Jack Innanen didn’t expect things to move this fast. Not long ago, the Toronto-born comedian was writing and performing comedy sketches alone in his bedroom, amassing a loyal audience (now 3 million and growing) online with his bizarre but relatable characters. Now, he’s starring in FX’s Adults, a raucous comedy about a group of 20-something friends muddling through early adulthood.
“It was very, very serendipitous,” Innanen says, noting the show was only his second-ever audition. “I’d just made the transition into acting, and I saw the audition for Adults and immediately thought, ‘This is the funniest and most real thing I’ve read — and also, this guy is me.’”
That guy is Paul Baker, a sweet, awkward, quietly lost young man trying to define who he is to himself, his friends and the wider world. It’s a role Innanen embodies with disarming ease, one he says reflects who he was just a few years ago.
“Paul is me at 23,” Innanen says. “I’m a little more anxious than he is, maybe more self-aware. But a lot of his — what the cast called his ‘Canadian qualities’ — I think I carry those, too.”
The show, co-created by Ben Smith and Rebecca Shaw and featuring Nick Kroll as an executive producer, is a heartfelt exploration of what it means to come of age when you’re already supposed to have figured it out. It captures the funny-sad reality of making big life decisions — where to live, who to love, what to do — while still feeling like a kid.
Innanen, now acting as part of an ensemble, is learning in real time how different this work is from making short-form comedy.
“It’s a completely different beast,” he says. “I used to be in my room, writing and performing for a wall. Now, I’m part of this massive organism. Working with people like Nick Kroll — it was such an education.”
That adjustment hasn’t always been smooth. “On social media, you’ve got to be quick, exaggerated. But in this show, I had to learn how to just be present, to just hang out in a moment.”
FAST FACTS
Name:
Jack Innanen
Favourite place to grab a meal:
Seoulshakers
Favourite venue to catch a show:
Budweiser Stage — “Especially in the summer.”
Favourite neighbourhood to spend a Saturday:
Trinity Bellwoods and Ossington (where Adults filmed a few scenes!)
Adults was filmed in Toronto, though the show is set in New York. After working hard to secure a U.S. visa, he was promptly shipped back north to shoot.
“It was funny. I finally get my visa, move to New York, book a show set in New York — and then they send me right back to Toronto,” he says and laughs. Still, returning here came with its perks: “I felt like I had a home-field advantage. I was like, ‘This is Shoppers Drug Mart, everyone!’ ”
His love for Toronto and the very specific ways young people navigate friendship, dating and identity here, is deeply rooted. “There’s a certain way you grow up in Toronto,” he says. “You have your things, your spots with your people. Even in a big city, you carve out these intimate little worlds. Adults captures that so well.”
Looking ahead, Innanen is keeping his ambitions open. “I’d love to keep doing this show forever,” he says. “But I’d also love to act in a movie, write something that becomes someone’s favourite show or film. That’s a little bucket list goal.”
For now, though, Innanen is doing what Adults does best — staying present, finding joy in the chaos and making growing up look just a little bit funnier.
