You likely fall into one of two schools of comedy: one where you find Nick Kroll hilarious, or one where you’re wrong. Yes, comedy is subjective, but Kroll has such a range when it comes to the types of characters he creates, that the law of averages says that you’re bound to find some of it funny. Whether it’s on his recently completed run on Comedy Central’s “Kroll Show,” or as Ruxin on FXX’s soon-to-end, long-running series “The League,” or as the recurring shock-jock character “The Douche” on “Parks & Recreation,” or in supporting films roles in I LOVE YOU, MAN, DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS, or A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY. He’s even slated to be in Terrence Malick’s next film KNIGHT OF CUPS and in the new VACATION movie.
But I think it’s safe to say that his most recent release, ADULT BEGINNERS, is different than all of those films. With a story credit for the movie, Kroll plays Jake, a failed New York business man who forced to move in with his sister (Rose Bryne), her husband (Bobby Cannavale), and their young son, whom Jake is roped into playing nanny to while the parents work. The film certainly has its fair share of laugh, but it also takes the idea of becoming a fully formed adult seriously, some Jake is in desperate need of doing before he can get his life back on track. The film is a great deal of fun, and I’m actually moderating a Q&A with Kroll tonight (Thursday, April 23 at 8pm) at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre. I believe tickets are still available at the Music Box’s web site. You should join us if you live in the Chicago area.
I had the chance to sit down briefly with Kroll and his co-star Bobby Cannavale at the SXSW Film Festival in March. If I listed Cannavale’s credits (which includes a great deal of television and stage work on top of his impressive film career), it would take up about 10 pages. Currently, he’s doing impressive work in DANNY COLLINS, opposite Al Pacino, and is about to show up (again opposite his real-life partner Rose Bryne) in Paul Feig’s SPY. He’s apparently also got an as-yet-undisclosed role in Marvel’s ANT-MAN, and is shooting episodes of the Mick Jagger-Martin Scorsese-produced Untitled Rock N Roll series for HBO. And that’s just this year. Seriously, look him up; the guy is in everything.
These two were great together, so please enjoy my chat with Nick Kroll and Bobby Cannavale…
Capone: Nick, you have spent a lot of the last few years playing characters, and now you’re playing what I would consider “a character”—a real guy, much more grounded. Was that something you set out to do, both when you were creating this story and in the performance?
Nick Kroll: Thank you. I’m always interested in trying to do new things, and this felt weirdly like an extension—even though the characters are really broad on something like “Kroll Show,” that I’m always trying to play the character honestly. In this case, it was creating a scenario that felt like this guy is a real guy, and I credit and thank Bobby, especially working with him in this where there are a lot of scenes where I could play this bigger, I could go for the joke. Liz Flahive and Jeff Cox wrote the script. Liz is a playwright, and Bobby’s done a lot of theater, and some part of me was like “I want to treat this like a play; these words have been written, they’ve spent a lot of time on it.” As opposed to trying to improvise to find the funniest moment, it was like “No, let’s really try to play this moment as honestly and truthfully as possible.” I think it was part of playing a grounded character, trying to play every moment as honestly as that person would play it.
Capone: When the film started and we meet the guy that you are in the beginning, we’ve seen you do variations of that cocky, self-centered character. But the whole movie is about stripping that down and bringing him back down to a very human level. When you put all these people together you start to see just how broken they are. It was believable, very rooted in reality to a certain degree, even in some of the funnier scenes.
Bobby Cannavale: It’s a good place to start out. That’s something we were going for, and especially to have Nick in the part. You have this guy in his infomercial, and whatever you bring in as a fan of Nick’s from watching “Kroll Show” and all those characters, you go, “Oh, okay. This is a character that’s in his wheelhouse,” and he’s selling something that is pretty funny, those glasses, and so we don’t really know where we are. What I like is this guy has got to get rid of all this artifice, and he literally goes on a journey back home, and we get to see where this guy comes from.
The stripping away of all this artifice that he was surrounded by—those people in that loft and Joel [McHale]’s character and the girlfriend. You get rid of that, and what are you left with? You’re left with a guy who lost his mother very recently, and who has a sister that he hasn’t seen in a while and a nephew and a brother-in-law, and a family that really doesn’t seem like he’s been connected with for a while. And therein lies actually the real comedy, because getting to know your family can be pretty funny.
One of the things I liked about when I read the script was that these are just people desperate to figure it out, desperate to figure out “How do we raise this kid? How do I maintain my place in this youthful body that I think I still have? How do I have a relationship with my family while not trying to be like my parents?” I think that those things are real things that we think about as 30-something-year olds, 40-something-year olds, because we don’t want to grow up.
