Politely declining an incoming phone call from Chloë Sevigny during our interview (“It’s probably just a nice little check-in,” she said), D’Arcy Carden admits she’s a bit of a “snob” when it comes to comedy. Not in a precious or elitist way, but with the same keen sense of discernment that seasoned improvisers like her have to use when deciding which instincts to trust.
“I just really want to work on things that are good,” Carden told IndieWire, smiling at the simplicity. “That sounds obvious, but it’s actually not always how this business works.”
Since breaking out on “Barry,” “The Good Place,” and “Broad City,” that guiding principle has turned the beloved comedy actress into something of a bellwether for great TV. “Is that true?,” she asked, sincerely.
Whether it’s a high-concept network hit or an offbeat streaming gem, if Carden is cast in something, chances are it’s got one or more episodes worth watching. “If that is true, it really is who I’m surrounding myself with,” she said. Carden’s latest project, the Australian import “Sunny Nights,” debuted on Hulu last week and continues that streak as the rare seriocomic crime thriller that feels truly fresh.
“I read the scripts and immediately felt like, ‘Oh, this is good-good,’” she said. “Not just funny, but specific. You can feel when something has a real point of view.”
Co-created by Nick Keetch and Ty Freer, the sideways odd-couple series comes from showrunner Trent O’Donnell (“Colin from Accounts”). It’s new to American audiences, but Carden’s involvement and “high standards” promise a story that’s sharp, sweet, and a little weirder than you expect.
That’s what drew Carden to Vicki, an ex-pat chasing something just out of reach through the atypical avenue of her brother’s beleaguered spray tan business. When that already-muddy path to fulfillment sees our brash heroine grappling with blackmail, her resilience kicks in with a scene-stealing spirit.
“[For Vicki], It’s not just like, ‘I want to be famous,’” Carden explained. “It’s more like, ‘I want my life to click into place. I want to feel like I’ve arrived somewhere.’ And that’s such a relatable feeling.”
In many ways, the character is pursuing her own “breakthrough,” though not necessarily in the glossy Hollywood sense the word typically implies. It’s a perspective that’s especially fitting for Carden, whose career has been defined less by overnight transformation than by the slow accumulation of opportunities, confidence, and taste. “I think you imagine that there’s going to be a moment where everything changes, and you’ll know it’s happening,” she said. “And then it sort of doesn’t feel like that.”
Carden describes success as something that’s easier to recognize in retrospect, sharing that she often reframes her achievements through conversations with her husband, producer Jason Carden.
“We’ll kind of look back [to ten years ago] and be like, ‘Oh, that was a big moment,’” she said. “But at the time, you’re just in it. You’re working, you’re stressed, you’re trying to do a good job. You don’t always get to step outside of yourself and go, ‘This is it.’”
Carden saw her career explode when she played virtual assistant Janet on “The Good Place.” But despite vaulting her toward an Emmy nomination in 2020, the visibility of a major network TV show didn’t come with a clean, cinematic sense of arrival. That disconnect — between striving for a breakthrough and realizing you may have already had one — is baked into the heart of “Sunny Nights.”
“She’s really chasing something,” Carden said of Vicki. “I think the audience can see things about her life that she can’t quite see yet. Which is kind of the human condition, right?”
Opposite the illustrious Will Forte as Vicki’s brother, the hilariously named Martin Marvin, Carden embraced the siblings’ journey on an undercurrent of urgency and irony that reflects her own evolution. A precise sense of timing unites the types of collaborators Carden says she gravitates towards. That includes Forte and O’Donnell, whose comedic rhythm she describes as wildly generous.
Asked to compare past sets she’s worked on with the four months she spent filming “Sunny Nights,” Carden said, “In the U.S., comedy can feel like basketball. It’s fast, it’s competitive, you’re passing the ball, you’re trying to score.” But in Australia? “It felt more like flirting,” she said, describing a kind of non-romantic discovery. “There’s space, there’s eye contact, there’s a kind of teasing patience to it.”
That contrast deepened Carden’s appreciation for just how many different ways a joke can land, and how much finding the best read depends on trust and chemistry between actors colliding with the right script. “You’re still listening, still responding,” she added. “But the rhythm shifts, and that’s really fun.”
Part of that clarity comes from Carden’s background in improv (she came up through New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theater), where the emphasis isn’t on perfection but on truly listening so you can perform genuine responsiveness. That philosophy carries into her scripted work, where Carden is known for bringing a sense of looseness and immediacy to even the most tightly constructed scripts.
“You’re not trying to force something to be funny,” she said. “You’re just trying to be present and trust that if the writing is good then the humor will come out of that.” It’s a deceptively pure approach to line delivery that hinges on the same gut feeling Carden uses to choose projects.
“I think earlier in my career, I felt like I had to prove something all the time,” she said. “Like, ‘Look what I can do, look how funny I can be.’ And now it’s more about, ‘What does this scene need?’”
That shift has allowed Carden to embrace roles that exist in a more ambiguous emotional space. People like Vicki are funny not because they’re delivering punchlines with the same explosive energy “Sunny Nights” brings to crocodile corpses (oh, yeah, that happens in this show!) but because their motivations are painfully human. Up next, Carden will in appear in Peacock’s “The Five-Star Weekend” with Regina Hall, Jennifer Garner, and Sevigny — who Carden warmly assured us she would call back.
“There’s something really freeing about playing someone who doesn’t have it all figured out,” Carden said. “Because none of us do.” In an industry built on the illusion of momentum, acceptance of life exactly as it is right now can feel radical. That might be what compels so many fans of Carden to follow her from show to show, admiring the body of work she’s building one thoughtful choice at a time.
“I don’t want to just take jobs because they’re jobs,” she said. “I want to feel excited about what I’m making. I want to feel like I would watch it.” Then, Carden circles back to the word snob. “I say it jokingly. But I do think there’s value in being a little discerning. Not in a way that shuts you off from things, but in a way that keeps you aligned with what you actually care about.”
There’s no doubt that clear-eyed determination is what makes Carden a reliable presence in comedy. Rather than chasing social media trends or one-off relationships, the actress is following something more internal and intuitive to the same level of prestige. With “Sunny Nights,” that instinct pays off yet again and delivers a vibrant endorsement of her taste that’s worth recognizing as the moment happens.
“The truth is, you’re probably in ‘it’ right now,” Carden said. “Whatever your version of ‘it’ is.”
“Sunny Nights” is now streaming on Hulu.
