Just How Obsessed with Gingerbread Houses Is Danny Castellano?
Pretty obsessed. For the second year in a row, doctor/hearthrob/prince in grump’s clothing Danny Castellano has presented Mindy, Jeremy, Morgan, and the whole crew of Fox’s “The Mindy Project" with his over-the-top gingerbread mini-mansion—and his obsessive-compulsive tendencies. In this week’s episode, it was a sugary replica of Monticello. Last year, it was a sprawling Hollywood-style estate rendered in cookies and cream.
While we’re interested in cute actors and compelling story lines and all, we’re more interested in food. How many gingerbread houses did the staff make before they got it right? Who builds them? What does the cast do with them afterwards? We called up “The Mindy Project” prop guy, Kevin Shaw, who said “Sure! We’re just shooting on an airplane right now; I’ve got a few minutes.” And then we talked gingerbread.
"I think it all started because when we did our first season, we had a big Christmas party at Mindy’s apartment, and the writers wanted Danny to come in with an extravagant food presentation. Something that was out of his character—you’d never think this guy would take the time to put this thing together. Since it was Christmas, we naturally went with a gingerbread house.”
"The first one was really a pain in the butt because we didn’t have a whole lot of time. The writers had a bunch of different thoughts on what it should look like: at first, they wanted the Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater house, so we did bunch of renderings, then changed our minds, and went for extravagant mansion with a circle driveway in it. Then they said, ‘Well maybe a tennis court would be fun.’ And then a swimming pool, then we added cars—it just kept growing. I was really proud of that one.”
"I call a girl named Joan at Cake Divas whenever I need a cake made. I give her all of my ideas, notes on what the writers were dreaming of, and we’ll talk and sketch and go back and forth. Then I’ll take something to the writers. That first time, Joan turned eight of those houses out in a day and a half.”
"I needed eight for filming. In that first season, Mindy gets in a fight and they break that house, so immediately I know we can’t just have one. But I will never make one of anything. Just me carrying it—what if I dropped it? I’m very careful with it; I bring it onto set like a newborn baby. Then in the second season, they wanted a famous house, so we went with Monticello. I had to have Joan cut the bottom out so we could put Christmas lights inside to make it glow.”
"I always hold onto one, which goes into show storage. But because it’s a food product, some mice got to it. I would see bits of this thing missing as the season went along; then there was half a wall gone. When you spend money on things like this, they’re assets—they’re the show’s property—but I told everyone that this had to go. They were like, ‘Uh, yeah!’ This season’s? Raccoons got it. I opened the storage door and found three raccoons up on the table eating Monticello. It’s crazy! I don’t how they get in, but they do.”
Photo credits: Fox
