Malik Elassal joins the call from Calgary, where he’s enjoying a break with family. Born in Winnipeg and raised in Calgary, the 29-year-old actor now spends the bulk of his time in New York City. The Big Apple (naturally) serves as the setting for Adults, a new FX series in which Elassal charms as Samir, a quirky twenty-something living in Queens. But did the series make Elassal a New Yorker? Not quite. “I got this part in New York, but then I filmed it in Canada,” he laughs. “And, I mean, Canadian crews are the best. They’re just always fun, hardworking people, you know?”
Adults, succinctly summed up on Rotten Tomatoes as “a sitcom of likeable screwups,” follows Samir and his four roommates — Anton (Owen Thiele), Billie (Lucy Freyer), Issa (Amita Rao), and Paul Baker (Jack Innanen) — though a series of big city shenanigans. In an all-too-short eight episodes, scenarios range from absurd (a disastrous dinner party with Julia Fox) to authentic (adjusting to new relationships, forging a path in the professional world). After the series’ May 28th debut, SHARP caught up with Malik Elassal to learn about his experience on Adults and find out what’s next.
Congratulations on the release of Adults! How does it feel to have completed the series and see how people respond to it?
It’s great! It’s really nice to just have it out there.
How did you come to know the project?
Honestly, it was just one of those things. I had moved to New York, and — it’s not so glamorous — like, you just get an email. I just happened to audition for it. I got lucky to get a call back, and then a second call back, and then it just kept snowballing from there. Before you know it, I was at this chemistry read, and I was meeting all the people that ended up being cast (and some other great actors as well).
It just sort of came about, honestly. But it felt really right when I read it. I was like, ‘This feels really good and really easy to read,’ in a way that you don’t get all the time. You’ll audition for a lot of stuff that’s just bad.
“I’ve been on a few TV shows, but never anything that’s lasting like this. I usually get, like, shot in the head in episode three of something, you know what I mean?”
Malik Elassal
As a viewer, you can really see that the chemistry is there. What was it like to get to know your cast mates through the series?
We were all really excited to be around each other all the time. It felt like we were all at this big summer camp, just getting to do this really fun thing together. There were so many days where we had to go to bed at, like, 7 PM and wake up at 3 AM to get picked up to shoot. We had to shoot overtime — like, 15 hours some days — but we were always so happy to do it. It was just a hang all the time. We would get, like, loopy; it felt like a sleepover a lot of the time.
I know that, primarily, your craft is comedy. How does that translate to being set, in front of the camera?
They don’t feel like super dissimilar — I mean, there’s a different kind of nerves that go into it, and there’s a different kind of feedback — but I’ve been acting since I was 16. I’ve acted in front of theatre audiences and auditioned since I was young. I’ve been on a few TV shows, but never anything that’s lasting like this. I usually get, like, shot in the head in episode three of something, you know what I mean? But comedy does lend itself to timing, not feeling, maybe, as nervous at times.
I’ve seen this series compared to other classic sitcoms like Friends, and I thought that was interesting because the tone really feels different to me. What do you make of those comparisons that you see online?
I think the reason it’s getting compared to shows like that is just because it’s a show where people are living together and the primary focus of the show is that they care about each other. That’s the basis of all the relationships, you know? There aren’t, like, Breaking Bad stakes to any of the situations or their relationships — even though they might feel like that to the characters.
“Samir is just loose in the world, and he’s used to like these bowling bumpers — his parents and everything. Now, the bumpers are off and he’s flying through the world.”
Malik Elassal
Yeah. There’s an authenticity to the way they — the characters — care about one another, but there’s a comedy and lightheartedness. How do you find the line between serious subject matter and the show’s humour?
I don’t know. I mean, that’s the whole job, I guess. And Ben [Kronengold] and Rebecca [Shaw] are really good at writing scripts that do that. So it’s not super hard because it is on the page. There’s this serious subject or thing from society in the show, and the only stance that they really take on these things is that this person — whoever they’re talking about about — is working through it and is a flawed person. So, just trying to be yourself in those situations, mixed with the script, just made it feel obvious, you know? It didn’t feel like, ‘Oh, God, how am I going to do it?’ But I mean, there were some things that were like, ‘Okay, this is going to be a tough thing to pull off and still seem likeable.’
What were some specific, hard-to-pull-off moments?
Hmm, let me think about that. I mean, there were certain scenes. Like, telling Billie how I felt about something she was messing up. [I had to] really find the absolute, emotion of just, like, only care — not berating somebody for their decisions — that was something that I kept trying to figure out: how do I make this the most loving version of checking on somebody? It’s just finding a softness that [Samir] has.
Yeah, for sure. I think that’s something that’s really interesting about Samir — he has that softness, yet there’s always this low-level anxiety; he’s afraid of messing something up or having messed something up.
Yeah, he like creates it by the way he vibrates.
I think that’s really common, especially in the tone of the series — it’s young people still finding their footing in the world. As a young actor playing that, what is it like to tap into that energy? Are there aspects that you relate to?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, his worry about being… sometimes, it feels like Samir is just loose in the world, and he’s used to like these bowling bumpers — his parents and everything. Now, the bumpers are off and he’s flying through the world. And yeah, I have felt like that before.
It was fun to play that because you can have this safety net — with it being a TV show and there are cameras — where you can have those feelings and spin out and fly off the handle and your life is still the same after, you know?
Is there a specific aspect of your character or the series that you hope audiences can resonate with?
I think before we said it: that softness was something that I really liked — and, like, caring for one another. I hope that’s the main take away from the show.
I wish we could have given people more episodes, honestly, because people are telling me that they’re just throwing it on as a hangout show — which is the ultimate goal for a show like this — I love doing that with shows. So, I hope it just makes people happy.
It’s very much an a hangout show — it’s easy to dive into and develop a relationship with the characters. Has there been word about a season two?
I really hope there’s season two because there’s still so much to explore with the characters. So yeah, we’re waiting to hear.
Should there be a season two, what would you like to see the characters explore?
It’s such an open field right now, for the characters. So many different things can happen. I really would like to have an episode with just me and Issa, because I feel like we didn’t get that, exactly, in season one. And I always like doing the Paul Baker/Shamir episodes. Those are always really fun, so I want to do a few more of those.
This transcript has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Adults is now streaming on Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.
