Community star Joel McHale has opened up about his emotional return to the role of Jeff Winger in Peacock's upcoming revival film.

McHale, the host of this year's Saturn Awards, discussed the Community movie while speaking with TheWrap at the event. "We've shot all three of them so far," the actor joked, referencing The Lord of the Rings. "We shot 'em in New Zealand. Peter Jackson was the director. We shot 'em in The Shire. I was a lot shorter, and it's happening."

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Speaking more seriously, McHale added, "We announced it. Peacock is paying for it, thank you Peacock. So yeah, it’s happening and everybody's back." He then discussed what it's like to reunite with his Community co-stars after so long. "I'm going to look a lot older. I'm not kidding, so you know that I'm sarcastic about literally f—ing everything but um, there will be tears. We did that table read during the pandemic and I cried like a baby afterwards and I'm not joking," McHale said.

"Everyone thinks that what I say is joking, but it is like being with -- it really is like a family reunion but without a-holes," he continued. "'Because you know, you go to a family [reunion] and you're like, 'Ugh, there's that one cousin of mine. He smells.' So anyway, we're really -- I can't wait. Yeah, that's all I can say."

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Late last month, the NBCUniversal-owned streaming service Peacock announced that the long-demanded Community movie was finally becoming a reality, with numerous original cast members attached. At the time, Peacock confirmed that the film would include McHale as Jeff Winger, Danny Pudi as Abed Nadir, Alison Brie as Annie Edison, Gillian Jacobs as Britta Perry, Jim Rash as Dean Craig Pelton and Ken Jeong as Ben Chang.

Shortly after, Community creator Dan Harmon all but confirmed that Donald Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown would also be reprising their roles as Troy Barnes and Shirley Bennett, respectively, implying that their deals had simply not been finalized yet. One Community alum who will almost certainly not be returning, however, is Chevy Chase, who played Pierce Hawthorne in Community's first four seasons (plus the first episode of Season 5). Chase departed the show under acrimonious circumstances, with his character being killed off.

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#SixSeasonsAndAMovie

Community originally premiered on NBC in 2009, running for five seasons on the network through 2014 before being canceled. The show then moved to the now-defunct Yahoo! Screen for its sixth and final season, which aired in 2015. In addition to the aforementioned McHale, Pudi, Brie, Jacobs, Rash, Jeong, Glover, Brown and Chase, Community featured a number of other key cast members over its run. These included the likes of John Oliver as Ian Duncan in Seasons 1, 2 and 5; Jonathan Banks as Buzz Hickey in Season 5; and Paget Brewster and Keith David as Frankie Dart and Elroy Patashnik, respectively, in Season 6. It's currently unclear if any of these actors will return for the film, though Brewster certainly seems into the idea.

The Community movie will stream on Peacock, but does not currently have a release date.

Source: TheWrap