( From top )Adam Pally with hisHappy Endings friends; with Leighton Meester onMaking Historyinterest in the geeky minutiae of time
travel. “You know how hard it is to
explain metaphysics?” he says. “We were
like, ‘Just put them in a f---ing duffel bag
and send them on their way.’”
As hisMaking Historycharacter sub-
verts the rules, so has Pally. At 13, he
was expelled from Jewish day school in
New Jersey. At 16, he saw an ASSSSCAT
show at Upright Citizens Brigade (where
he still performs), and it changed his
life...eventually. “It was with Andy Daly,
Amy Poehler, and Paul Scheer, and
I was like, ‘That’s awesome! I would
totally do that if I didn’t have plans to go
get f---ing wasted for the next five
years,’” he recalls. After two years of par-
tying at the University of Arizona, he
reset his path, transferring to the New
School in New York and signing up to
intern at UCB.
His film break came in 2009’sTaking
Woodstock, but his big break arrived with
2011’sHappy Endings, where he stole
scenes as fratty, slothy Max, a decidedly
nonstereotypical portrayal of a man who
just happens to be gay. “It’s one of the
things that I’m most proud of,” he says
(adding that he’d do a reunion “for
free”). “I knew it was going to cause a stir
to do it like that—and I liked it. It gives
the thing a certain energy I need.... The
other thing I really love about that char-
acter is that what matters most about
him is that he matters nothing at all.”
Making History creator Julius “Goldy”
Sharpe calls Pally “a lovable combination
of being incredibly enthusiastic and really
hard on himself,” while Mindy Kaling told
him that his MO is “chaos theory.” (She
liked it enough to turn his one-offMindy
guest spot as cocksure doc Peter Prentice
into 40-plus episodes.) Robert De Niro
experienced it when Pally played his
grandson inDirty Grandpa. “Everyone
was like, ‘Don’t touch Robert,’” Pally
recalls of filming an emotional funeral
scene. “He puts his hand on the casket
and sits back down in the pew. I grabbed
his face, and I kissed him right on the
cheek, and I was like, ‘You’re the stron-
gest man I know, Grandpa!’... De Niro
leans in and goes, ‘I like you. You’re a
f---ing lunatic. Do not do that again.’ I was like,
‘All right! Life made!’ Did not do it again.”
Happy Endingscostar Casey Wilson,
who calls Pally “huge-hearted and one of
the most underrated performers I know,”
employs another analogy for his fearless-
ness. “He truly could not give a f---,” she
says, recalling his pranking predilection
during filming. “Adam would grab the
boom mic and you’d just slowly see it low-
ered into frame and onto someone’s face,
caressing their face, and everyone would
laugh. One time he was doing it, I had
dropped my phone, and when I shot up
from grabbing it, I knocked into the mic
and got a concussion. To which—after I
had gone to the hospital and was crawling
around on the floor and throwing up—
Adam texted me: ‘Worth it.’”
The married father of two (with a third on
the way) isn’t kidding around when it comesto work ethic. He’s playing a failed elec-
tronic musician in the horror-comedy
flickMost Likely to Murder, which explains
his current high-fade haircut. He’ll be
seen in the upcoming indie filmsBand
Aid,The Little Hours, andShimmer Lake.
And if we took the duffel bag to 2027,
where would we see Pally? “I would be
shocked if I make it 10 years. I would say
I kick out at 38,” he deadpans. “But I have
a lot of things I want to do. I want to
direct a movie, I’d like to host the Emmys,
I’d like to do a musical on Broadway, I’d
like to sell more sweatshirts for Planned
Parenthood,” he says, finishing his matzo
brei. “I don’t need to rule the world, I just
need my kids to not give me a hard time.
As long as there’s some fancy leather. A
good iPhone case.” He shrugs. “The best
way to not give a f--- is to keep your wants
very simple.”XHAPPY ENDINGS: ADAM TAYLOR/ABC/GETTY IMAGES;MAKING HISTORY: DANIEL MCFADDEN/FOX