Not Even Ben Rappaport Knows What's Coming on ‘Grosse Pointe Garden Society' — and That's What ‘Excites' Him (Exclusive)
Not Even Ben Rappaport Knows What's Coming on 'Grosse Pointe Garden Society' — and That's What 'Excites' Him (Exclusive) originally appeared on Parade.
Grosse Pointe Garden Society may have concluded its first season on NBC, but fans of the TV drama are still left with questions — even star Ben Rappaport is looking for answers!
'We were really building suspense,' the 39-year-old actor, who plays Brett, a divorced father who works as a manager of a gardening store in Grosse Pointe, Mich., exclusively tells Parade.
Without spilling too many beans for those still wanting to stream the show on Peacock, Grosse Pointe Garden Society follows four members of a suburban garden club who find themselves caught up in a murder they're trying to conceal.
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Throughout the season, the big question on everybody's mind was: Who is the dead body?
'We didn't know who the body was until later on in the season,' Rappaport reveals. 'Jenna [Bans] and Bill [Krebs], our showrunners, wouldn't tell us. So it was a mystery for us, too. There is something fun about playing when you don't know what it is. Each [cast member], I think internally, decided who it was for ourselves, so it created interesting reactions.'
As fans await to hear if the show will be renewed for a second season, Grosse Pointe Garden Society ended on a big cliffhanger when the finale aired last month. Flashing forward to Halloween, viewers see Brett, Birdie (Melissa Fumero) and Catherine (Aja Naomi King) confronting someone in a duck costume who is tied to a chair. With the person's identity unknown, fans — and even the show's stars — are dying to quack the case.
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'It's between two people, for me, who I think it is. We don't know,' Rappaport insists. 'I won't say who, but I'm cool with one of those two.'
'I'm someone who just really enjoys the surprise aspect of it all,' adds the actor, who is excited to see what's in store for Brett if Grosse Pointe comes back for more.
'Brett is a divorced dad of two, and you see throughout the season, he's in this really interesting dynamic with his ex-wife, who is now with the guy that she cheated on him with,' he says. 'Throughout the season, you see Brett kind of step up and stand up for himself in ways that he wasn't before. He was sort of like this put-upon guy at the beginning and not quite sure what to do. Throughout the season, you see him really take ownership. And I'd like to keep seeing him do that. He's really evolved a ton throughout the first season. At the end of Season 1, they have this massive secret that they have to keep, and it's going to make things really hard. I want to see him get creative in how he manages keeping this secret.'
Now that his days with the gardening club are temporarily on pause now that Season 1 has wrapped, Rappaport is going back to his theater roots as he travels to London to reunite with friend Sean Hayes in the play Good Night, Oscar.
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'Sean has become a very good friend of mine, and we have a very special bond, especially on stage,' says Rappaport, who plays talk show host Jack Paar opposite Hayes' portrayal of pianist and humorist Oscar Levant. The two starred in the play when it made its premiere in 2022 at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and reprised their performances on Broadway.
On July 31, it will begin performances at the Barbican Centre in London's West End.
Rappaport, who is making his West End debut with the production, is looking forward to getting back on stage with Hayes, whom he calls his 'showbiz older brother.'
After all, the Will & Grace alum has provided Rappaport with some sound advice as he juggles multiple projects both on stage and TV.
'His advice in show business in general is it's all about planting a million different little seeds and watering each one little by little as you go, in terms of having multiple projects going on at the same time,' Rappaport explains. 'At one point, one of them is going to bloom, and then the other one still growing. And you just keep watering. So it's kind of this idea of not getting too hyper-focused on one thing.
'He's really inspired me… I'm also writing a script right now, and sometimes I tend to get laser-focused on what I'm doing and what's in front of me at the moment, but he's really of inspired me to be a bit more of a creative multitasker.'
All episodes of Grosse Pointe Garden Society are streaming now on Peacock, and Good Night, Oscar is currently scheduled to play through Sept. 21 in London.
Not Even Ben Rappaport Knows What's Coming on 'Grosse Pointe Garden Society' — and That's What 'Excites' Him (Exclusive) first appeared on Parade on Jun 3, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 3, 2025, where it first appeared.
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