Sergeant Amy Santiago’s personality on the show Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a mix of things. She is Type A, loving, kind, controlling, awkward, adorable and nerdy. In real life, Melissa Fumero, who plays Amy, says she’s not too different from her reel-life counterpart.
The 36-year-old actress had a successful run on TV in the soap opera One Life to Live, but playing the competitive, uptight law enforcement officer in Brooklyn Nine-Nine is what made Fumero a household name.
Wedding vows
The show revolves around the lives of a squad of detectives in the 99th precinct of Brooklyn, with Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) being their most talented officer. Santiago starts out as his partner and later goes on to become his wife. Talking about the rather unconventional wedding that Jake and Amy had on the show, Fumero says, “It was not a traditional wedding at all. There was a bomb scare, and basically, the whole thing was ruined. That was when Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) stepped in and put together a police precinct wedding. It was beautiful,” gushes the actress.
Fumero adds that even before the actual ceremony, things had gone awry. “Probably my favourite moment in Season Five was when Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) got me to look at some wedding dresses. Then we saw someone we had been trying to find, run by the wedding dress store. I got to run and do this whole action sequence, jump off a car, and restrain him with a sash! I had to rehearse this scene, and with the show, we never rehearsed anything. So, I made a tape of myself and rehearsed at home, in a big poofy wedding dress,” she says, adding, “It was a good day for me personally, and even on the show.”
Playing favourites
Another favourite episode of hers, Fumero reveals is called the ‘Vet’, which is, “perhaps the very first Jake-and-Amy-after-they-began-dating episode. We (Andy and her) were very excited and nervous, because we knew this could be potentially the relationship of the show, and we wanted to get it right. I think, it was the first time I was in an ace storyline with Andy. We knew each other, we got along and we were friends at the point, but that was the first time we worked a whole week together,” she recalls.
Ask her what the audience can expect in Season
Six, and she says, “It picks up exactly where Season Five left off. We’re all in a bar, and we find out whether or not (Commanding Officer) Holt, played by Andre Braugher, is commissioner,” she reveals, adding that she cannot say more.
Season Six, every Wednesday at 10 pm on Comedy Central.