Nick Kroll Talks the Early Stages of His Comedy, Starring in 'Adult Beginners,' and His Sex Tapes

We spoke to the comedian about how he got is start and made it to the big screen.

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Complex Original

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We all mourned when the sketch comedy series Kroll Show came to a close in March. What will happen to the eccentric characters like Liz and Liz, Bobby Bottleservice, and C-Czar? While we wait for FXX to order each of their spin-offs (fingers crossed), the show's creator, Nick Kroll has been up to something totally different.

Kroll's new film, Adult Beginners, (he conceived the story) stars Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale, and is produced by the current king of indie film, Mark Duplass. The film opens this weekend, and in it, Kroll doesn’t wear any costumes, lipstick, or ridiculous wigs, eccentricities that made him famous on Kroll Show. He’s pretty much just himself, playing a character he admits was inspired by his own disdain for changing dirty diapers.

Kroll's character in Adult Beginners is Jake, a businessman who makes a big mistake and loses everything. Seeking emotional and career recovery, he decides to move in with his older sister, Justine (Byrne), and her husband, Danny (Cannavale). The catch: the couple has a 3-year-old son, Teddy, and a baby on the way. Jake agrees to look after Teddy in exchange for a free room with an air mattress and home-cooked dinners. Slowly, with no shortage of swim lessons and play dates, Jake transitions out of bachelor-mode and into a family man.

We had a chance to sit down with Kroll this week and chat about his own childhood and how it inspired his many characters. He reveals the early stages of his comedy, how he met some of his hilarious collaborators, his plans for a being the next Spanish superstar, and, of course, his sex tapes.

1.

Given that Adult Beginners is about getting in touch with your inner child, I want to talk about your childhood. Did you do characters when you were growing up?

I was always doing bits. Weirdly, there’s a video of me doing Roy Cohn.

At what age?

I was like 13. Roy Cohn, who is made famous fictitiously in Angels in America [Ed. note: Al Pacino played him in the movie], he was like the district attorney of New York, a closeted gay, weird power broker. That’s a funny character for a 13-year-old to do. Geez, what was that saying about me? I used to do Wayne’s World sketches when I was in like 7th grade.

You had a big family.

I’m the youngest of four. One of the first times I remember performing was on a tour bus with my family. They had a microphone in the front of the tour bus, and I was doing Andrew Dice Clay jokes, the nursery rhymes, just for my family, like a 10-person fan group. There might have been other people on there.

Were you on Ritalin as a kid?

No! Not till I was illegally snorting it as a teenager.

When did you start to see comedy as a possible career?

I started doing improv in college, and I met Mike Birbiglia and John Mulaney and a bunch of other very funny, talented people who I’m still friends with and work with. I moved to New York when I graduated and started taking classes at Upright Citizen's Brigade and met Bobby Moynihan who’s in Adult Beginners. That’s where I met [Jason] Mantzoukas and [Adam] Pally. I remember the first time I went to a read-through of the sketch show that we did. I walked out of that sketch read-through and was like, This is the fucking thing that I’ve been waiting for my whole life to feel like. This is what feels natural. I’d never been passionate about anything. I’d always been fine at everything, decent athlete, decent student.

How old were you when you realized that?

I was like 19, 20. Then I slowly, over college, became more serious about improv and comedy. It was the first thing that didn’t feel like work. It was like, Alright, we’re going to Kinkos to print out flyers at 3 in the morning. Sure! Gotta do it because I want to perform and maybe get laid off it!

Are there any sketches out there that haven’t been seen by anybody? Nick Kroll, "The Lost Tapes"?

We taped all of our improv shows. I have tapes from my senior year when Mulaney was a freshman. I’m sure there are some real doozy moments in there. There’s a sketch that’s on Funny or Die that this guy John Ramsey makes ["The Early Works"]. It’s me like as a 4-year-old.

2.

Is there a comedian or celebrity you’ve met where you thought, Holy shit I’ve made it! Or does it happen every time you appear on new shows?

It kind of happens a lot. I remember the first time I did Invite Them Up, which was Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale’s show in New York, when I first moved here. The first time I went to [the New York comedy club] Fez, I just was standing near Janeane Garofalo. And then a few years later, I did it. That felt like a big deal. Shit, there are just so many…being in a feature, being in a studio comedy, or meeting Will Ferrell. Meeting someone you admire and then that person’s like, I’m a fan of your work; it’s a really neat feeling. There are constant little milestones you want to keep hitting.

This movie feels like a milestone, it's very different from Kroll Show. What made you want to go in this direction with Mark Duplass?

I look at people I respect, like Ferrell or Ben Stiller or Jack Black, and they’re still doing ridiculous things in addition to whatever more serious, grounded films they're doing. It just felt like the natural thing to do, which was to tell a more grounded story. I would also weirdly argue that as crazy as Kroll Show characters were, it’s the same process of creating a three-dimensional character. Building the character of Jake in Adult Beginners is weirdly pretty similar to building C-Czar or Liz or Doctor Armond. I want to know how they walk and how they talk, who their families were, what relationships they have with their friends.

Was this character you? Are you the uncle that doesn’t know how to change a diaper?

Oh yeah. I mean, I could change a diaper if someone held a gun to my head, but if someone were holding a gun to my head I’d probably ask them to put the gun down and change the diaper. The element that feels truer is feeling the younger brother who is probably a little more selfish and doesn’t necessarily give as much as he takes. I am the youngest of four, and I have two older sisters. I hope that people identify with that in the movie. The sibling relationships are so real.

That’s something that I didn’t really explore in Kroll Show. It’s almost all friends. There’s Armond and Roman, who are father-son, but Liz and Liz, Peter and Bobby, George and Gill, they’re all friends. I guess that partly to me was an interesting new dynamic to play with.

3.

You’ve done stand-up, TV shows, and now indie film. Is there one avenue you still want to explore?

I’d like to leave more time for press junkets!

You’re having a blast…

No, I am! It’s actually very fun, people coming in and talking about me and for the most part complimenting me. I can handle that.

Is there a comedian you want to work with or an actor?

I speak some Spanish. I would love to go make a movie in Spanish. I’d love to be in an Almodóvar movie or an Iñárritu.

Because they’re hilarious!

They’re really funny! All those guys, the Mexicans and the Spanish, have a great sense of humor in their films. It’s such a fucking privilege, being an actor and writer and comedian—you’re not limited to one lane. It’d be fun to go be in a big action movie and then also make a serious drama. And then obviously my sex tapes.

They’re out there already. Did you not know about this?

I put them up, and then they take them down! But then I’ll put them on porn sites, and they still take them down!

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