Nick Kroll said upcoming Netflix comedy series “A Hundred Percent,” which he co-created and stars in, is a “love letter” to Los Angeles — and he expressed hope that a “thriving” entertainment production community will bring “vitality” to the city.
The comedian, writer, producer, director and actor was a featured keynote speaker at the Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit presented by EY, held Thursday in L.A.
Kroll explained why he “needed” to film “A Hundred Percent,” which is expected to debut on Netflix in 2027, in L.A. “It feels like it’s about people who live in Los Angeles. I’ve lived here for almost 20 years,” he said.
He co-created “A Hundred Percent” with his friend Gabe Liedman (creator of “Q-Force” and showrunner of the first season of “PEN15”), and stars in the show alongside Sam Richardson, Jason Mantzoukas and Vanessa Bayer, with Diane Lane joining the cast in a recurring role.
“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,” said Kroll, who was interviewed on stage by Angelique Jackson, senior entertainment writer at Variety. “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 continued: “The more that we have a thriving, ongoing shooting community here in Los Angeles, it will bring life back. 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.”
When the audience responded with a round of applause, Kroll then quipped: “That said, I’m personally moving to Austin to start a podcast network.”
“A Hundred Percent,” Kroll said, is a “show about the world of thought leaders, self-help gurus, wellness influencers, and much of where they sort of live are on panels like this, in sad ballrooms” — he gestured to the Four Seasons room where he was speaking at the conference — “where you only get pitchers of water, tiny mints, and if you really search, a San Pellegrino, but that’s not what matters.”
Kroll said his goal with any project is “just trying to first and foremost work with the most talented people I can find.” In the case of “A Hundred Percent,” he said Liedman, the cast and the writers “are the funniest people… It’s just an incredibly talented group.”
“Just surround yourself with quality people, because assholes — they’re just the worst, you know. So that’s what I would say,” Kroll said. He added, “That’s a pretty profound statement, if Variety wants to lead with that.”
In addition to his work on “A Hundred Percent,” Kroll is an executive producer of the FX sitcom “Adults,” which follows five 20-something friends living together in Queens, New York (in one of the group’s childhood homes). He has also served as EP and voice actor for several Netflix animated series, including “Mating Season,” “Human Resources” and the Emmy-nominated “Big Mouth.”
Kroll and “Adults” creators Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw started developing the show several years ago, “and then we cast the next generation of incredibly funny comedic performers, and they fucking killed it.”
“Adults” comes under Kroll’s long-running first-look deal with FX, a relationship with the network that began more than 15 years ago. He said he loves making fun of FX’s “fearless” tagline but said it’s true that “they are genuinely incredibly innovative in how they launch stuff and how they’re willing to take shots. And in the case of ‘Adults,’ Season 1 found an audience, but it wasn’t as big an audience as everyone wants. And so we shot this prequel episode to give a new way into the show.”
Through that episode, Kroll explained, “audiences found it, really responded to it, and then were able to understand the show and the characters in a way that they entered into the rest of the season and stuck around.” In Season 2, bucking typical TV trends, the show’s ratings grew by 40% domestically and 100% internationally. “It’s a testament to FX 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.”
About creating engaging TV shows, Kroll said, “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. And that’s the hard thing to figure out. That’s the game we’re all in right now.”
At the beginning of his talk, Kroll riffed on the previous panel about AI in the entertainment industry — in which there was a sentiment expressed that humans will always find a way to keep the tech in check — Kroll commented, “Don’t underestimate the ability of machines to find a way to destroy us as well,” adding, “I say that generally without much alarm.”