Posted in: NBC, TV | Tagged: Grosse Pointe Garden Society

Grosse Pointe Garden Society: Wolfe on Melissa Fumero & Inspirations

Felix Wolfe (Pete's Cat) spoke with Bleeding Cool about NBC's Grosse Pointe Garden Society, TV mom Melissa Fumero, and career inspirations.

Few have ever been so prepared for show business as Felix Wolfe, entertaining audiences since he was a toddler. He's worked his way up on television through some of the biggest successful shows like TNT's Rizzoli & Isles, Fox's Bones, Glee, and The New Girl, and CBS's The Mentalist leading to ensemble roles in Disney's Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much Everything and Raven's home, and Prime Video's animated series Pete the Cat. His latest is the NBC mystery crime drama Grosse Pointe Garden Society as Ford, Birdie's (Melissa Fumero) biological son. The series follows four members of a suburban gardening club that share a murderous secret in the affluent Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Wolfe spoke to Bleeding Cool about the Jenna Bans and Bill Krebs series, working with the Brooklyn Nine-Nine star, and the biggest influential inspirations on his career.

Grosse Pointe Garden Society Star Felix Wolfe on Building Chemistry with TV Mom Melissa Fumero and Acting Influences

Bleeding Cool: What has it been like working with Melissa Fumero as Bertie? Did you two create some backstory to help you both get into your roles beyond the script?

Working with Melissa is a dream; she's the best person on set, and I love working and being on set with her. Even when we weren't filming between action and cut, there was a lot of downtime, and she's so wonderful. She filled every moment with laughter, kindness, and education. Very early on, I was like, "Can I pick your brain, because I'm quite passionate about this art?" She's one of the best I've ever seen do it, so who better to ask? She was like, "Of course!" She was so welcoming.

A couple weeks into shooting the show, I was like, "I think I'm going to survive here because of her." She set a precedent that made me feel like I belonged because I didn't get too much time on set with the whole cast. You get very minimal time to bond and connect, and she made it so easy and free-flowing. She allowed me to feel like it was able to ask anything and everything, and I wouldn't ever be punished for it. I was welcomed, so tremendously grateful to that woman, and I hope to be half the artist she is. She is so brilliant and has such a kind soul.

As for the backstory, weirdly enough, no. I don't remember us ever taking time to be like, "Let's flesh out the backstory." Also, because again, back to Bill and Jenna and the overall setting of "trust in your character" and your capabilities as artists to do the job. I felt Melissa and I worked well because we shared a mutual respect. She's such a veteran; sometimes, people can have a certain tone to their lesser experienced peers, but that wasn't her.

We had such a mutual trust in each other, so naturally, it allowed us to build genuine chemistry off the bat because you can't have chemistry without trust. Every episode and every scene with her was almost like free-falling, like you're jumping off into a net that you're hoping will catch you, but you're trusting that the net will catch.

Melissa was my net, and she caught me every time, and I hope she feels the same, and vice versa. We didn't have to work a backstory since the storyline of the main characters, the obscurity of them not knowing each other, and having no background prior, makes that less need for like history, because they didn't have history early on. It allowed us to develop that kind of relationship.

What are your biggest acting influences?

My family influenced me the most, as corny as that sounds. Had I not had my family very early on supporting me in my career, I mean, I started working when I was like two. I joined SAG at six. I only say, "Family", because you don't know anybody, much less have a team of people working for you at six years old. You only have your family at that point and… I can never remember a time in my life when I was like, "I really want to do this," when I was young.

I remember watching 'Spider-Man 2002' with Tobey Maguire, and I was like, "I want to do that," and they were like, "That's just being an actor. You can do that. You can do all of that." I never had a time where my family didn't support me like 100 percent and were like, "You can do this", "You got to take it", and "You got work your ass off. This is a difficult industry to pursue, but we believe in you" so I would attest first and foremost my family's the reason that I've made it this far in my career." I also have so many heroes I've grown to admire, directors like Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Patty Jenkins, Greta Gerwig, Mac Webb, and Edgar Wright. For actors, Robert Downey Jr, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Viola Davis, Meryl Streep, Minnie Driver, they've all heavily influenced me.

Grosse Pointe Garden Society, which also stars Aja Naomi King, Ben Rappaport, AnnaSophia Robb, Matthew Davis, Alexander Hodge, and Nancy Travis, airs Fridays on NBC and is available to stream on Peacock. You can also check out our interview with Davis.

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