Part of the job of a journalist is to package talent for public consumption: cover star, breakout star, up-and-coming star, actor, comedian, director. Amita Rao, however, is aiming to be uncategorizable. Sure, the label of actor or comedian would work. As would breakout star (of the TV show Adults, heading into its second season this week). But when she rattles off the names of creatives she’d like to emulate, Bo Burnham and Miranda July are at the top of the list, both of whom hop from medium to medium with remarkable aplomb.
Like her idols, Rao has a formidable creative appetite. The Centreville, Virginia, native first fell for comedy in high school, where she describes days spent memorizing stand-up specials. At Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, she dove into improv and sketch comedy alongside classmate Chelsea Matkins. “How can we do more comedy?” she remembers asking, “How can we fill our time with more comedy?” The two founded comedy group Gag Reflex, moved to Chicago, and started touring with Second City. The next question, she notes, was “How do we make this a job?”
The answer came in a trio of successful TV auditions, for Emperor of Ocean Park, Deli Boys, and Adults. In the latter, Rao stars as Issa, one of five aimless 20-somethings living in a house in Queens. The sitcom is one of a crop of new releases, also including Overcompensating and I Love LA, vying for the kind of generation-defining relevance once enjoyed by the likes of Friends and Girls. What sets Adults apart from the competition is its actual Gen Z stars, unlike the millennials populating other programming, and its earnestness in lieu of affected Hollywood cool.
Watching the sitcom is a bit like watching the improv shows where Rao found her footing. Here are five young talents unabashedly throwing out everything they have, delighting in the bits that land and recovering quickly from those that don’t. In a cast of outsize characters, Rao somehow still manages to make Issa—a no-filter, sexually liberated, match-my-freak kind of friend—stand out as particularly zealous. In the second season, Rao ricochets from tears to Cockney accents to seduction rituals. “It’s like she was doing a character showcase,” one member of the group whispers, complaining about Issa’s baffling bar chat in a later episode.
On Zoom with Rao, it’s clear that outrageous behavior is her bread and butter, but far from her only ambition. In conversation, she ricochets from stand-up, to clowning, to technofascism, evidently happy to veer into whatever will provide the next challenge—intellectually or professionally. “The people I aspire to most are people who have carved out really singular careers centered around the art that pours out of them,” she explains. Up next are a Maya Hawke- and Lewis Pullman-led supernatural romp and an A.I. horror film, in which Rao delighted in playing a blood-soaked final girl.
After that, who knows? Her goal is to keep viewers on their toes.
How’s your summer been so far?
The summer has been good. It’s just so nice when everyone suddenly starts to feel joy again. That’s obviously a really palpable feeling. Last week with the eclipse, I don’t know if everyone in your life had a mental breakdown, but everyone in mine did. Like three of my exes reached out to me. But, the summer’s been as good as it can be, with the precipice we’re on technologically and culturally.
It’s a good addendum to a wonderful summer: “As good as it can be.”
The creep of climate change in the background is obviously there, and the technological zenith is difficult. Technofascism is obviously a looming threat. The increased surveillance…
Technofascism aside, how are you feeling about season two of Adults?
We’re feeling so excited! Character comedies really find their rhythm in the second season. I think back to all my favorite character comedies—like BoJack [Horseman] and Parks and Recreation—in the second season, we really start to love those characters.
Is Issa similar to characters you were doing in your own comedy? I know you started in the Chicago scene.
The innate subversion in Issa is my innate subversion, which is that I present as pretty cute and naïve, and my comedy is really raunchy, sexually explicit, and gross. If you look at a lot of my characters, one of them’s a debutante, and she’s so, so delicate. She’s getting prepared for a suitor, and she’s getting super light-headed, and she goes to pretend to faint in a sexy little show, and then she slams on the ground and hits her head on a chair. The rest of the sketch is her going, “Fuck my nose! Fuck!” I just keep falling and blood’s running down my face. That subversion of cute to gross, or cute to sexual, is what I play a lot.
The spirit of comedy culture in Chicago is so beautiful, so non-competitive, and so funny. It’s the funniest sketch and best long-form improv, I would say, in the country. New York has the best stand-up, but the people [in Chicago] are just funny, and they don’t ask you for anything. They’re funny without needing validation. They’re such classic comedians.
So, were you also doing TV auditions in Chicago?
The first year I moved there, I got an SNL showcase, and that’s how I got my manager. It was so early in my career that I knew I hadn’t gotten from Chicago what I needed yet. I told my manager when I signed with him, I feel like I can do something. I just know I’m not there yet. I know I’m not as sharp as I should be.
A lot of people don’t have that instinct.
It’s because I am someone who would rather have a hard truth every time. I’d rather you think I’m bad and tell me every time than [see] a placating smile. I always tell anyone I’m working with that I perceive criticism as love. I have to constantly feel like I’m able to grow, otherwise it feels like a death sentence.
I imagine, because Adults is such a cast of characters, that it creates freedom on set. Do you get to improv and play around?
We get to play around with each other so much, and they gave us so much time to get to know each other. They shipped us out a month before we filmed, so we were all getting drunk together for a month beforehand. Everyone is so themselves in some fundamental way.
The writers really write to our strengths; it just feels like such a privilege. Everyone really gets their moment to shine and play around in their wheelhouse. In some of those high-stress environments, you don’t always get people in their comfort zone.
