Tituss Burgess and His CENTRAL PARK Character are 'Thick as Thieves'

Today, Apple TV+ debuted Central Park, a brand new musical animated series from Josh Gad, Loren Bouchard, and Nora Smith. The series follows the Tillermans, a family that lives in Central Park. Owen, the park manager, and Paige, his journalist wife, raise their kids Molly and Cole in the world's most famous park, while fending off hotel heiress Bitsy Brandenham and her long suffering assistant Helen, who would love nothing more than to turn the park into condos.

The voice cast of Central Park includes Josh Gad, Leslie Odom, Jr., Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Tituss Burgess, Daveed Diggs and Stanley Tucci.

Tituss Burgess, who is best known for starring in various Broadway productions and for Titus Andromedon on the Netflix comedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, plays Cole on the new musical series.

Burgess, who has fair share of musical performances, shared that he felt lucky to work on a show with such strong writing. He said, "It's nice to know that when you go to work, when you're getting a song that it's going to be good even when you haven't heard it. It's so satisfying. When you're in a musical, like on Broadway, it's a mixed of composers. Sometimes it's not so great. But it's not the case with this. Each song, every song I sang was wonderful."

The series is based around the famed Central Park in New York City and Burgess shared a fun anecdote of his most memorable story from the park. "You know the canoe in the middle of the lake? I was drinking and I was reaching for the bottle of wine, and my big ass tipped the canoe over. There I was in the middle of the water in Central Park. Imagine having to get on the trains, all wet still, all the way up to Harlem," Burgess laughed.

When asked what he brought to his animated character, Burgess said, "When the writing is that good you kind of just have to show up and say it. I'd love to pretend like I brought some extraordinary new slant to voicing an animated character, but it just isn't so. These guys are at the top of their game, so they made it easy."

Burgess continued on praising the show's creative team when he said, "The thing I love about Loren [Bouchard] is he hears dialogue melodically. Not many people do that. It was so easy, being a musician, to follow him, because I understood his cadences and such."

The series centers around the Tillermans, and Burgess spoke about THE FAMILY saying, "They still have their little quirks. I suppose every family has its own inherent disfunction, but they're functional. They know each others ticks and quirks, and that's why the love is present, you're never worried it's going to come undone."

When asked about how he prepared to play Cole, Burgess said, "I'm used to playing people who's priorities are out of wack and out of order and are questionable. His adolescent desires, they are everything when you are eleven, like you have tunnel vision, and I still sometimes experience that, so me and Cole are thick as thieves, it was kind of easy to drop into him."

Central Park is available to watch today, May 29, exclusively on Apple TV+!