Capone: I just watched a movie recently where somebody made the point that they were in their 30s and “I feel like I’m a kid acting like an adult now. I don’t feel like an adult.” I think everybody feels that way up to a point. This film is about that moment where you start feeling like an adult.
NK: Especially Bobby’s character with me: you move in, it’s like brother-in-law, he’s more of a man than Jake, and they’re not going to get along, and then they start to connect in a way because Bobby’s character wants to smoke weed and doesn’t have anyone to smoke weed with anymore. Jake is like the little brother that shows up and they’re like, “We can like buddy up.” Alliances are always changing within brothers and sisters and in-laws. That framework is always interesting to play with.
Capone: You have a story credit on this. Where did this come from? Was that just observations of the people that you knew?
NK: I have 12 nieces and nephews, all within the last 12 years, so I spent a lot of time with my nieces and nephews and have seen the limitations I have as a caretaker. That became the inspiration of, let’s take that and see what that would be like in a movie. Then it was like this is not going to be a kooky, like THE MANNY! This is going to be, “Let’s truly sit in this.” That’s where the inspiration came from.
Capone: Bobby, in this film and in DANNY COLLINS, you’re playing relatively normal guys. There’s nothing extraordinary about them…
NK: …except this punim [yiddish for “face,” or more specifically “cute face”].
[Everybody laughs]
Capone: Is there a challenge to find something in characters like that that makes them extraordinary to a degree or makes them universal?
BC: Yeah. In both those characters, they’re both working-class people, but what I think makes a character plays is if they have a secret, and I think both those characters have a secret. Danny obviously does. And I think for this character, not only is he having an affair, but he’s also terrified of having another child and what that’s going to do to his marriage and what that’s going to do to the relationship with his friend who’s his wife, and where that’s heading. I think those are very real, everyday conundrums that people find themselves in, but they can make for extraordinary drama to watch, particularly when they’re trying to hold on to secrets.
The same thing in DANNY COLLINS, where my character is holding onto the secret of his illness from his family, and holding the secret that he really does want this guy in his life, this father of his that he is pushing away. That makes interesting, compelling things to watch. It doesn’t really matter so much if he’s a Sicilian gangster or a guy who’s a construction worker, but more so what their deepest, darkest fears are and what their secrets are that I think make for watching something compelling.
Capone: Ross Katz is your director, and he’s done a lot of very heavy material—not that this doesn’t heavy to a certain degree. What did he bring to this? Why was he the right guy for this?
NK: He has produced and worked on a ton of amazing films, but the movie that he had directed was TAKING CHANCE, with Kevin Bacon [an incredibly sad and moving film about a volunteer military escort officer, who accompanies the body of a 19-year-old Marine back to his hometown in Wyoming].
BC: Funny, funny movie.
[Everybody laughs]
NK: Yeah, I showed it to Bobby and was like, “Bobby this is the guy we want to direct the movie.”
BC: I called him and said, “Dude, that movie is funny. I can see why you want him to direct.”
NK: Yeah, it’s a light romp about a marine escorting the body of a fallen solider back to his hometown. A very funny movie. But what I liked about Ross and liked about that movie is visually it looked good, and he carried that story from beginning to end. Not to be egotistical, but I felt like I’m going to be comfortable handling the comedic aspects of this film. My hope was that Ross was going to be able to carry the story and the emotional honesty of the film, and collaborate with all of us on finding all those moments, and he did a great job. A director who was a producer is going to be a real problem solver.
And on a movie of this budget, you have to be able to solve problems, you have to be flexible, and he was. So when we lose our permit for the city of New Rochelle, he’s going to figure out how to get that day’s shot without losing a day or losing a ton of money on it. And he’s just a sweet, kind soul, and I think that really translates into his films. There’s a lot of humanity to the characters that he brings to life. He’s just a genuinely kind guy, and I feel like it adds so much humanity to the movies that he makes.
Capone: Your other producers are the Duplass brothers. I’m a big fan of “The League” [on which Mark Duplass co-stars with Kroll]. What do they bring to production?
NK: I worked a lot with Mark, and I love Jay. They’ve obviously done a lot of great work. They were very helpful in both the early stages at figuring out what kind of story they wanted to tell and how to tell it, and also later, connecting us to great people. They’ve been through this process so many times. Mark is about my age but is a real mentor to me about how to get a movie like this made, both artistically and on the business side, and they know how to do it with grace. And Mark is also a young dad and was able to input a lot of truth in helping shape the story.
Capone: Gentlemen, thank you so much. It was great to meet you.
