You may not know Yvette Nicole Brown by name, but chances are you’re familiar with her work. Over the past ten years, Brown has compiled an impressive resume of film and television credits, including small parts in “Tropic Thunder”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, “The Office” and “Entourage.” In 2009, she landed the role of Shirley on NBC’s critically acclaimed “Community,” which airs Thursday nights at 8.

“Community” has quickly become one of the smartest and wittiest sitcoms on television. What do you attribute the show’s quick success to?

A huge part of it, of course, is Dan Harmon, the creator. What I like about the way Dan works is that he’s not so set in his ways that he doesn’t see changing shifts from the audience. I believe our show is kind of like a living organism, it always is morphing and evolving and the same thing is true for this season.

The show has become very self referential, or “meta.” Was that always the goal or was there some sort of evolutionary process that brought it there?

I didn’t even know what “meta” meant. Someone had to tell me what it meant. I think the way they thought about it was that the characters on the show are the same age as the people that will be watching the show, and if you were in college right now, you would understand pop culture references.

A lot of times it seems like the characters on TV don’t watch TV. Ever notice that? On our show we’ll reference a popular movie or a popular TV show because these characters are supposed to be people living in the world. You live in the world, you’ve seen Avatar, you know? So Pierce has seen Avatar. That’s probably where the “meta” part comes in.

Speaking of Pierce, what’s it like to work with Chevy Chase?

Chevy’s, you know, he’s what you expect. He’s an icon. He knows everybody in the business. He’s willing to share everything he’s learned throughout his career, which is great. Not everybody shares their joys and their sorrows but he’ll do that. He’s a cool dude.

The study group is very co-dependant. What is your relationship with the rest of the cast like, on-set?

Co-dependant! We all kind of have a love affair with each other going on. It’s not a set where they say “cut” and everybody kind of goes to their trailer. We’re very close with each other, we’re very close with the crew, and we see each other outside of the show. I don’t think it’s co-dependant in a really negative way but we really do enjoy each other’s company.

You’ve worked with a lot of famous people. Do you ever get star struck?

I stay in a perpetual sense of being star struck because I’m a fan of people, and not just famous people. I’ve worked regular jobs and been impressed with someone that excels at xeroxing. It’s like, whenever you’re good at something you do, I’m like “Oh, wow!” I’m a huge fan of people. I’m very star struck. I think its good to celebrate people’s successes.

Shirley is a very religious woman. How similar to her are you in that way? Do you think that the show celebrates or mocks her faith?

Shirley shoves Christianity down peoples’ throats way more than I do. That’s the first difference. But I do think that they’re respectful of the way a person of faith lives their life. The whole point is that people of faith are not perfect; in fact, they’re usually worse than other people, they just know that they need help and forgiveness to make it through life so that’s why they choose that path. I like that Shirley is flawed. And we’re gonna find out this season just how flawed.

What else can we expect this season?

A lot of shenanigans! What I love about this show—I’m a fan of the show, as well—the most absurd things happen but there’s always a really good explanation why they happen. There’s a zombie episode coming up for Halloween and, again, it’s not a dream—it really happens. The writers are geniuses.

I want you to pay close attention to Danny Puti (Abed) this year. I’m in awe of him. Every character they give him, be it Batman or White Abed, he commits a hundred percent; and there’s a couple of instances this year. If he doesn’t get an Emmy nomination, I don’t know what’s going on in the world!