When Party Down Season 3 went back into production, the vibe was, fittingly, a party. Or, as new cast member Tyrel Jackson Williams tells Consequence, “It was definitely like being at somebody else’s high school reunion. Everybody knew each other and they had inside jokes, and coming back together to shoot the show was really emotional for them.”
Adds star Ken Marino, “it was exciting that first day because we were all there, and it’s that scene from the first episode where it’s like a big reunion, in front of the camera as well as behind the camera. I think our excitement on camera was the same off-camera.”
Ryan Hansen agrees: “Everyone’s been on a bunch of shows and stuff, and you know, they’re a blast. But there’s something so special about this. We have just so much fun making each other laugh. It really is like a party.”
As the cast and executive producer John Enbom explain it, the return of Party Down was one they were all eager for — but that return was one which felt very uncertain up until a recent point. In fact, in the years since the critically beloved Starz series ended in 2010, the conversation around a Party Down reunion initially revolved around a reunion film.
“They had teased us, three or four times over 10 or 11 years, that we were going to do a movie. And I don’t know why, but I had lost faith,” Jane Lynch says. “By the time [Season 3] came around, I was like, I’m not counting my Party Down chickens until they’re fully hatched.”
According to Adam Scott, “I think it was like 2011, 2012, we actually came fairly close to making the Party Down movie. And then when it started falling apart, my initial kind of gut feeling was relief. John had actually written a great script because he’s just a great writer, and it was cool and everyone was in it and everything, but there was something about it that just wasn’t feeling quite right.”
