Everyone on The Mayor Loves Each Other as Much as You Might Love The Mayor

Our favorite new show of the season is finally here!

ABC's The Mayor topped not only our list but many other lists of best broadcast shows of the fall, and there are a lot of reasons for that. The show is sweet, sharp, and hilarious, but its best asset is its cast, led by Brandon Micheal Hall, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Lea Michele. 

Hall plays young rapper Courtney Rose, who runs for mayor as a publicity stunt and then unexpectedly wins. Brown plays his funny and loving mom Dina, who's a postal worker. 

They're delightful individually but the mother/son relationship is particularly sweet, and seems to translate into real life.

 

"I learn something from Yvette Nicole Brown every day I'm around her," Hall tells E! News. "Every day I'm around her, no matter if it's doing press, no matter if it's going shopping to Bed, Bath and Beyond.

"We had a great time at Bed Bath and Beyond. We really did," Brown says. 

While Brown wouldn't describe herself as a "public dancer," or even a "private dancer," she says Hall has gotten her out of her comfort zone when they've gone out together.

"I don't know how to be lead, and I let him lead me," she says. "I think that's a good sign that I trust him and I trust him as an actor when we're doing scenes together. He's a safe place, safe person to do scenes with, because he's present, you know what I mean?" 

"That's the key word with that—trust," Hall says. "Like there's so much trust on this set, and we all just get to play with each other." 

"It really is [the greatest cast]," Lea Michele, who plays campaign manager Valentina, tells us. "You really hope when you go to work every single day that you love the people that you are with, because you're up close and personal 14, 16 hours every single day. So it's really been such a joy and such a blessing that we get along the way that we do, and that we did from jump." 

Michele, who's fresh off of Scream Queens season two, was partly drawn to this show for the same reason that Hall was interested: the music. 

"I'm such a fan of Daveed Diggs," she says of the show's executive producer (and former Hamilton star). "Bringing those two things together, politics and music and family and heart all combined, I really felt like it had all of the elements to be such a fantastic show."

Michele explained that Diggs and his band will be doing the score for every episode, and that Brandon's rapping skills will be well used. 

"It'll definitely be like the heartbeat of the show," she says.

Check out the videos above to hear how the show is mixing music with politics, and whether Lea Michele's new character has any Hester Ulrich in her. 

The Mayor premieres tonight at 9:30 p.m. on ABC.