Official Trailer of “Fight For Your Right-Revisited”, from the Beastie Boys’ long anticipated eighth album, HOT SAUCE COMMITTEE PART TWO.

I have just finished adding 136 HD screen captures of Rashida Jones from last week’s episode of “Parks And Recreation” into the photo gallery!

Earlier today, Rashida Jones was photographed with the Remarkable Women Panel in Washington, D.C. I have just added 11 photos of her during a visit to a local high school into our photo gallery!

Just because “Parks and Recreation” star Rashida Jones is the daughter of music legend Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton doesn’t mean she had roles handed to her on a silver platter.

“I see my parents’ friends out now and they’re sort of peers, and we go to the same parties, and they say, ‘I’m so proud of you; I always knew you could do it.’ But it’s not like they were ever like ‘Let me make this phone call for you.’” She says with a laugh, “I would have taken the handouts. But nobody gave them to me.”

After graduating from Harvard and trying her luck for years as a struggling actress, she said she decided to pursue a graduate degree in public policy — until she was offered the role of John Krasinski’s love interest in “The Office,” followed by the subtly charming role of Ann Perkins on “Parks and Recreation.”

After “Parks” came the deluge: The 35-year old actress is set to appear in a slew of movies this year, including the newly released “Monogamy” and the upcoming “Friends With Benefits” and “The Muppets.”

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About five years ago, Rashida Jones was seriously mulling a departure from acting. She had gone from a flourishing stage career at Harvard University to one unrewarding audition after another in New York, and she was tired of the grind. She decided to pursue a graduate degree in public policy.

“I got the application and everything,” Jones said. “And then the role on ‘The Office’ happened.”

That part, as a love interest of John Krasinski’s Jim Halpert, ensured that Jones wouldn’t be studying qualitative statistics and the new public health movement soon. The gig springboarded Jones to a supporting turn in the hit bromance “I Love You, Man” and in last year’s Oscar-nominated drama “The Social Network” in addition to her starring role in the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation.”

She can be seen in her first leading performance on the big screen in the independent film “Monogamy,” a relationship drama that opened in Los Angeles this month.

“In elementary and high school, I never considered acting as a profession,” Jones said, sipping green tea behind oversized black plastic frames at a West Hollywood restaurant. “I wanted to be president, or a judge, or a lawyer. In my weird, tightly wound mind, it didn’t feel legitimate enough to aspire to be an actor.”

It’s hard to imagine the 35-year-old — the daughter of music mogul Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton — as anything other than a performer. With a manner that’s at once exotic and girl next door, Jones has a natural screen presence (“relatably smart and relatably sexy,” in the phrase of “Monogamy” director Dana Adam Shapiro) and a flair for comedy.

In the coming months, Jones will appear alongside Steve Martin (“The Big Year”), Paul Rudd (“My Idiot Brother”), Justin Timberlake (“Friends With Benefits”) and perhaps the most experienced costar of all, Kermit the Frog (“The Muppets”). But for years, she says, she felt like an outsider even in her hometown.

“I see my parents’ friends out now and they’re sort of peers, and we go to the same parties, and they say, ‘I’m so proud of you; I always knew you could do it.’ But it’s not like they were ever like ‘Let me make this phone call for you.’”

She laughs. “I would have taken the handouts. But nobody gave them to me.”

Although Jones is unmistakably a child of privilege, she wears it lightly, perhaps the result of spending her 20s as a struggling actress; pretty much her only roles of note during that time were on the TV series “Freaks and Geeks” and “Boston Public.”

She describes her years working with Harvard’s deep bench of comedy talent with more enthusiasm and prides herself now on carefully selecting the right roles, ones that allow her to work with comedy veterans.

“I am definitively qualitative about work,” she said. “If you told me that if I went to Bulgaria for eight months and shot all night on a vampire-werewolf movie with four really difficult actors and a really mean director but it would set me up for the rest of my career, I probably wouldn’t do it. The experience is too important.”

The on-set experience was a factor in making “Monogamy,” to which Chris Messina, a longtime friend, helped bring her after he was attached to star. The movie, from “Murderball” director Shapiro, is about a New York couple drifting apart (the title is both descriptor and cruel irony) and centers on what happens when Jones’ amateur musician is hospitalized with a minor infection and Messina’s photographer becomes obsessed with shooting a mysterious blond.

Relationships and their struggles are subjects close to Jones’ heart. “I have a lot of skepticism about marriage and monogamy,” said the actress, who has been romantically linked to Krasinski and presidential speechwriter Jon Favreau but is not currently known to be dating anyone.

“Marriage feels like an industry with catering and really expensive bands. I’m all for celebrating a union. But call me in 10 years, I will come and celebrate my … off. Half the people are not going to make it, and it’s silly to pretend that it’s not the truth.”

That sort of contrarian opinion informs much about Jones, and also prompts a restlessness, even after her recent breakthrough, toward the idea of being defined solely as an actor. Jones has published a graphic novel, has sung backup vocals with pop group Maroon 5 and also has written her first film, “Celeste & Jesse Forever,” a romantic dramedy that has been set up at a number of studios and looks to go into production this year.

As for her future in front of the camera, the actress has instituted what might be called the Botox test — “If I start looking at my face and think, ‘I could use a shot of something here,’ then I have to quit and do something else.” She then adds, “I still may change careers in my life at some point. I may go back to school and get a degree in law, or business. Or public policy.”

