because she was so horrible. She was verbally abusive to the kids. I think this was middle school. The kids rallied together and talked to their parents. She called us ‘idiot’ and ‘dumb.’ Getting back to the show, though, it’s interesting to see the evolution of our characters. Initially, my character, Anthony, was supposed to be this sort of nerdy ‘Lord of the Rings’ obsessed character. Then after we wrapped the pilot, Mike O’Brien, the creator, saw me at the wrap party and said, ‘I just saw who you are in real life and we decided we needed to take Anthony in a little bit of a different direction that’s just truer to who you are. It’s interesting to see the characters go in a different direction, depending on the actor cast in the role.

Allyson Ashley Arm (AAA): I never got to go to high school. I got my first role at 12. So, this is my high school experience.

Nick Peine (NP): I went to high school and college, and this is the high school experience I wish I had.

Character vs. actor……

EL: Anthony is a little more blunt and honest than I am in real life. But it’s definitely a lot of fun to feel like you see yourself in the character and to just bring it to life. It just gives you a level of comfortability. We have different directors, but every week we’re able to bounce off each other’s energy.

SA: And the writers tailored the characters to our personalities. Then they really paid attention to our relationships with each other as well.

On what we’ll see this season…….

EL: We’re never going to learn Biology. Is Jack ever going to be nice?

SA: There are moments when he becomes nicer and you really see the relationships start to grow between the students and him.

EL: Every week I think we start back at zero though.

NP: Sometimes shooting on location is uncomfortable and inconvenient. In our case, it was like a road trip.

Working with Glenn Howerton (Jack) and Patton Oswalt (Durbin)…..

SA: It’s really fun for me as an actor to learn from Glenn, to take on the lines and make them my own, as improv. It’s great to have special chats on set and just get to know him. And Patton is amazing. Every time I see him I want to give him a hug. He’s the nicest man. I saw him in a restaurant months before I booked this show, and I was completely star struck. I finally mustered up the courage to talk to him about it. We spent 40 minutes together talking about food and great restaurants in L.A.

EL: I think the biggest takeaway is just learning from them. Just a profound learning experience. The improv is brilliant. I watched old episodes of The King of Queens. I had only seen it sporadically before. It was cool to see the show evolve. It’s great to see someone create a show and star in it too.

SA: And in one of my TV script analysis classes, we watched the episode, “It’s Always Sunny.” When I told Glenn about it, he said that was his first experience writing, and he was just writing anything and putting it out there.

EL: Also, Patton’s Netflix standup specials are legendary. They’re so good.

SL: If you get a chance to watch him on Justify, he’s also an amazing dramatic actor.

NP: Glenn is a Juilliard-trained actor, so he can get pretty intense at times. He’s so focused on putting the joke right in the pocket. He’s pretty incredible to watch, and he’s funny as well. You can just see the Juilliard training at work.

AAA: Both of them were perfectly cast.

Catch A.P. Bio on Thursdays at 8:30 P.M on NBC.  In tonight’s all new episode, Jack goes out of his way to determine which of the students ratted him out for veto-ing the fetal pig diessection!