The A.V. Club Interview: Nick Kroll

Steve Heisler: When did you first start to get that in-flux feeling with all your projects?

NK: Well, the only date I can tell you is that I came out to L.A. July 24, 2007 to start work onCavemen, the Oscar-winning television show. And I had done a little bit of a pilot season the year before. There’s just a feeling, when you’re just an actor—I have great admiration for people who are just actors. I don’t understand it, the idea of waiting to get cast, being at the whim of others. I find it incredibly powerless and frightening, so that’s why I’ve been constantly trying to create my own content. We’re in a really amazing time where we have the ability to go off on our own and make things that look just as good as stuff on TV, put it up in the Internet, and within a couple of days, have hundreds of thousands of people seeing it, without having to wait for a studio to approve something. Without having to make sure that, “You can’t say certain words,” or “You can’t use that brand.” That’s the beauty of the web.

SH: Was there a moment when you realized you wanted to adopt this DIY philosophy?

NK: It’s tough to say. I came to New York and started doing stand-up and improv, and started auditioning for commercials and voiceovers and stuff. My first job was on a pilot of that prank show called Boiling Points on MTV. It was spring break in South Beach, and they flew me down there to do it, and it was amazing. I was in South Beach, I was doing this thing for MTV, and I remember… [Laughs.] Two months later, when the show was coming out, I was driving back down to Georgetown to do some improv festival; I was going to go back down to college and be like, “Look at me, I’m on this show! I’m doing it!” I sent out a big e-mail saying, “Watch out, everyone!” [Laughs.] I sent that on a Friday, I’m driving down to D.C., and that afternoon, I got a call from the producers being like, “Your segments are not going to be on the show; you’ve been basically cut out.” Two lessons were learned, which were, one, you’re at the whim of other people, and two, until something is on the air, and you see yourself on the screen, then it’s not real.

The A.V. Club Interview: Nick Kroll / by Steve Heisler / October 29, 2009

The A.V. Club Interview: Nick Kroll

Nick Kroll: Yeah. My New Year’s resolution in 2002 was to do an open mic. I started doing stand-up for a bit, and then I focused more on the characters and then came back, but every time from 2002 on, getting onstage, holding a mic, and talking to an audience. Then going back and forth trying to do stand-up and then trying to do characters, then figuring out where the two sort of met together. But I think that’s fair. I hope to think that I’m on schedule with Patton Oswalt. [Hardwick later said he might have been quoting Brian Posehn, but we didn’t learn about that until after this interview was conducted, so Oswalt gets the credit throughout this interview. —ed.] But I do think it takes a while, and I still think we’re all hopefully always getting better.

Kyle Ryan: What were you doing at the time, when you had the New Year’s resolution to do an open-mic?

NK: I had graduated from school, and I was doing improv. I had taken workshops at Upright Citizens Brigade, taking classes and loving it, but also just jonesing to get onstage, because when you’re starting with improv, you’re practicing alone in your groups in weird Chinese sweatshops in the Garment District, but not getting a ton of time onstage. That’s what sort of propelled me to try and do an open mic.

The A.V. Club Interview: Nick Kroll / by Kyle Ryan / January 28, 2011

The A.V. Club Interview: Nick Kroll

Kyle Ryan: When The A.V. Club spoke with you in 2009, you said it was easier for you to do character-based comedy instead of more straightforward stand-up, because you had a hard time knowing yourself for it.

Nick Kroll: Yeah, it was easier to know a character’s point of view than it was to figure out what your point of view was.

AVC: Has that lessened at all?

NK: I think so. Again, the Patton reference is a good one. In those seven years, what Patton is saying is that you get to know what your voice is. It’s almost easier to look at someone on a train and be like, “Oh, that guy, I bet, thinks this about Obama.” But then when you’re like, “Well, what do I think about Obama?” You’re like, “It’s complicated.” [Laughs.] I don’t have any jokes about Obama, but I realized that I have very strong opinions about dogs and cats. But I think that it takes a long time to figure out what your point of view is, and the character stuff, at least in my case, I found it easier to have a sense of what they would think about a specific topic. In the case of the special, making Bobby the security guard gave him a purpose for being onstage, and Fabrice, having such a clear point of view that he’s the star and that he deserves to be onstage, gave him a purpose. But I think that being on the road and doing more and more stand-up has allowed me to figure out… like, I don’t think I’ll ever be Bill Hicks, but I think I’m figuring out what my opinion is on things.

The A.V. Club Interview: Nick Kroll / by Kyle Ryan / January 28, 2011