KC native Ellie Kemper dives a little deeper into ‘Kimmy Schmidt’ in Season 2

That Hollywood cliché “have your people call my people” is almost universally true: Whenever stars do phone interviews with the press, it’s almost always a publicist who conferences the star and reporter together to chat.

But when the phone rang for an interview with Kansas City native Ellie Kemper, star of Netflix’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” it turned out to be the actress herself on the other end of the line.

That’s in keeping with Kemper’s sunny, personable persona, which she employs to good effect in “Kimmy Schmidt.” Season 2 begins streaming Friday, April 15.

Kemper was born in Kansas City, but at age 5 she moved to St. Louis, which she considers her hometown.

“I don’t remember it well,” she said of her earliest years in Kansas City. “We lived on Westover Road.”

The Kemper family has deep roots in banking and philanthropy in Missouri. Ellie is the great-great-granddaughter of Kemper family patriarch William Thornton Kemper, who was the father of Kansas City philanthropist and banker R. Crosby Kemper Sr.

Kemper still has aunts, uncles and cousins in Kansas City and gets back to town to visit them over the holidays.

“It’s a beautiful drive across Missouri,” she said. “Well, not the most scenic, but it is relaxing.”

And when in Kansas City, she’s eager to visit one restaurant in particular.

“I’m mostly at relatives’ houses so I feel like I don’t get out as much as I should,” she said, “but I do love Winstead’s.”

Kemper dates her first acting role to a second-grade production of “Get Hoppin’.”

“I played Bunny Sue, the bunny who couldn’t hop, and in a play called ‘Get Hoppin’,’ that’s unfortunate,” she said, her voice as sunny as ever. “I was angry with my siblings because I was jealous of them.”

Kemper attended the John Burroughs School in St. Louis, where a Burroughs grad, future “Mad Men” star Jon Hamm, taught her in a drama class. But it wasn’t until studying English at Princeton that she first thought of acting as a possible career.

“I joined an improv comedy group, and that’s when I thought, this is something I can do, something I feel competent in, something I want to keep doing,” she said. “I put on shows and plays with my sister and next-door neighbor (as a kid), but considering it as something I want to do after college didn’t happen until later.”

Kemper’s big break came in the later seasons of NBC’s “The Office,” where she played receptionist Erin Hannon. (Kemper’s sister, Carrie, became a writer on the show.)

Her first leading role arrived last year with “Kimmy Schmidt,” created by “30 Rock” veterans Tina Fey and Robert Carlock. Kemper plays the title character, who was trapped in an underground bunker by the leader of a religious cult for 15 years before escaping at the start of the series. Kimmy then moves to New York, goes to work for a vain trophy wife (Jane Krakowski) and becomes roommates with a struggling actor (Tituss Burgess).

“This series was, in a lot of ways, inspired by Ellie,” Fey said at a Netflix news conference in January during the Television Critics Association winter press tour. “Robert Carlock and I were asked if we would ever develop a show for Ellie, and so we thought a lot about her qualities.

“We were certainly aware of the fact that there’s a certain type of woman, both in fiction and nonfiction, that you see over and over again, this kind of ebullient young woman who survived something just awful and comes out the other side still optimistic.”

Kimmy is from Indiana, but Kemper said there are shared Midwestern values she can identify in the character.

“Hearty and strong: That’s the type of person who is raised in the Midwest, and I know that’s a compliment to myself and the Midwest,” she said. “I know there are certainly strong people all over the country, but that kind of tenacity and grit is something I see a lot in the Midwest. Certainly (Kimmy) could come from another place, but it makes sense that the place she’s from is in the heart of the country.”

Kemper said her Midwestern roots didn’t quite prepare her for life in New York, where “Kimmy Schmidt” films.

“Not everyone smiles and says hello to you,” she said. “Without being a rube about it, I was struck by that. When you’re from the Midwest, I think there’s a wisecracking way of looking at the world that helps put everything in perspective.

“When I meet fellow Midwesterners, I understand them immediately. I feel like we speak the same language. On the whole, people from the Midwest might be cheerier and tell it like it is while smiling.”

“Kimmy Schmidt” was developed for NBC — it’s produced by Universal Television, a sister company to NBC — but before “Kimmy” could air on the broadcast network, the series shifted to Netflix, a more appropriate home for a comedy filled with offbeat humor that’s somewhat outside the mainstream. (The show’s comedic style is similar to “30 Rock,” which was never much of a ratings powerhouse on NBC.)

The move has allowed Season 2 episodes of “Kimmy Schmidt” to run a bit longer.

“The broadcast timing for a half-hour comedy is 21 minutes and 15 seconds on NBC,” Fey said. “Without that restriction, these shows are all slightly different lengths, but I think they’re averaging around 27 minutes, which is delightful for storytelling and (gives) a little breathing room around jokes.”

Fey says in Season 2 Kimmy faces deeper emotional and life issues. Kemper said that proves a challenge for Kimmy because of her lack of street smarts.

“At the end of Season 1, she feels like all of her troubles are behind her now that she’s put the reverend in jail, and in fact life isn’t so easy, it’s not that clear-cut,” Kemper said. “The bunker was not the root of all her problems. She has a whole life up to that point, and this season is, without getting too shrinky, unpacking what happened to her before that and understanding what is making her so angry.”

Kemper is grateful for her two best-known roles to date on “The Office” and “Kimmy Schmidt.”

“They’re both dream jobs,” she said. “I can’t believe I get to do it once in a lifetime, let alone twice. I admire (the characters) and they are delightful people in different ways.”

“Delightful” is a term often applied to Kemper, too, but she feels no pressure to be her naturally smiley self now that she’s known for her chipper personality.

“On the scale of things, that’s not something to worry about,” she said. “But I do notice, when I’m not smiling, people think I’m mad, and I’m like, no, I just don’t happen to be smiling now. But I get that. I have friends who are upbeat, and when they’re not smiling, I think something’s wrong. So I understand it.

“I’m a human being and people are not happy all the time, but as far as attributes or assumptions go, I’m happy to live with the assumption I need to be nice. I’ve had great things happen to me, so there’s no excuse not to be nice.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 3:00 AM with the headline "KC native Ellie Kemper dives a little deeper into ‘Kimmy Schmidt’ in Season 2."