How ‘Adults’ Creators Drew From ‘Broad City,’ ‘Friends’ and ‘Girls’ for FX’s Messy Comedy

Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw tell TheWrap about building chemistry and diving into a heavy subject matter out the gate The post How ‘Adults’ Creators Drew From ‘Broad City,’ ‘Friends’ and ‘Girls’ for FX’s Messy Comedy appeared first on TheWrap.

May 29, 2025 - 02:40

How ‘Adults’ Creators Drew From ‘Broad City,’ ‘Friends’ and ‘Girls’ for FX’s Messy Comedy

When “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” writers Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw were growing up, they fell in love with shows like “Broad City,” “Friends,” “Girls” and “Living Single,” whose familial-like friendships became a blueprint to ease the strains of navigating your 20s.

“[I was like] I really hope, not only do I have these jobs, but that I have this friend group, these people to pick me up when I fall,” Shaw told TheWrap, noting the comfort in knowing even her favorite characters didn’t have it all figured out. “They’re still in the process of adolescence and figuring out what your life looks like at this time of life.'”

That ride-or-die loyalty is at the heart of FX’s new comedy series, “Adults” — but just without the dream jobs, as a group of friends — Samir (Malik Elassal), Issa (Amita Rao), Anton (Owen Thiele), Billie (Lucy Freyer) and Paul Baker (Jack Innanen) — jump between internships and jobs while living in Samir’s childhood home in Queens while his parents travel across the country in their RV.

“Even though they’re not in the cool place [and] they don’t have the cool job, you’re like, ‘I kind of want to be in that house with them. I want to be the sixth housemate,’ ” Kronengold said. “What they have is magical and even more special than the frills that you might associate with or hope for out of your New York years.”

Samir, Issa, Anton and Billie make up the core four in “Adults,” who came to the group either from a childhood friendship or college living situation, or, in the case of Paul Baker — who becomes the fifth housemate — a hookup that warmed to the entire group.

“All of these characters are inspired by our friends — from the jump, we knew that it would feel truthful if we borrowed elements from the real people,” Shaw said. “We have a number of Issas in our lives, we have a number of Billies and Paul Baker’s, who our friends date, and we all become obsessed with as a group and are desperate that they’ll stick around.”

The group of actors — most of whom only have a handful of TV credits thus far — were narrowed down from a casting call of 30,000 submissions, according to Kronengold, who noted the casting team hoped to not only find actors that could play the roles, but who, on some level, identified with these roles. While Shaw noted the actors are more “evolved” and “sophisticated” than their characters, “it’s very easy for them to tap into it and to bring so much life experience, love of friends into these roles,” Kronengold said.

The “unexpected magic” of the show, however, happened when Kronengold and Shaw brought the five actors together to film the “Adults” pilot. “We put them together to shoot a pilot, and they became best friends with each other,” Shaw said. “You are watching a friend group play a friend group, and I think that chemistry that they have really makes you want to sit on the couch with them.”

The opening sequence of “Adults” sets the scene for the Gen Z messiness to come: the friends are on the subway when Issa spots a rider locking eyes with her, masturbating. While Samir, Anton and Billie try to defuse the situation, Issa tries to make what Shaw calls a “political statement” by masturbating back to him.

“She’s trying to show this man what it feels like to be objectified, but, as she’s screaming and masturbating and the guy’s masturbating, what you realize is that, at a certain point, it’s just two people touching themselves on the subway now,” Shaw said. The disturbing interaction then cuts to the friends walking outside, assuring Issa that she was brave and did the right thing.

“I think the No. 1 phrase we say with our friends is, ‘was that bad?'” Shaw said, adding that while the characters take “all of the big swings of adulthood,” they always have “the comfort of checking back in with your people.”

The premiere episode of “Adults” delves into a heavier topic when Samir, prompted by a former classmate who makes a stand against an abusive boss, calls up his past relationships to ensure he didn’t cross the line between consent and sexual assault. Despite one past hookup admitting there was one time she was probably too drunk to consent, his friends assure him he’s “on the spectrum of men, a little bitch boy.”

“There’s a lot of complicated issues in the world today and we would not pretend to prescribe answers or to tackle them from a top-level perspective, but what we know is these five characters and all of the idiotic ways that they go about these things,” Kronengold said, noting that in Samir’s quest to try to be a good person, he ends up dragging out a handful of women to Queens. “In practice, it’s really about how these characters deal with these sort of situations and watching their best intentions really spiral out into these ridiculous outcomes.”

“Adults” welcomes several high profile guests — from Julia Fox to Charlie Cox to Ray Nicholson — across its first season in roles that Kronengold and Shaw said throw the group for a loop. The creators hope to continue welcoming in guest stars in a potential Season 2, which they’re all in on.

“We’re going to watch them grow up a little bit over the course of the season, but also take a bunch of steps backwards,” Shaw said. “We want to see them all date. We want to see them all fall in love. We want to see them navigate all of the moments as you sort of start to get those real jobs and then lose those real jobs.”

“Adults” airs new episodes Tuesdays on FX. All episodes are available to stream starting May 29.

The post How ‘Adults’ Creators Drew From ‘Broad City,’ ‘Friends’ and ‘Girls’ for FX’s Messy Comedy appeared first on TheWrap.