Nick Kroll on Playing a Singing Pig, Broadway and Loving

Nick Kroll, the star of TV’s The League and Kroll Show, 38, gets piggy power in Sing, opening December 21, as the voice of Gunter, a singing German porker. Gunter and a koala named Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) try to save a failing theater by producing the world’s greatest vocal competition.

So talk a bit about Gunter, the singing German pig, from Sing.

I would say his dancing is really his strength in the film. I think it’s fair to say both Gunter and the person playing Gunter are less focused on singing than some of the other performers in the movie. Gunter’s paired up with Reese Witherspoon’s character, Rosita, who is a really talented singer but is a mother of like 25 piglets, and I think a little more self-conscious about really letting go and performing.

How much do you sing in real life?

I wouldn’t even say I’m a shower singer. Gunter allowed me to let loose and be more comfortable singing than I am as myself. I love performing, acting, comedy and dancing. But singing is definitely the place that I feel most insecure. So it’s very funny to be in this movie where I have to sing.

Is the world’s greatest singing competition anything like The Voice?

Obviously, there will be things that are familiar about it, but Sing is about people putting on a show together—less about competition and more about everybody overcoming obstacles in their lives while trying to fulfill their dreams of becoming performers.

You’re also starring in Oh, Hello on Broadway.

It’s so amazing. My friend John Mulaney and I have been doing these characters, Gil and George, for 10 years now. We started out in a little bar in the East Village. Then I had a show on Comedy Central [Kroll Show] and we did a sketch of them there. They’re very New York–specific characters and, yet, they seem to have resonated with people around the country.

Was Broadway on your bucket list?

When we were promoting season three of Kroll Show, we did a live appearance as Gil and George, which we had not done in quite some time, and the response was really great. People were like, “What’s next?” and we half-jokingly and half-seriously said, “We’ll do, Oh, Hello on Broadway.” So we wrote this play and we did it off Broadway last winter, and then toured it at the beginning of this year to Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, D.C., L.A. and then got this Broadway run.

So, it was not my on my bucket list to be on Broadway, I don’t think, and yet, now doing it, I’m just so psyched that it all worked out. It couldn’t be a more fun show to do, especially with John, who’s really, really a dear friend and, I think, the funniest guy on the planet.

Also, we have special guests every night like Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Whoopi Goldberg and Alan Alda. When you think about what being in show business is going to be like, it’s sort of like this. You do your show, you have these great guests who come and do the show and hang out and you go get dinner afterwards. It’s really, really been a true blast.

Are Gil and George, your characters from Oh, Hello, based on anyone in particular?

John and I were walking around the Strand bookstore, which is a very specific New York bookstore. Its slogan is “18 Miles of Books,” and then we added “and 22 Miles of Loneliness.” We saw these two older men one day, both of them in turtlenecks, blazer kind of guys, really typical New York, like Woody Allen movie–looking guys. We saw them both buying copies of Alan Alda’s autobiography, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed. We followed them out of the store and watched them go to a diner where they both sat and read their individual copies of Alda’s book. We were like, “God, these guys won’t share a book but they probably share a Murphy bed.” They became a beacon for a specific kind of guy that both of us were interested in and they became the inspiration for us to create these characters. 

You mentioned your inspiration for Gil and George. Where do you normally get your inspiration?

It depends. Being back in New York and doing Oh, Hello has been amazing. I find New York very inspiring because you have so much day-to-day interaction with people. Everywhere you look, you get to watch and observe people and interact, versus being in L.A., where you’re in your car and then in your office, or on set, or wherever it is. So I find New York very inspiring, being on the subway, walking the streets or just being able to hear people’s conversations. But then also for Big Mouth, it’s going back to my childhood, and all of the other writers’ and creators’ childhoods, and we’re talking to people about what their kids are like now. I think I tend to find it’s a bit of a stew of observation of people around you, of cultural things that are happening, and then mining one’s own life or others’ lives for personal history, and using all those different things to inspire you.

When did you know you were funny?

I’m the youngest of four. Growing up, my family thought I was funny. I did perform as a kid in little plays or skits at camp. I knew people were comedians and actors, but I never, like, assumed that that’s what I would do—even though I think I quietly wanted to do that.

After doing so much comedy, how did you land a role in Loving?

Jeff Nichols, who wrote and directed Loving, knew my work from my sketch show and called me about being in Loving. I just feel so lucky that he picked me out of the blue. I’ve always been a huge fan of his films, like Mud, Take Shelter, Shotgun Stories and Midnight Special, which came out this year. They’re all very different films from one another and yet feel very much like he made them all.

Loving is an amazing story. It’s the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, who were an interracial couple, a white man and woman of color, who married in the late ’50s, living in Virginia, and were arrested for being married. They then brought their case through the Virginia courts and eventually to the Supreme Court, where the ban on interracial marriage was overturned nationwide.

I read that you love your job because you love being funny. But you’re not especially funny in Loving.

No. I like being able to do a diversity of things. The idea that I’m in Oh, Hello, which is one of the silliest things you could ever be a part of, and then simultaneously be in a movie like Loving, which is a pretty straight-ahead drama, I felt very comfortable in both and really enjoyed both very much. The more opportunities that I have to do a diversity of things, the more I enjoy each thing that I’m doing just because it feels fresh and new and different.

You had Kroll Show for three years, and I would imagine that’s like the best thing there is because you can do whatever you want, yet you ended it when it was at its peak. Why?

Doing your own show with your name on it is the most fun thing because you really can do whatever you want, but it’s also one of the most exhausting things that you can do because you’re responsible for every moment of it. After three seasons of it, while also on The League, I was exhausted physically and creatively. I felt like our show had reached the creative peak. We’d created this world of all these different characters and sketches, and they all began to intersect and collide, which I really love. But also, I felt like we had accomplished organically what we wanted to do there. So why not end it when it felt fresh and exciting and we were at the top of what we were doing? It freed me up to have the physical time and the creative energy to take on the next thing.

What is that next thing?

I’ve got an animated show coming out next year on Netflix called Big Mouth, which I created with my friend Andrew Goldberg. It’s based on our childhood. It’s about two boys going through puberty. He got hit over the head with puberty and puberty wanted no part of me for a long time. It’s like a perverted Wonder Years. And then I have one or two more projects. I’ve got another animated movie coming out next year called Captain Underpants for DreamWorks, and also a movie called The House for New Line.