Nick Kroll’s Five Favorite Films

The first movie that I ever said was my favorite movie and I’ve said for the longest is The Producers, Mel Brooks’ original Producers. The two lead performances from Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder are both unstoppable performances and then supported by amazing supporting characters throughout. I love the premise of the movie, I love the pacing of that — the opening scene in the office which also serves as the credit sequence is so funny and just such an amazing one — when Gene Wilder walks in and discovers Zero Mostel with one of his little old ladies who wants to do role-play with him, then getting caught by Zero Mostel snooping, then being brought in and negotiating through his various tax schemes… To me, it’s a great premise for a story and it’s so funny.

RT: What did you think of the musical and the movie remake of the musical?

Honestly, I couldn’t really bring myself to get too involved in either one. It would feel like I was cheating on the original movie. I wanted to leave the movie pure for me so I never really engaged — although I hear the musical is fantastic.

I’ve really genuinely loved every one of Spike [Jonze’s] movies from [Being John] Malkovich to Adaptation to Where the Wild Things Are, also. But I thought Her still had, like, the fun humorous stuff but was, for me, such a great movie to encapsulate what it’s like to have the hangover of a breakup that just won’t go away. And also I think it’s probably the most realistic version of where we’re heading with technology and our relationship with technology, as we delve further into ourselves and out of public interaction. How we still need and want human interaction. And I just think he handles both of them so beautifully. And I love the way he shoots his movies, I love the colors he uses. I just love Joaquin Phoenix’s shirt in that movie. I was less concerned with the pants.

RT: What pants would you have given him?

I mean I love a high-waisted pant, so I had no problem with it. But I just thought he handled it so beautifully and for anyone who’s gone through a breakup, watching that movie felt like you were kind of going through it again. But it somehow wasn’t sad. I mean it’s sad but — it’s just everything. I find Spike Jones movies to be really very inventive and funny, but they’re really sad and touching and really key into the different facets of the human experience.

RT: It’s just very human in such a high-tech world.

Yeah. And it’s crazy to think that Scarlett Johansson replaced Samantha Morton but Scarlett Johannson’s performance as the voice is really fantastic and I found Joaquin Phoenix’s was such an endearing beautiful performance as well.

I was never a western guy but I happened upon Tombstone one day on TV and was really sort of taken with it. It’s one of those movies that, if it’s on TV, I can’t turn it off. I just have to watch the whole thing. I really love Kurt Russell in it, but I think Val Kilmer’s performance in Tombstone is perfection. I just think he’s funny and cool and sad and broken. He’s a bad guy, but you’re rooting for him. He’s an interesting sidekick because Doc Holiday is a criminal, you know? But it’s like, “I’ll be your huckleberry” is such an amazing kind of line of bravado and bravery. And then at the end, when he’s dying, Kurt Russell wants to play cards with him, and Val Kilmer just wants him to leave and let him die. It’s beautiful. And Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton and Kurt Russell — it’s just quite a team. And you’ve got Billy Bob as a bully on the card table. It’s just expansive, and I’ve lived a little bit in Wyoming and being out there — really it just gives you a scope of the West: those big skies, and it’s beautifully shot. It’s just one of those movies that, when it’s on, I’m going to watch it.

RT: I do like some Westerns, though they can be tend to be slow sometimes.

Yeah, this one really works. I think it’s partly because it’s Wyatt Earp so you have some context for him already. And so to see the guy who you know as the lawman after that when he’s trying to settle down and get away from it… it’s also weirdly sort of about celebrity, I think. [That’s] part of it, in that he’s famous in this town and so there are expectations on him for who he is and who he should be, and he’s just trying to get away and become a business man, get away from the law, and they keep trying to draw him back in.

I watched [it] just about every day growing up. In like seventh or eighth grade every day after school, my friend Andrew and I would watch Wayne’s World. And I think it’s a great example of a sketch effectively turned into a movie and a story that really works with a good journey. Not easily accomplished but such a good journey. And I’m drawn to it because I watched Saturday Night Live growing up, but also I think the duo of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, who are both from the same world and yet are such different guys. You know, the sort of confidence and leadership of Wayne and then the understated kind of genius of Garth: very meta and self-aware, which at that time wasn’t all over TV and film yet. It’s like the cross promotion for Pepsi and Advil and all that kind of stuff wasn’t overly present yet, and I think he really nailed it.

RT: Another example of humanity in comedy.

Exactly. You really are genuinely rooting for them and, God, every boy in American was quietly rubbing themselves to Tia Carrere in that. And you hadn’t seen a ton of leading ladies like Tia Carrere at that point, like an Asian rocker Chick, which was cool, and Rob Lowe is a great villain.

RT: Of course, my favorite scene is the Alice Cooper scene.

Yeah, exactly, just playing with everything. Playing, you know, Alice and, like, “Mill-e-wah-kay.” Oh! Alice Cooper’s really smart, you know? Chock full, and obviously then it’s filled in with moments with Farley and Phil Hartman and just everyone from those SNL days. God, if that movie came out today and you had “Bohemian Rhapsody,” that would have more hits on YouTube than anything ever. So it’s just a really funny, well-done movie and a great buddy movie, beautifully done without it being like, an Odd Couple. Lara Flynn Boyle as the ex-girlfriend — I just can’t get enough of her going like “[cutesy] Hi Wayne! Hi…” and then running into a bus on her bike. So funny.

It’s a French movie. Came out, like, four or five years ago. It feels to me like the French The Godfather. That would be one way of describing it. It’s about a French-Algerian guy who goes to jail, and watching him work the system of being in jail amongst the — sort of, like, negotiating a specific French jail, and how he’s able to navigate a very tricky world of his Muslim identity, French identity, criminal identity and drug-dealing identity, all these various things. It’s super intense and a super beautifully laid out story. It’s a crazy-engaging movie. Came out in 2010. I would highly recommend that. [Director Jacques Audiard] came out with another movie called Rust and Bone in the last couple years. I just remember seeing [A Prophet] and I was really blown away by it. When I saw it, it genuinely felt like watching The Godfather, watching Al Pacino as a younger man slowly navigate and figure out how to dominate a world that seems to be, you know, overwhelming him.

RT: How was working with Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale?

Kroll: It was awesome! They are both such good actors who are equally adept at doing comedy and drama. We had a quick, fast, 22-day shoot in New York in the dead of winter and it kept snowing and we had to be in swimming pools with broken heaters. And they were troopers and just really good actors and very nice people. So they were great partners to work with and I learned a lot from working with both of them. And Ross Katz who directed the movie, who directed Taking Chance, which was an HBO movie with Kevin Bacon — very different kind of movie — and has produced In the Bedroom and Lost in Translation. And so he was a great partner to make.

He’s just done a lot of good, really smart, thoughtful movies, either directing or producing. And then Mark Duplass, obviously, who is my costar in The League who produced the movie. I brought it to him and he helped me navigate basically every step of the way. So I was able to luckily assemble a very talented team of people, and I think we cover a good spectrum, from my background, which is more in the hard comedy, to Rose and Bobby who have done dramas and good hard comedies as well, all the way over to Mark in the dramedy and indie space, and to Ross who’s done a lot of different things. I learned a lot from all of them.