Owen Thiele Interview: FX’s ‘Adults’

On Adults, FX‘s new comedy about 20-something roommates in New York, there’s a running joke about one character’s iMessages — specifically, the 4,000 of them he hasn’t read. Friends, strangers, people saved in his contacts as “Psychic Shared Her Joint” — they all go unanswered. Onscreen, the character’s branded (affectionately) as a “friend slut.” Offscreen, Owen Thiele can relate.

“I’m always the one who doesn’t answer the group chat but still shows up to the dinner party,” says the 28-year-old actor. “Nobody knows I’m coming, so they have to pull up a chair. It really annoys everyone. But that’s why I always bring wine.”

Adults is being positioned by FX as a mash-up of Friends and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia — but for the TikTok era — and it arrives with the backing of such comedic heavyweights as Nick Kroll and Atlanta‘s Stefani Robinson. If there’s pressure riding on the show, Thiele isn’t feeling it. This is exactly the kind of creatively chaotic environment he thrives in, having built a career on playing (and collaborating with) Hollywood’s next-gen class of up-and-coming eccentrics — even if he forgets to text them back.

The son of music producer Bob Thiele Jr., he was raised in L.A. and trained early at performing arts schools before landing at Crossroads, that Westside prep factory for future Oscar winners and HBO protagonists. “This location is almost triggering to me,” he says of his THR shoot spot, which happens to be around the corner from the school. “It’s near where I waited to find out if I got cast in the school production of Bye Bye Birdie — which I did. First Black, gay Conrad Birdie.” Comedy was always the dream, thanks to Upright Citizens Brigade youth classes and late-night reruns of SCTV. “I watched all those great improv actors and was like, ‘Oh my God, you can make a career out of having fun with your friends and making people laugh.’ ”

After early bit parts on I Think You Should Leave and Hacks, Thiele got his breakout-ish moment in 2022’s Theater Camp, cast by longtime friend Molly Gordon alongside Ben Platt and a not-yet-Emmy-nominated Ayo Edebiri. The experience unlocked something: “I started throwing anything I could at the wall.” Around that time, the script for Adults landed in his inbox.

“I read the pilot and laughed five times per page,” he says. “It felt like it was speaking right to me.” When he saw that the writers were Tonight Show alums Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold, he realized they’d already met — years earlier during a general meeting where “we mostly talked about New York versus L.A. I was trying to sell them on L.A. using the weather, which I know is cheesy, and yes, you’re rolling your eyes.”

The casting process was long, but Thiele ultimately landed a spot alongside a fresh-faced ensemble of stand-ups, TikTokers and Second City vets. They play housemates in deep Queens; in real life, they moved into the same Toronto apartment building during filming. “It sounds like such fake PR bullshit, but we really are family,” he insists. “I hate saying it — I always roll my eyes at this stuff, too — but I love those guys. Please give us a second season. The group chat can’t die.”

Adults premiered May 28, the latest in a string of wins for Thiele. He has a recurring part on Prime Video’s Overcompensating, hosts a podcast on Alex Cooper’s Unwell network (literally from his bed) and is developing a semiautobiographical Amazon pilot with Ilana Glazer. And there was also that time he landed a six-second cameo in Taylor Swift’s video for “The Man.” “Honestly? That was my ‘I made it’ moment,” he says. “I still have the screenshot of the text asking me to do it. That’s my claim to fame. Adults … and Taylor Swift.”

Still, he’s not getting cocky. “When I got the Amazon deal call, I was sobbing and then went straight to dinner with my parents and we said ‘Cheers’ a million times,” he says. “But it also feels like the door just opened to a maze. Probably means I’m really in Hollywood now.”

This story appeared in the June 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.