Off-screen friendships build ‘Community’

It’s a bad thing. Everyone agrees. But no one seems miffed about having to stay on the set just a little bit longer.

The actors aren’t intentionally trying to slow things down, explains Alison Brie, who plays the neurotic Annie Edison. It’s just that they like one another. “We all have a similar sense of humor,’’ she says. “When we’re on breaks, we’re in each other’s trailers.’’

“Community,’’ the newest addition to NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup, follows a group of oddball characters of all ages who form a study group at a community college and become close friends despite their differences. New episodes resume tomorrow night at 8.

Most of the personalities involved with the show had never met one another before shooting the pilot for the show last year. But the cast - led by “The Soup’’ host Joel McHale and veteran funnyman Chevy Chase - clicked instantaneously, Brie says.

She and costar Danny Pudi, who plays the eccentric Abed, live in Pasadena, so they spend weekends brunching. Pudi recently helped costar Donald Glover, who plays a jock named Troy, move into a new apartment.

Chase, who plays the group’s weirdo senior classmate Pierce, had everyone over for a barbecue as soon as he moved to Los Angeles to start the show. Most of the cast gathered when Pudi’s mom was in town to watch a “Community’’ episode with her. It was a bash that the castmates still get giddy about, as if it were a sleepover party. And when Pudi needed to buy a suit for an NBC event, he went to the dapper McHale, who schooled him about how to dress like a television star.

“My body’s a little weird,’’ Pudi explains. “I have tiny legs. I don’t fit well in suits. They look like drapes. With Joel’s help, I found a really good suit. He helped me feel more comfortable about wearing a suit.’’

After some more thought, Pudi adds, “I have a giant man crush on him.’’

For the record, television shows don’t usually work this way. Actors are often friendly on set, but after a 14-hour day, most of them want to avoid their co-workers. It’s a job, after all. But with “Community,’’ the set is much more like a home. Brie says it reminds her of her time studying at the very tiny CalArts. It has been an insta-family. “We’re all popping pimples and debriefing the day together,’’ she says.

Dan Harmon, the creator of “Community,’’ doesn’t know why his cast gets along so well. It could be that he was simply drawn to similar personalities. It could also be that unlike other shows, the age range among the cast members is wide. It’s not like “Vampire Diaries,’’ where the cast roster is made of similarly-attractive young talents who may be competing against one another for movie roles.

“It’s not, This is the sexy young white person show,’’ Harmon says, laughing. “Then they’d have to worry about who was the sexiest and whitest.’’

Harmon says that it could also be that McHale, who despite his teasing and cynicism, is a rock for the younger cast members.

“They sort of tend to naturally look to him,’’ Harmon says.

Even Chase, whom the rest of the cast admits they were intimidated by at first - is part of the pack, though he refers to himself as a loner. McHale feels comfortable teasing the veteran comedian about doing T-Mobile commercials despite his ignorance of technology.

“He’s like, it has a screen and it doesn’t have buttons,’’ McHale says of Chase and his phone, adding that Chase once told him that he couldn’t check his e-mail on the West Coast because his “e-mail is in New York.’’

Pudi and McHale suspect that these off-screen relationships are imperative to the success of the show, that it just wouldn’t be funny if the actors didn’t like one another so much. But Harmon, who also co-created “The Sarah Silverman Program,’’ disagrees, saying that the camaraderie is just a bonus. He claims that he recently found out that one of his favorite ensemble cast shows is contentious off-screen. Harmon won’t disclose which show it is, of course, but he claims the audience would never guess that the actors and crew don’t get along very well.

Brie suggests that maybe off-screen friendship is only necessary on comedies. She has a second job on “Mad Men’’ playing Trudy Campbell, opposite actor Vincent Kartheiser. While intense connections are important on that show, it’s not as though the actors need to convince an audience that they could all giggle together at any moment.

“We can be really silly together,’’ Brie says, of “Community.’’ “That’s what makes for those nuanced moments.’’

Meredith Goldstein can be reached at mgoldstein@globe.com.