If you were a fan of the first season of NBC’s Grand Crew, you’re in luck. The critically-acclaimed series returns now with Season 2, this time with even more comedy, wine, and of course, drama.
Created by writer, producer, and director Phil Augusta Jackson, Grand Crew is a hangout comedy that follows a group of six friends — Noah, Nicky, Sherm, Anthony, Wyatt and Fay — all of whom are just trying to navigate their way through this thing called life. Along the way, they find humor and comfort in supporting one another, all while catching up at their favorite wine bar.
Sheen had the pleasure of catching up with cast members Aaron Jennings and Grasie Mercedes via Zoom, to discuss the new season and their favorite moments.
How’d it feel when you guys found out the show was returning for a second season?
Both: It felt great. [laughs]
Aaron: Who doesn’t want to have another job? But also, it was awesome we were gonna be able to come back another time. Get to play with each other and work with each other. It’s such a tight-knit group, so anytime you get to go to work with your friends, you feel extremely blessed and grateful.
What’s one thing you’re most excited for this season?
Grasie: I’m excited to explore Fay’s love life a little more, and to see what happens between Fay and Anthony. I can’t say much more than that. [laughs]
Aaron: This season, it’s about leveling up for all of us. Growth, evolution. I’m excited for the world to get to see Anthony’s evolution in that, obviously as that relates to him and his work life as well as his love life. I’m excited to see what’s gonna happen with Anthony and Fay? Will they? Won’t they? I don’t know, we’ll see. That’s exciting, the audience is having a lot of fun with that as well. It’s a good time.
Do you guys have a favorite episode or scene?
Grasie: Yes, this upcoming episode which is Episode 4 is one of my favorites. It’s a really really fun one
Aaron: Me too. Friday’s at 8:30pm on ABC. [laughs]
Grasie: I hate being asked things we can’t talk about!
Aaron: We can’t talk about them! No, I agree with her though. We both have been saying this: this episode coming up, our fourth episode is a lot of fun. After we even shot it, we were excited for the audience to get the chance to see it.
Grasie: Last season where we went to the vineyard, this season we go to Ojai. It’s a nice outside of the bar episode as well.
Funniest moment while filming?
Aaron: Oh man.
Grasie: So many. Some of our funniest moments is when we’re shooting cold opens, because they’re so silly and outrageous usually. From season one when I had to pour the wine and it broke and sprayed all over Carl Tart’s character, that was so funny and so hard not to crack up laughing every five seconds. Because Carl is just so funny. I had a really good time in the cold open where I do the savoring. I had to cut open the champagne bottle with a sword, then I sword up the whole place. That was super fun. I got to work with a stunt coordinator, which is cool.
Aaron: The James Brown episode, the cold opening right there with the orange wine. That was really funky, so to speak. That was a lot of fun, I remember us laughing the whole time. We shot that close to the last two episodes. It was one of our last days of the season, so that was a lot of fun.
Grasie: But this season, I wasn’t part of it but I loved the Usher sequence you guys just did. That was so fun.
Aaron: Oh yeah! That was fun.
Are you guys wine connoisseurs in real life?
Aaron: I would definitely not call myself a connoisseur.
Grasie: I wouldn’t call myself a connoisseur. [laughs] I know what I like. I’m lucky enough to live in Los Angeles where there’s a lot of wine bars and natural wine shops, where the people who work there are very fluent in wine. You can just tell them the thing that you liked and they give you a delicious glass or bottle of wine.
Aaron: I will say though I have become more of a wine connoisseur, through doing the show. Before that, I didn’t drink much wine. I was more of a spirit guy. I definitely started to venture into wines, large part due to the show.
Funniest tweet you’ve seen about the show?
Grasie: Oh, there’s a lot of good ones. Lately, I’ve been screenshotting some of my favorite tweets and putting them on my Instagram page. But I really am enjoying the all the tweets about #Faynthony, which is Fay and Anthony. But there were some fun ones this past week because we had so many funny things in Episode 3. There were great tweets about the back of the bakery, great tweets about the Usher sequence, and great tweets about Fay’s dating and the guy who wanted to eat my face. [laughs]
Photo Credits: Elizabeth Morris/NBC
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