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Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg each get about one scene in the upcoming romantic comedy “Friends With Benefits.” But they soon could be occupying the same movie for a lot longer, and in a somewhat more dramatic vein.

The “Parks and Recreation” star and the “Saturday Night Live” staple are set to costar in “Celeste and Jesse Forever,” the long-gestating romantic dramedy that Jones has written with actor-writer Will McCormack.

A studio executive who was briefed on the project said Samberg was set to join Jones as the film’s male lead. The actress confirmed the casting and said that the production has also brought on a director, Lee Toland Krieger, who helmed the festival drama “The Vicious Kind.”

“Celeste & Jesse” tackles the story of a couple that’s getting divorced but wants to remain friends — a kind of inversion, perhaps, of the just-hooking-up subgenre of “Friends With Benefits” and “No Strings Attached.”

“Our movie is about two people who love each other a ton but they don’t know what to do with that love, and how do you let that person go,” Jones said. “It’s very different from: ‘I like having sex with this person because I’m so modern but then, ooh, maybe I like them.’ I’m less interested in that story.” She added, “It’s the version of ‘When Harry Met Sally’ 20 years later, or ‘Blue Valentine.’ It’s really about how you break up with someone.’”

Samberg aims to shoot the movie ahead of “I Hate You, Dad,” the Adam Sandler comedy he will make this summer. (Samberg and Jones, incidentally, each had parts in “I Love You, Man,” playing brother and fiancée, respectively, to Paul Rudd’s friend-challenged lead.)

Financing has come together for “Celeste & Jesse,” which previously had an unusual spell of bad luck: It was set up at 20th Century Fox label Fox Atomic before that label was closed down. Overture Films later bought it, only to be shuttered by parent company Starz Media. The veteran producers behind “Memento” and”Prime” are producing.

Jones, who’s starring in the current indie relationship drama”Monogamy” and appears in upcoming comedies including “The Muppets” and “The Big Year,” said she thinks “Celeste & Jesse” offers an antidote to the spate of recent comedies looking at romance from a male point of view.

“It’s hard to find female leads that are flawed and interesting and dynamic. We wanted to write something that was in the vein of Judd Apatow — you talk like you actually talk with your friends — but with ladies,” Jones said. “I want to do that and not just be someone’s girlfriend or wife. I want to be the one to go on the journey.”

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Opening in theaters on March 18th is the new independent drama Monogamy from Murderball director Dana Adam Shapiro. The film stars Rashida Jones (The Social Network, Parks and Recreation), and Chris Messina (Devil), as well as Meital Dohan (Weeds), Zak Orth (The Other Guys), Paul Diomede (The 25th Hour), and Ivan Martin (Fighting). We recently had a chance to speak with actress Rashida Jones about the new film, her role, and singing in front of a live audience.

The drama Monogamy is a very real portrayal of a relationship on the brink, as it is faces the fear of commitment and the fantasy that reality can never live up to. Bored with his job as a wedding photographer, Theo (Chris Messina) forms a company where he is hired by clients to clandestinely snap voyeuristic photos of them, as they go about their daily lives. When a sexy exhibitionist (Meital Dohan) hires him, he quickly becomes obsessed with her, stalking her day and night, which threatens his relationship and impending marriage to Nat (Rashida Jones). As Theo is consumed with thoughts about his client, the couple are forced to face truths about their own issues and sex life at home.

At the film’s press day, actress Rashida Jones did this exclusive interview with Collider and talked about the attraction of playing such a challenging role, the importance of keeping the characters and story as real as possible, and working with an actor as committed to the work as Chris Messina. She also talked about where things are going for her character on her NBC comedy Parks & Recreation, reuniting with her Freaks & Geeks co-star Jason Segel for The Muppets, how much she loved working with Kermit the Frog, how she’s looking forward to doing a guest appearance on the upcoming FX series Wilfred (starring Elijah Wood), and her role in the upcoming comedy The Big Year, with Jack Black and Owen Wilson.

How did you get involved with this film? Did they come to you about doing this role?
RASHIDA JONES: Yeah, they made me an offer, which is always really nice, as an actor. Auditioning is the worst. I loved Dana’s movie Murderball, and I’ve always really been a big fan of Chris Messina, as an actor. It was a very simple story, the way that it was written out, but after talking to Dana, I just really trusted him and his taste. He was really smart and very collaborative. I saw that the character sang, and I also knew that it would be challenging emotionally, and I didn’t want to do it, which is why I did it. I realized that it probably would be good for me, and it was.

Were there things that were particularly important to you, in developing this character and keeping it feeling real?
JONES: Yeah, that’s always really important to me. I’ve been in some broad comedy stuff, but most of the stuff that I’ve been lucky enough to do has been grounded in reality, and then the broadness comes out of that, and you buy it because it comes out of that. It was important to me that that same thing translate here, especially with the relationship where the girl is frigid. I didn’t want it to be so obvious, like, “Oh, she’s not putting out. See ya! That makes perfect sense.” It still ends up being that, but I wanted to make sure that it was clear that they loved each other. Chris and I wanted to create something that felt like a real relationship and didn’t feel like you anticipated it breaking apart. They’re not communicating well is more the problem. That, to me, is more the thing that happens in relationships. It’s not black and white. She doesn’t sleep with him, but you can tell that she loves him. She’s not sleeping with him in such a way where it’s not totally obvious. But, at the end of the day, she’s not sleep with him, which is kind of why he strays.

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