Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany Stretches Her Comedy Muscles on Parks and Recreation

Tatiana Maslany has shown great acting range creating multiple unique clone characters on Orphan Black. But can she do comedy?

On Thursday's Parks and Recreation(8/7c, NBC) Maslany will play the love interest of Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari), whom she meets at the Parks Department. Tom, of course, doesn't make a great first impression, but Maslany's character, Nadia, won't mind because she's looking for a little mental escape from her job with Doctors Without Borders.

Exclusive Parks and Rec Sneak Peek: Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany meets Tom Haverford

TVGuide.com hit the set of the NBC comedy to chat with Maslany about her comedic turn. (And this time, she's only playing one character!)

How did the Parks role come together? Did they approach you?
Tatiana Maslany: Yeah. I haven't really done a lot of comedy. It's something that terrifies me. I'm obviously so excited to be here because these are literally some of my favorite comedians of all time, but I'm so terrified.

What attracted you to do comedy?
Maslany: I did improv for quite a few years in a longform sense. For me, comedy literally is way more terrifying than doing drama, so it's always about stretching what I think I can do and putting myself out there in different context. I'd never want to be pigeonholed as one thing. It's nice to get to go in a whole other direction. I feel like I'm able to just learn from all these people. It's a total skill. It's a science. I'm not super good at it, so I'm just happy to learn.

Tell us about your character Nadia.
Maslany: Nadia is a doctor. She meets Aziz's character, and he pursues her. What she likes about him is he makes her laugh and he's light and she doesn't have to be the responsible doctor that she is every single day. She's off to Rwanda to save lives, but she's so happy to be here playing skee ball with him. There's a neat balance in her that's super responsible, but also needs to blow off steam and be a bit lobotomized. I think she's genuine, but you never know with ladies sometimes. 

Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany teases Season 2

What's your reaction to the overwhelming response from fans and your peers?
Maslany: I think it was super overwhelming initially and then maybe I just went [wide-eyed] with it, because it just feels a little bit like it's happening to somebody else. [Orphan Black] wrapped in February, so to me, that was when it finished almost. Then everybody has been talking about it, I'm like, "I don't even remember doing it." It's so bizarre. It's incredibly humbling. [Rashida Jones] came up to me and was talking about the show and was super excited about it. It's really humbling and really nice, but feels outside of me.

You're contracted for two episodes, but is there a chance you could return?
Maslany: I would love to. It's going to be hard because I'm going to be shooting. Then I have no life. Those four months, it's like completely into the void of Orphan Black, so we'll see.

Parks and Recreation airs Thursdays at 8/7c on NBC.