Nick Kroll used a Los Angeles industry stage to make a direct, personal case for keeping production in the city, pointing to his upcoming Netflix comedy series “A Hundred Percent” as an example of what local shooting can mean for the creative community.
Speaking Thursday in L.A. as a featured keynote speaker at the Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit presented by EY, Kroll said the new series — which he co-created and stars in — was filmed in Los Angeles and is intended as a “love letter” to the city.
“I needed to make this show in L.A. It feels like it’s about people who live in Los Angeles. I’ve lived here for almost 20 years,” Kroll said during an onstage interview with Angelique Jackson, senior entertainment and media reporter at Variety.
“A Hundred Percent” is expected to debut on Netflix in 2027. Kroll co-created the show with Gabe Liedman, identified at the summit as his friend and as the creator of “Q-Force” and showrunner of the first season of “PEN15.” The cast includes Kroll, Sam Richardson, Jason Mantzoukas and Vanessa Bayer, with Diane Lane set for a recurring role.
Kroll described the production experience in unusually warm terms, crediting the local environment and the crew around the series.
“We genuinely felt like it was a love letter to the city that we live in. And we really, honestly, have the best crew, had the best people, who were in such a happy mood making a show in Los Angeles,” he said. “It was an awesome experience, and I’m so grateful to the city for helping make that happen. I hope it continues to grow because I think all of the doldrums that we’ve all been feeling for so many years will hopefully begin to work itself out.”
Kroll’s pitch for a thriving L.A. production community
Kroll’s larger argument went beyond one Netflix comedy. He tied local production to a sense of energy that he said he has missed in Los Angeles.
“The more that we have a thriving, ongoing shooting community here in Los Angeles, it will bring life back,” Kroll said. “Not only money, but just like it will bring a vitalization, a vitality to the city that I think I have missed from when I moved here, and like the dream of coming to Hollywood and making things and being around people who are making things.”
He then undercut the earnestness with a joke: “That said, I’m personally moving to Austin to start a podcast network.”
Kroll also offered a clearer sense of the world “A Hundred Percent” will explore. He called it a show about “the world of thought leaders, self-help gurus, wellness influencers,” adding that many of those figures “sort of live” on panels “in sad ballrooms.” Gesturing to the Four Seasons room where the summit conversation was taking place, he joked about panels where “you only get pitchers of water, tiny mints, and if you really search, a San Pellegrino, but that’s not what matters.”
For Kroll, the priority in building the series was the people around him. He said his aim on any project is “just trying to first and foremost work with the most talented people I can find,” and said Liedman, the cast and the writers on “A Hundred Percent” are among “the funniest people.”
“It’s just an incredibly talented group,” he said.
Kroll put his creative philosophy even more bluntly: “Just surround yourself with quality people, because assholes — they’re just the worst, you know. So that’s what I would say.” He added, “That’s a pretty profound statement, if Variety wants to lead with that.”
From “A Hundred Percent” to “Adults”
The conversation also moved through Kroll’s other current work, including his role as an executive producer on the FX sitcom “Adults.” The series follows five 20-something friends living together in Queens, New York, in one member of the group’s childhood home.
Kroll said he and “Adults” creators Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw began developing the show several years ago. After casting what he called “the next generation of incredibly funny comedic performers,” he said, “they fucking killed it.”
“Adults” falls under Kroll’s long-running first-look deal with FX, which he said has been going on for more than 15 years. Kroll said he enjoys making fun of FX’s “fearless” tagline, but added that the label reflects how the company operates.
He said FX is “genuinely incredibly innovative in how they launch stuff and how they’re willing to take shots.” In the case of “Adults,” Kroll said Season 1 found an audience, though “it wasn’t as big an audience as everyone wants,” leading the team to shoot a prequel episode “to give a new way into the show.”
Kroll said audiences ultimately “really responded to” the first season and were able to understand the show and its characters in a way that carried them through the rest of the season. He said that in Season 2, the show’s ratings grew by 40% domestically and 100% internationally.
“It’s a testament to FX and and John Landgraf at the head of it to trust us to build something to keep with something that they know is quality and that’s what it comes down to,” Kroll said.
Kroll’s credits discussed at the summit also include executive producer and voice actor work on several Netflix animated series, including “Mating Season,” “Human Resources” and the Emmy-nominated “Big Mouth.”
Asked more broadly about making television that connects, Kroll framed the challenge as one of attention. “I really think it’s such incredible competition for people’s attention that you really have to figure out a way to grab them, but also hold them gently, so that they don’t run away,” he said. “And that’s the hard thing to figure out. That’s the game we’re all in right now.”
At the start of his appearance, Kroll also riffed on a previous summit panel about AI in entertainment, responding to the idea that humans will always find a way to keep technology in check. “Don’t underestimate the ability of machines to find a way to destroy us as well,” he said, adding, “I say that generally without much alarm.”