Rapping His Way to City Hall

On a recent morning, dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans, Mr. Hall was in the North Hollywood Diner marveling at his good fortune. The actor had only been in town for four weeks, but had already claimed this no-frills, 24-hour joint as a favorite hangout. At one point, a customer began pounding on the diner’s much-abused upright piano; later, a woman chattered loudly into her cellphone about how Jesus Christ “doesn’t claim to know what’s going to happen in the United States.” Mr. Hall was wide-eyed, taking it all in. He led me over to a framed photo of Marlon Brando and Rita Moreno, signed by Ms. Moreno; Mr. Brando is flipping off the photographer. “I love this place,” Mr. Hall said, beaming.

If Mr. Hall sees similarities between himself and Courtney, others may see Courtney and think of Donald J. Trump: the political inexperience, the unconventional campaign, the win that was never, ever supposed to happen. That said, you won’t be hearing Mr. Trump’s name much in the series, if at all. The show is — as its creators like to point out — nonpartisan.

“But I think without naming anyone specifically, we’re going to shine a light on what’s going on in our world right now,” Ms. Michele said. “We’re going to make our points. People will know how we feel.”

Mr. Hall was born and raised in Anderson, S.C., a small, rural town about 30 miles outside Greenville. He remembers cookouts and walking his dogs and gorgeous sunsets over fields dotted with hay barrels. It’s a Confederate state, he said, with racism “bled into the soil” — but even so, he found the place comforting. “You go to the church your grandma went to, that your great-grandma went to,” he said. He grew up in a trailer park with his mom, a preacher — “my dad wasn’t in the picture growing up,” he said — and his older sister Octavia.

In the tenth grade, Mr. Hall starred in his first play, a high school production of “The Lion King.” “Our script was the coloring book based on the movie,” he said. The young actor must have had something, because a year later, he was accepted into the prestigious South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities.

At the Governor’s School, teachers held up New York’s Juilliard as the promised land. Mr. Hall had never heard of it. Only a handful of students in the school’s history, all women, had ever gotten in, he was told, but he was going to be that first guy. A year later, he was accepted. He had never been on a plane before, and never even been above the Mason-Dixon line. “I fell in love with the pace, the grind,” he said.

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Mr. Hall graduated from Juilliard in 2015. The next year, he got the “Broad City” role, but he still had the air of the conservatory about him, at least to the “Broad City” stars Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson. “They were like, ‘Are you from England?’” he said. He eventually loosened up, and secured a recurring role on “Search Party,” as the ex-boyfriend of the show’s star, Alia Shawkat. The show received largely enthusiastic reviews — Vulture called it “one of the best shows of the year” — with some describing Mr. Hall as the series breakout.

While working on that show in New York, Mr. Hall auditioned for “The Mayor.” The role called for a guy who could do comedy and drama, had the star presence to headline the series, and could rap. “It’s not a given you’re going to find that person,” said Jeremy Bronson, the show’s creator and showrunner, whose previous writing and producing experience includes “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” and “Hardball With Chris Matthews,” as well as “The Mindy Project.” “But when he walked in that room, he lit the place up.”

The second season of “Search Party” wrapped at 4 a.m. on a Friday; the next day, Mr. Hall was on a flight to Los Angeles to start shooting “The Mayor.” After he found an apartment in Studio City, Ms. Brown took him out to Bed Bath & Beyond to stock his new place (Mr. Hall still doesn’t have a car). “I’m his designated driver,” she said.

Recently, the cast was filming one of the show’s first episodes at CBS Studio Center in Studio City. The onscreen scene was chaotic: there was an ongoing bus strike, protesters had taken over City Hall, and the resulting hubbub had put a crimp in “Whitney Day,” a celebration of all things Whitney Houston. Offstage, however, things couldn’t have been lighter. The cast was having fun and cutting up; between takes, crew members played hacky sack.

If there is a certain looseness on the set, that might be because there are a lot of similarities between the lead character and the actor who plays him.

“Courtney Rose is the kind of person who can charm his way into and out of most situations, and Brandon is that dude,” Mr. Diggs said. “He’s the most charismatic dude I’ve ever met.”

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