ADULT BEGINNERS directed by Ross Katz, written by Liz Flahive and Jeff Cox, with Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale and Caleb and Matthew Paddock. Released by The Archive. 92 minutes. Opens Friday (May 8). For venues and times, see Movies.
Nick Kroll wants you to see him as a regular person. After three seasons of playing outsized sketch characters on Kroll Show – in addition to his role as the dickish Ruxin on The League and dozens of guest spots on TV series and podcasts – the actor developed Adult Beginners, a dramedy in which he plays Jake, a New York City hotshot forced to move back to the suburbs after his business takes a disastrous turn.
Living with his sister (Rose Byrne) and her husband (Bobby Cannavale), Jake winds up minding their three-year-old – which starts him grudgingly on the track to adulthood. The role, he admits, is not that much of a stretch.
“I have 12 nieces and nephews,” Kroll says, “and I barely ever get asked to babysit. Maybe once. I’m the godparent to none of them. So that was sort of the original idea: what if a brother like myself – sort of a selfish younger brother – was thrust into the role of becoming the major caretaker for a child?”
Really, though, it’s about letting Nick be a real person rather than a Kroll Show character. “In general with TV, I’ve been very lucky to get cast doing a lot of character stuff,” he says. “I’m drawn to it and I enjoy it. But it’s fun here to play a more grounded and realistic character who feels like someone you’d actually meet in the real world. It’s much easier to have them live in a balls-to-the-wall world when you’re only seeing them for six or seven minutes an episode.”
Since the release of Adult Beginners comes shortly after the last episodes of Kroll Show have aired, Kroll’s spent much of this press tour being asked why he decided to wrap up a successful TV series after three seasons. People seem to want him to apologize for that, which he agrees is kind of weird.
“I mean, it’s a nice thing in the end,” he says, “to have something go away and have people be like, ‘Oh, I wanted more of that.’ I’ve never minded that question, because I know in my head why I ended it. It’s been very nice that people liked it and wanted more of it – and the nice thing is, whether it’s the actual Kroll Show or the kind of stuff we were doing there, there’s no rule that I can’t and won’t keep doing versions of it.”
See review.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
