Q & A with ‘Workaholics’ star, writer Adam DeVine
“Workaholics” writer and star Adam DeVine spoke with colleges across the country about the upcoming season, movie collaborations and just plain gettin’ weird.
Q: Why do college students relate to the show so well?
A: I figure the premise of the show is so relatable to people in college because you’re kind of at the point in your life that you’re about to be a grown-up and it’s scary as shit ‘cause grownuphood sucks. So, you’re like, ‘I wanna stay a kid forever, I wanna be with my friends, these are the best friends of my life, I don’t wanna become an adult yet,’ and that’s kind of what the characters on the show have done. They’re just gonna stay in arrested development where they’re just having the best time of their lives, working this shitty job and hanging out with their friends. And that’s kind of what I think we all want to do to some extent, until all of a sudden, you’re having a baby and things get real. We’re trying not to have babies on the show for as long as possible. And in real life, actually.
Q: How closely do you resemble your character on the show?
A: The core of the person I fill is pretty close. Like, I’m a little bit of a maniac. Blake is a little bit of a sweetheart. And Ders is a little bit uptight. I’m not as dumb as my character, unfortunately. I think I would be dead. People ask me this all of the time, I don’t think Adam DeVan could survive in the real world. He’s always chuggin’ stuff you’re not suppose to chug, and jumping off things you’re not supposed to jump off, and falling off things you’re not supposed to fall off of for that matter. It goes hand-in-hand with his dangerous rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.
Q: For students pursuing the same career as you, what advice would you give them?
A: If you want to be an actor or a producer or a writer, you just have to do as much as possible and practice… get on YouTube and make videos. One video might suck but come back and make another one and make another one… Keep making content, and you know, you make 100 videos and 60 of those videos are really funny, people are going to notice… they won’t notice the 40 shitty videos. Just make as much as you can and try to make it as best as you can and take it seriously. I really give it up to the guys, especially Ders, for bringing some professionalism to our crew. We were just making videos, pretty lacks daisy-ly, and then when Ders came in, he was like, ‘let’s take this really seriously and try to take it somewhere.’ And then we started taking it more seriously and having pitch meetings once a week, and I’m not saying we weren’t drunk when we were at those meetings, but you know, we came to the table with ideas and tried to be as funny and efficient as possible.
Season 3 of Workaholics begins Wednesday Jan. 16 at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central.