With over a hundred credits to his name, Adam Scott has become one of the most prolific comedic actors of the last decade, perfecting the duality of his nice guy/jerk persona to create some of the most memorable scene stealers in recent comedies. After early career credits that ran the gamut from Torque to Party of Five, Scott soon became a fixture of the Judd Apatow universe earning sizable parts in films like Step Brothers and alt-comedy television landmarks like Party Down, Burning Love, and beloved network comedies like NBC’s Parks & Recreation.
These days, he’s still as impossibly busy, starring in films like the last year’s dark Yuletide comedy Krampus, creating oddities like The Adult Swim Golf Classic, and producing notable indies like The Overnight and Other People through the production company Gettin’ Rad that he created with his wife Naomi Scott. And even as his public profile is constantly rising, Scott is still constantly taking roles in projects from promising young directors.
Case in point, My Blind Brother is a low-key romantic comedy that places Scott in the role of Robbie, a blind megalomaniac whose life is a series of athletic feats. The film is about a seemingly light love triangle between Robbie, his unappreciated brother, Bill (Nick Kroll), and the self-destructive Rose (Jenny Slate), but it becomes a much smarter dissection of the dangers of emotional dishonesty. We talked to Scott about his multi-faceted performance, how he prepared for being blind, and whether he would be interested in writing and directing.
The Film Stage: I believe the character of Robbie in My Blind Brother is the first character you’ve played with a disability. Is that right?
Adam Scott: I believe so, yeah. You’re probably right. I haven’t even thought of that, but I think you must be right.
How did you prepare for the role – and related to that, were you worried about playing someone blind in general?
Yeah, very worried. Just because, the last thing I want to do is offend anyone who is in the blind community. And I didn’t want to fall into any cliches or anything. But I thought, you know, Sophie [Goodhart] had written a great script, so I wasn’t worried about that story-wise or character-wise. I was just worried about the technical side of it. I didn’t want it to be dumb and cliched and all those things you could really easily fall into. But I also was in the middle of another job, and I was over in New Zealand. I didn’t have the contacts, and I didn’t know anyone that was in the non-sighted community over there, so I just sort of started going online and I found this guy, Tommy Edison, on YouTube. And he has this YouTube channel, and he has dozens and dozens of videos about being blind and what it’s like. And there’s videos on everything from this is how to make breakfast to this is what it’s like to cross the street. This is what it’s like to go to the grocery store. This is what’s cool about being blind, this is what’s scary about being blind. He’s really open.
That’s amazing that you mention that. I recently spoke to Stephen Lang from Don’t Breathe, and he told me that he also used that as a source to figure out how to be convincing when it came to blindness. That’s really funny.
The same guy? Tommy Edison?
Yup, same guy.
Oh wow, that’s interesting.
Your character in the film, Robbie, he runs marathons, and he’s attempting to swim the entire length of a hometown body of water. Are you as physically active as that character?
Oh no, not at all. [Laughs] I trained a bit to get in shape for the movie, and it was really hard. The one excuse that I had for not being in as good as shape as an actual professional athlete is that Robbie has kind of built up this imaginary world up around himself. He’s come up with this alternate universe where he’s a superstar in this small town. I didn’t need to be in actual peak physical condition, just acceptable enough for a pretend athlete.
The film’s kind of really surprising in the sense that it has this light and charming surface, but you also have these character who are deeply flawed. There’s a real sadness to Robbie, but he’s also just kind of objectively a jerk. How did you find that balance in that character? Was there some point where you were worried that his actions or the dialogue went too far?
Well, Sophie had written it that way, and so when we were shooting. We would just do a few different versions with varying degrees of him being obnoxious or being an asshole, or just kind of modulating it, so she would have stuff to choose from in the editing room. And so when she was cutting the movie together, she put it together and used what she thought would tell the story the best. But on the day shooting it, we did a bunch of different versions because, we weren’t sure if it was too much at some points and not enough in others. So we just kind of tried it all, and then she cut together what she deemed necessary.
So it was a combination of improv in the moment, as well as following the script?
Not as much improv, but just doing the scenes in varying degrees of obnoxiousness, you know, and approaching it from different perspectives.
Especially at the end, this is arguably a more dramatic role for you. You’re still doing predominantly comedy roles, but you’ve had a couple dramatic roles like last year’s Black Mass. I know it’s probably a case-by-case basis, but are you interested in more dramatic roles in the future, or is it just kind of whatever comes to you?
I take it on case-by-case basis. It’s just depending on the material, and who’s doing it, and if the story is interesting, and all that kind of stuff. I try not to think of it so much in terms of genre, and more in individual pieces of material.
You’ve had many acting credits over the years, but you’ve only recently started to produce. Is there a certain philosophy about which films you want to produce, or be more involved with on the creative side?
My wife and I started a company a few years ago called “Gettin’ Rad Productions,” and our credo if you want to call it that is mostly just, we want to make things that we would want to see. And that’s about it, whether it’s comedy or drama, or whatever. We watch lots of movies and TV shows, and we just want to make the stuff that we would enjoy watching. So we’re open to just about anything. And so far, we’ve made a few movies and a TV thing, and we just want to continue making stuff with our friends that’s really fun to watch and to make.
When you talk to actors and creators, you hear about working with Hollywood, independent films, cable. But one of the big conversation topics is inevitably, what is it like working with Netflix? You haven’t necessarily been in creative roles for Most Hated Women In America or Little Evil, but i’m just curious has it been a different process in any way working with Netflix?
No, I’m working on Little Evil right now actually, and we’re in production. No, it’s just like making a regular movie. There’s nothing different about it. It’s great.
It’s just that I’ve heard a number of people who’ve had previous experiences in network or cable television talk about creative freedom, so I just wanted to ask about that one.
Well, I know that for instance if you’re making a movie for Netflix, you don’t have to worry about the MPAA. That’s a great thing if you don’t have to worry about making a certain rating. I’m not a producer on this movie or anything, but Eli [Craig] the director, and all the producers seem very happy. And it’s going great, so it seems terrific.
Are you interested in writing and directing more in the future? I know you’ve done a little bit of directing with Greatest Event In Television History and an episode or two of Parks and Recreation. Are you interested in writing and directing more in the future?
Yeah, maybe. I guess it would just have to be the right thing, something that I feel like I could really bring something to. I don’t know what that is, but I enjoyed it. The little directing I’ve done was super fun. And I love being on sets, movie or TV sets, and so yeah, it would be terrific. It would just have to be the right thing.
My Blind Brother is now in limited release and available on VOD.