Owen Thiele and the Cast of FX’s Adults preview their comedy

FX‘s newest series, Adults, is a hangout comedy that follows a group of 20-somethings sharing a house in Queens. It follows the tradition of Friends for obvious narrative reasons. Also, like Friends, its cast is made up of (relatively) new-to-the-scene young actors who were painstakingly chosen from across the comedic spectrum (standup, improv, sketch, and TikTok) and then asked to perform the chemistry of longtime friends. In the case of Adults, the group was essentially perfect strangers.

The show’s creators, Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw are twenty-somethings themselves, former Tonight Show writers who partnered with executive producer Nick Kroll to bring the story (loosely based on their own friend group) to life. The cast — Lucy Freyer, Jack Innanen, Owen Thiele, Amita Rao and Malik Elassal — credits the showrunners for fostering an environment that allowed them to become best friends in a matter of weeks and also become comfortable enough with each other to boldly go where most comedies never do (the opening scene of the sitcom involves public masturbation in a subway car). The group joined THR ahead of Adults‘ release to discuss their nontraditional ice breakers the prank that Nick Kroll played on everyone when they got the job, and whether linear television is still the gold standard for Gen Z creatives.

Let’s start with something light: Where was everyone when they found out they got this job?

FREYER I was in my apartment, and I had gone out for happy hour drinks with my friends when I got a text from one of the producers saying that Nick Kroll wanted to talk to me on Zoom. I’d had two cocktails; I was like, should I be doing this now?

ELASSAL Lucy, did they do the fake-out with you? We gotta expose the fake-out.

FREYER Yes, they pretended they were actually doing another audition. They did the same thing for all of us. Nick was like, let’s do an improv activity and then within the context of the improv they told us, you got the job. I didn’t want to assume that he was actually giving me the job so I just kept going with it.

RAO The improv set-up was also kind of vague, so I was like is he trying to sabotage me? He was just like, you’re Issa and you’re at a job interview. I’m like, but what’s my intention? Is she supposed to do well?

INNANEN Like OK, what type of boss do I have? Issa did take notes.

THIELE You writing down notes while Nick Kroll is trying to give you a job is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.

Did anyone not fall for the fake-out?

ELASSAL I had already gotten the information from my manager that I’d gotten the part, so when they called and said oh we just need you to improv with Nick, I was like…OK. I was being a jerk about it. (laughs) They said you got the job and I was like, really? I was fake bashful about it.

Were you able to meet Nick during any of the audition process, or did these fake-out meetings have the added stress of being the first time you were meeting him?

THIELE I truly don’t remember. I was so nervous during all of my Zoom callbacks — during one, I went to drink a glass of water and dropped the glass. I muted myself as fast as possible because they could not hear it shatter. And it actually didn’t, it rolled.

INNANEN Both of my callbacks were in hotel rooms with zero windows.

THIELE My love, where were you when a hotel does not have windows? I’m nervous.

INNANEN I was on a lot of depressing gigs. One was Pittsburgh. They didn’t want you to look at it. There was technically a window, but the window just looked out to more inside.

ELASSAL Owen, where were you when you found out you got the job? I don’t think I’ve heard the story.

THIELE I was outside on my porch taking in the sun for once in my life. I got a text saying Nick Kroll wants to meet. I called my agents, freaking out, and then, of course, it was all fine.

When everyone got to set and met for the first time, did the nerves you’ve been describing from the audition process go away?

INNANEN Shoutout to the creators because when we shot the pilot we had a lot of organized fun. And we also did this thing where Malik’s room was like Sami’s house, and so we spent every night there just kiki-ing away all of our deepest, darkest secrets and drinking margaritas.

FREYER We all felt very comfortable with each other right away, and it felt like a nice security blanket for the high-pressure situation we were in: shooting a pilot that you don’t know whether it’s going to be picked up for series.

ELASSAL We double-dutched ourselves into each other’s lives. We just told each other everything.

THIELE We were all sitting in a circle in Malik’s hotel room and Amita said, everyone tell a secret you’ve never told anyone, ever, and this will bond us for life. I was like, wait, I just met you. But then we did and now we all know our secrets and it’s a beautiful thing. Also, Ben and Rebecca are our age, but they are unbelievable hosts. Even when you go to their apartment they have a cheese platter laid out, they have drinks ready, it’s just perfect. They were like camp counselors for us, organizing shopping days and bar crawls for us to bond. On paper, it sounds like it would be forced, but it really worked and we forged relationships that now, we can’t live without each other. It’s this really weird, sad thing. (laughs)

This show employs a lot of edgy comedy; did anyone read something for their character that they felt scared by?

