Adam Pally is a genuinely funny man. Coming from a comedy writing and improv background courtesy of the New York arm of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Pally popped up in small film and television roles for a number of years before landing the role of Max Blum in the short-lived but much-loved series “Happy Endings.” As soon as that show ended, Pally was wisely scooped up by “The Mindy Project” to play the often unreliable Peter Prentice. Around the same time he landed a role in the film A.C.O.D. and a small but very funny cameo as Gary the Cameraman in IRON MAN 3.
On his downtown from television, he has popped up in such films as THE TO DO LIST, LIFE AFTER BETH, and the more dramatic turn in last year’s festival favorite NIGHT OWLS, opposite Rosa Salazar. The film that got us on the phone last week is his latest film role in the absolutely filthy Zac Efron-Robert De Niro comedy DIRTY GRANDPA, in which Pally plays Efron’s demented, filterless Cousin Nick, who threatens to ruin funerals and weddings alike. Pally gets more concentrated gems in the film than just about anybody else, and quite often that’s his modus operandi—get a juicy smaller role, come in and do serious damage via all manner of inappropriate jokes.
When I head to the Sundance Film Festival later this week, I plan on checking out a new film called JOSHY, with an incredible cast (including Pally), and he continues to plot his next creative effort. I should briefly mention that in my capacity as one of the programmers for the Chicago Critics Film Festival, I had the great fortune of booking NIGHT OWLS and moderating a Q&A with Pally and director/co-writer Charles Hood after a late-night screening of the movie. Pally was a lot of fun to talk to, as he was last week. I should also mention that the day we spoke was the same day the Academy Award nominations were announced, to which Pally tweeted: “When are the Black Oscars?” With that, please enjoy my chat with Adam Pally…
Capone: Hello?
Adam Pally: [slight pause before answering] Hi. Sorry. I was watching the Adele-James Corden video for like the fourth time.
Capone: I have it recorded, but I haven’t watched it.
AP: It’s awesome!
Capone: I can’t wait to see it. And thank you once again for coming out to Chicago with Charles for NIGHT OWLS at our festival. That meant a lot that you came to that, and it was nice hanging out during the screening.
AP: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well thank you so much for your coverage and support of NIGHT OWLS. It was really nice.
Capone: I think just based on what you tweeted this morning, I should ask, when do you think the Black Oscars should be?
AP: [laughs] Oh god, I don’t know. I just thought there was an obvious…
Capone: …lacking. Right. With DIRTY GRANDPA, congratulations first of all on being one of the few male characters in the film not to have dicks drawn on their face. That has to be an achievement.
AP: Yeah, I begged for it, but they just didn’t think it followed the story.
Capone: And of all the characters in the film, Nick I think would have been an obvious choice to have that done to him at some point in his life.
AP: Well, that’s [director] Dan Mazer’s genius, keeping the audience guessing who’s going to have a dick on their face.
Capone: Nick is this perfect disaster, no-filter cousin that I’m sure many of us have. Did you just watch what Zac Efron was doing and then do the exact opposite for the whole movie? What is Nick’s essence?
AP: I guess that’s why they cast me, because I am like the opposite of Zac Efron, in everything from chubby man nipples to like model glare. We are the exact opposite. I have the body of a bread roll, and Zac is like a GI Joe action figure. I think I come from a family of a lot of cousin Nicks, so it was easy to kind of understand my place in this family of me, De Niro and Efron.
Capone: How would you explain his essence? What is going though his head at all times?
AP: A lot of it I think is of dogs fucking, to be honest with you. I don’t know, I think he’s one of those guys that’s unbridled and probably still lives with his parents and wears shirts with spray painted tigers on them.
Capone: And you got to share a bit of screen time with De Niro. Do you strive to make him laugh when you’re working with him?
AP: Oh yeah! You do, but you got to keep it under control, so he doesn’t think that’s what you’re doing, because you want to keep it professional. But yeah, I got a couple of laughs out of De Niro. I remember one time—and this I will take with me wherever I go until the day I die—I made a little joke, and he laughed and he pulled me aside and said, “Benjamin, you’re a funny guy.”
