Nick Kroll has thought to himself, “I can’t believe this is my life” at least 100 times, easy. Like when he voiced a character on The Simpsons. And first hung out with his new friend Steve Martin. And made Martin Short laugh! And had a self-titled sketch show on Comedy Central.
One more for now: Exactly three and a half hours after the end of his emmy interview, Kroll will perform on Broadway in the hit play All In, opposite Aidy Bryant, Jimmy Fallon, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
But deep down, the actor-writer-producer admits he "still finds ways" to feel like an insecure preteen desperately waiting for his growth spurt.
"I know it's crazy, because I'm about to be on stage with the most talented people in the world," he says. "But who you are in middle school is so foundational to who you become as an adult. The trauma carries through, whether it's sexual awakening or adolescence or sexual development. In my case, it was puberty."
Of course, this is usually what expensive therapy is for. Kroll, however, mined his painful past into the smash Netflix animated series Big Mouth.
With unflinching and all-too-relatable humor, the show — which Kroll created with his childhood best friend, Family Guy writer-producer Andrew Goldberg, along with Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin — touches on the most untouchable of topics, from periods to pubic hair.
Kroll drew on his own life in forming and voicing Nick Birch, a nervous and charming late bloomer in Westchester, New York, who's trying to make his mark as the youngest in his family. He surrounds himself with a group of diverse and equally jittery middle-school friends, including Andrew (John Mulaney), Jessi (Jessi Klein), Jay (Jason Mantzoukas), and Missy (Ayo Edebiri).
This motley crew is constantly shadowed by creatures like Maury the Hormone Monster (Kroll again) and Connie the Hormone Monstress (Maya Rudolph in a performance that's earned four Emmy awards and an additional nomination). The show received three consecutive Emmy nominations for Outstanding Animated Program, 2019–2021, as well as one for music and lyrics in 2018.
Now, in an animated era in which Bart Simpson can remain 10 years old for almost four decades, the Big Mouth group is moving on.
The eighth and final season — premiering May 23 on Netflix — revolves around high school, where nobody is spared from the stress-inducing reality that is ninth grade. Nick, for one, reinvents himself at a private school away from his pals and becomes buds with a guy named Andrew (Zach Woods).
“For some of the kids, it’s really exciting because they’re expanding their world with a new school — and for other kids, it’s wildly intimidating,” he says.
Overall, he adds, “This is the beginning of your next stage of life, and yet none of those feelings really end. We tried to work hard to speak to that.”
Watch the exclusive interview with Nick Kroll during the emmy cover shoot.
As an executive producer, writer and voice of 80-plus characters on Big Mouth, Kroll labored at every stage of production. Maybe more than he should have, jokes his friend and collaborator of nearly 25 years. “I encouraged him to stop being so involved,” Mulaney says. “Whenever I’d see him and he’d have some kind of look, I’d go, ‘What’s up?’ and he’d say he was thinking about something from episode 607.”
Yet Mulaney is quick to toast the big strength of Mr. Big Mouth: “He has always made me laugh the same amount, which has not changed in 25 years. I’m working with him a lot; we spend a ton of time together. And I’m just delighted by him.”
Kroll could have done a video interview with the built-in excuse of needing to prep for his theater performance. But he suggests meeting for a late lunch inside a boutique hotel restaurant in downtown New York, close to his apartment. “Zoom is not the same,” he says. Settled in, he orders an Arnold Palmer (light on the lemonade), Italian minestrone soup and a generous side of French fries.
Before the food arrives, he takes off his glasses and rests his chin on his hand to wax about his own coming of age. The youngest of four, Kroll enjoyed a typical upbringing in the Westchester suburbs during the 1990s: Jewish day school, overnight summer camp with friends and total fandom of “Wayne’s World” on Saturday Night Live. Though he and Goldberg hosted campfire-lit talent shows (as Wayne and Garth), “the bar of coolness wasn’t that high,” he says. “I think I was sort of popular, but so much of the time I had flashes of feeling overwhelmed and insecure.”
We have an excellent character witness in Goldberg, whose history with Kroll dates back to the first day of first grade. “Ever since I met him, he’s always been the loud, brash kid who was funnier and smarter than everybody else,” he says. “I think he thrived on being the youngest of a big family and having to fight to get attention.”
As middle schoolers, the two bonded over a shared love of Mel Brooks movies and late-night WWF matches on local TV. They got their hands on a video camera and made comedy shorts. “We showed them to his family, and they were like, ‘These are ridiculous, and not very entertaining,’” Goldberg recalls.
To read the rest of the story, pick up a copy of emmy magazine here.
This article originally appeared in its entirety in emmy magazine, issue #5, 2025, under the title "Roaring Success"