FREYER There were so many things that I had to do in the show that just felt like: okay, we’re really going for it. Like the sex scene that happens at the end of episode four, at the school with the teacher. Or the scene I do at the art gallery. A lot of it was me having to embarrass myself but in a really fun way.

THIELE There’s a scene in episode seven that I had so much fun doing with Jack. The premise of it is that Issa is hosting a girl who needs an abortion but can’t get one in her state so she comes to New York to get one. Issa is too busy, so she hands this girl off to Jack and I and we get really frustrated with this girl. Ben and Rebecca did this brilliant thing where they made this girl super bitchy and annoying, so even though she’s going through this ordeal, it still grounds her in a really funny way. I have a scene where I have to almost slap her. I read it and I was like, wait I’m slapping a teenager who’s getting an abortion? But it was so fun watching it back.

ELASSAL Every time there was something really edgy, you always feel really supported by the writing.

INNANEN The only thing that gave me pause actually got cut. It was the scene that when it was on my schedule, I was like…oh. It was the type of scene where the boom guy was in the corner, turned away, with the mic pointed toward us. That was a fun day. Maybe it’ll be in the deleted scenes.

RAO Because my very first scene in the very first episode was a public masturbation scene, everything that came after that was like, I can do this. But the day before filming that scene, I did really feel nervous about living up to the writing.

ELASSAL That was also our first day, by the way.

INNANEN I don’t think I realized what a big swing that was for you right out of the gate.

THIELE FX gave us two weeks to bond, but all we really needed was the public masturbation scene.

What was everyone’s hangout show of choice when they were growing up? What was formative for you?

ELASSAL Friends, and my dad used to show me old All in the Family episodes. Also, Full House.

INNANEN Friends and Workaholics as well, which I don’t know if that counts as a hangout. It’s like us if we were three burnout losers.

THIELE Mine is Sex and the City, of course. I remember my mom watching it on HBO, and sitting with her and her two friends and it changed my life. I wanted to be every character and yet none of them.

FREYER Who are you, Owen, of the four?

THIELE No!

FREYER You’re a Samantha-Carrie hybrid.

THIELE I love Carrie, actually. I might be a Carrie sun, oh God. But a Samantha rising.

FREYER You’re actually a little bit of Miranda, too.

ELASSAL If we’re doing Friends comparisons, is Anton Ross? Or is Samir Ross?

THIELE Anton wouldn’t be in Friends, love. He’s the guy you don’t meet. He works in the kitchen of the coffee shop.

This is all of your first starring role in a TV show, but you were all doing other creative jobs beforehand — standup comedy, podcasts, Jack you’re a TikTok star. Is being on a linear television show still the ultimate goal? Were your other creative endeavors a pathway to being on television?

RAO I thought that being on TV was kind of a golden ticket that was no longer accessible. It seemed like sitcoms went out of style. I remember when my first agent signed me in Chicago, they asked me what my goal was. I’m a sketch and improv comedian, so ensemble work is my favorite. I was like, oh, being on a multi-character comedy would be a dream, but it felt almost silly to say.

THIELE I think it’s all of our dream to be on a show, period. But for me, I think the biggest dream — imagine I start crying — is to work with people that mean something to you and could see a lifelong friendship with. I was cast in a movie called Theater Camp that was all my friends at a summer camp, and when we were making it, we kept saying this will never happen again, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be scrappy with your friends and make something fun. Even though FX is behind us, this still sort of felt like that.

FREYER Traditional film and television are still the things that I love the most, and being an actor is what I’ve been in pursuit of. The five of us have such different backgrounds, but at the end of the day, we are actors.

INNANEN For myself, the beauty of it is that these different paths are not mutually exclusive. I totally understand that some people would do digital content as a stepping stone, but I think you can do both. A question I’ve been getting is, now that you’re on this show, are you done making TikTok videos? And no. I started doing them because I love doing it, so I’m going to keep doing it while also putting a lot of energy into it. I think entertainment is just completely democratized now, so you don’t have to just be a TikTok-er or a podcaster. You really can be anything and everything.

RAO I think these other venues are most useful for building your voice independent of a larger machine. I sort of asked myself the same question as you, Jack, like do I go back to doing live sketch and improv shows that I got on a TV show? But doing that helped me hone my voice and craft, and then I got to a place where I could incept the industry.

THIELE I feel that way about podcasting. I’m talking to people who have been in the industry longer than me, so I’m getting insight into their world. I also I get to be myself on a microphone for an uninterrupted hour. And then I can bring bits of that into this work. But I don’t think it’s one or the other, if I ended up only podcasting for the rest of my life I would feel very lucky.

ELASSAL Everybody here is such an artist. People will ask, do I like standup more? Or acting more? And none of it feels like my job. It’s like my actual job is to be creative in whatever way I can, and that will pan out in all these different ways.