Capone: He called you Benjamin?
AP: Yeah. One time he called me Diane, and what was crazy is that I responded. I was like, “Yeah?”
Capone: When we see you in one of the last scenes in the film, your appearance has changed. You have cornrows in your hair and you’re on crutches, which I don’t actually think is explained anywhere in the film. Is that something we missed or got cut?
AP: Well, I think in one of the earlier versions, there was a line, I think it got cut out for time, where I said that I had adopted some stray dogs that turned out to be wolves and I woke up and they were chewing on my Achilles tendon. And earlier that day, I went to a black hair salon. So it was just like a perfect storm.
Capone: It’s almost funnier that it’s not explained or addressed in any way.
AP: Well, that’s what Dan thought, and I think also it had to make the bit work where Zac couldn’t get to Julianne [Hough, who Nick is relaying messages back and forth during their rehearsal dinner], so I think it helps that I was on crutches. And the cornrows, once again, I just think I look handsome in everything.
Capone: Talk about working with Dan Mazer. I’m a big fan of what he’s done over the years with Sacha Baron Cohen, and I had forgotten until I was doing research for this that he did I GIVE IT A YEAR, which I thought was a great movie from a couple of years ago that I saw at SXSW, and nothing ever really happened with it in this country. Tell me about his style.
AP: Dan and I got along great. I feel like Dan and I have a little rebellious kindred spirit. When I was getting notes from Dan is when I felt the most happy. From the moment we met we were just like, this is easy. He gave me a lot of room, and I gave him a lot of stuff. He chose some really interesting stuff [laughs].
Capone: Do you think there really are some genuine life lessons buried in this film? And if so, what do you think they are?
AP: I think there’s always truth in…[the sounds of a muffled car horn can be heard from Adam’s end of the phone]. Did you hear that horn?
Capone: I heard a noise. What was it?
AP: It was a car horn, but if that was a car horn, then a bunch of clowns just got out, because it was the weakest. It sounded like a bike horn. If I was driving behind it, I would not have adjusted my driving at all. Honestly I wouldn’t have thought it was a horn.
Capone: It’s lacking commitment.
AP: Anyway, what was the question?
Capone: Life lessons in the movie.
AP: Of course. Anytime there’s a comedy, there’s truth in comedy. I think this one’s lesson is that sometimes we don’t always know everything about our family, and you can assume your parents and grandparents are one way, but they had a whole life that they lived before they met you. You can learn a lot by opening up to that.
Capone: I saw you tweeted in the last couple of days about something you were writing. I know you started out as a writer. Can you talk about what you’re working on right now?
AP: I’m working on a bunch of stuff. I produced this movie that’s in Sundance that’s called JOSHY with Thomas Middleditch.
Capone: I have a ticket for it already. Yes, I’ll be there.
AP: Oh, I can’t wait to see you there! So I produced that, and I’m really enjoying being a part of the entire creative process, so my goal is to always keep growing in that way, and the best way to do that is to create material for yourself. So that’s where I’m headed.
Capone: Does writing sort of exercise a different sort of creative muscle for you than acting or improv?
AP: It does and it doesn’t. It’s always fun to write. Even when I’m writing, I’m working with the same tools that I am when I’m acting, so it all just feels like work in that way. Good work. But the only work that I can do. So I would say, yes and no.
Capone: In the wake of NIGHT OWLS, are you, in terms of acting, looking for things that are also a little bit more on the serious, dramatic side?
AP: Definitely as I get older, I would like to do more dramatic stuff. I think NIGHT OWLS was a nice segue into that, but I’m a comedian, and I think before you make any transition, you have to be true to yourself and live in the lane that you feel you’re best in at that time, and I’m still feeling like I have some funny shit to do.
Capone: Adam, thank you very much for your time, and hopefully I’ll see you in Park City.
AP: Yeah. Please write a good review of that movie.
Capone: I really do have a ticket for it. I was so excited when I saw the cast of that.