Adults gets brought up in conversation with this group of shows that are deemed “Gen Z.” What do you think defines a “Gen Z show”?
I feel like what ends up uniting them for me is an ineffectualness, an inability to actualize in the physical world that I think is a byproduct of growing up on the metaverse. The scrambling around feels so heightened. Adults stands out because, tempo-wise, I think Adults is more similar to a classic sitcom. When I think about I Love LA, the looming, impending doom of the world around anything other than the highest pinnacle of success feels so present. The general uniting thing is this inability to find footing in the world, which I think is true because of the nature of the institutions that are crumbling.
Do you remember the first time you were stopped by someone who was a fan of the show? What was that experience like?
The first couple times it happened, I remember being super threatened by my loss of anonymity. I feel like I’m in a very C-list ranking that’s super comfortable. But, it’s fun. The show is so parasocial, and it’s meant to be. [People] really do feel like, when they approach me, they know me, and that we’re close friends. They’ll be like, “Oh my god, hey!” When they meet me, their vibe is like, “I haven’t seen you in a while. What’s going on?” Which I think is really indicative of what the show does and the feeling it creates. It’s really cute.
Is there a mentor that you’ve looked to during all this?
I had so many mentors in the industry. People are so generous with advice. I feel like [Nick] Kroll [executive producer of Adults] was so generous with all of us. I met an amazing actress on Deli Boys named Sakina Jaffrey, who was super generous. The people I aspire to most are people who have carved out really singular careers centered around the art that pours out of them. I think of Bo Burnham and Miranda July. Those are the kinds of careers I hope to step into the lineage of.
You’re drowning in mentors!
At first, it was like it was too much advice. Most people only give advice that they would have given themselves, and so you have to know that, too.
Do you have a piece of advice you’ve started to give out?
I try to give as much advice as possible, because it feels like the thing I’ve earned from so much confusion. The most basic advice I always tell people is that your gut is smarter than your brain. I try to outthink my heart and gut all the time, but your guts never try to hurt you. Your brain sometimes does.
I would say for comedians, advice I got from a clown teacher I had was that failure hones your sensitivity. When you win, your sensitivity becomes shit. But when you fail over and over, you get more and more sensitive.
Did you say this was a clown teacher?
His name was Aitor Basauri. He’s an amazing clown teacher for this company called Spymonkey.
Clowning is the new way into Hollywood. You’re not the first person that I’ve heard say they’re clowning.
People are clowning! The wave was already happening in comedy for a few years prior, but it’s cool that it’s making it into the mainstream. I always love when comedy waves like make it into the mainstream.
Can I ask another question about your clowning background? Which is, have you done performances?
I wouldn’t say “background.” I’ve taken a workshop. But I would say my comedy style is clowny. I haven’t done a devised performance yet, but I hope to. I love physical comedy. I love falling. I think my body looks best on the ground. I love screaming. All of those are tenets of my comedic performances, which is why I’m really excited to do horror, too. I got to do my first horror comedy this spring [See Bot Run], and it was so much fun! I got to scream so many times.
How was the experience of working on that project?
So fun! That was a project that was made by someone I toured with in Second City, Kevin Noonan. I was playing a really people-pleasing final girl that is cracked into acting in her own agency, which is a struggle I feel like any woman would know. It was a really fun one to play, and the practical effects were so fun. I love making blood. I have my own blood recipe that I love. That’s advice I would give: Always use cornstarch, depending on the rate you want the blood to fall down your face, and change your measurements accordingly.
You got to make some of the blood that is in this production?
No, I actually didn’t.
Just a hobby?
It’s just a hobby. How I fill the time when it’s not summer and I’m sad.
What was the craziest way you ever made money while trying to break into the arts?
Probably the craziest stuff I’ve done has been the early comedy gigs. When you’re an improviser, you get hired a lot for corporate seminars. I was a game show host for a gig for Salesforce, which was a really, really weird job. I did a show for an all-boys private school where they wanted to kill us, which was hard. More than anything, those early gigs where you’re just put in environments where people really don’t want to see comedy at all, those are the ones that come to mind. You get good money for them.
I was like a fake law client, and I got to pretend to have a legal case. I remember the first time I did it, I didn’t know who was defending me and who was against me, and so I kept fighting against my lawyer. Like, “I’m so sorry. I was focused on memorizing the fact that I’m Morgan Tabitha and my cat gets lost in the hamper in the restaurant.”
A good wealth of experience to draw on as a comedian.
I always wanted to be one of the medical student improvisers. I never got to do that. I have cried in so many doctors’ offices. You can really use it for an acting moment.
Is there a rumor you’d like to start about yourself early on in your career?
Oh my God! This is exciting. So many came into mind. The rumor I would want to start is that I was a famous serial killer. Or, it would be cool to start a rumor that I’m a psyop. That would be like a really funny rumor because it’s just, Why would they have chosen this amalgamation of qualities and this personality? I would honestly take it as a compliment.
I also think it’d be fun to start a rumor that I’ve run away from a cult. I think it would be fun to start a rumor that my grandparents got banned from their town because they started beastiality or something. There’s so many fun things to start.
This is developing into a crazy backstory. Ran away from a cult. Became a psyop.
Or that I’m actually white. That’s a really funny one. I think that’s actually a better one. That I’m white and it’s a psyop. We’ll go with that.
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