Pop Culture

One Man. Two of the Best Comedies on TV.


For our money, Party Down is as good as TV comedy gets. Exec produced by Paul Rudd and starring a rotation of Judd Apatow and Christopher Guest regulars, Party Down chronicles the pathetic indignities of a team of Hollywood cater waiters who dream of not being Hollywood cater waiters. It's the Entourage of people earning minimum wage plus tips. GQ recently sat down with Party Down star Adam Scott, who just joined the cast of Parks and Recreation, to talk about playing nice, funny girls, and Fred Savage's facial hair.

Party Down reunites the Freaks and Geeks crew. Thanks!

Oh, awesome. Yeah. Marin Starr, Lizzie Caplan. It's pretty great.

It's also great to see you playing a nice guy. For once. You've nailed several different levels of asshole with Step Brothers and Tell Me You Love Me.

Oh, god, I know a lot of people were destroyed by Tell Me You Love Me. A lot of WASPy resentment.

But as a Party Down Catering Company cater waiter slash struggling actor, you're an every-hero. Is the role close to anything that's happened to you when you started out?

Even though I was never actually a Hollywood cater waiter. I think being an unknown actor going to these parties where you're rubbing shoulders with really successful people in show business. You go, and you think it's going to be awesome, but the stars and producers at those parties don't want to talk to you, they want to talk to the other successful people there. I mean you start to feel really shitty when people are constantly ignoring you—it's like a nightmare. So in Party Down, when my character is there to just serve a canapé to people who don't give a shit. I know exactly that feeling.

Part of what's so funny-because-it's-tragic about Party Down, though, is that the people you cater to don't just ignore you, they're terrifyingly mean. You had J.K. Simmons in a couple episodes just basically screaming profanities at the top of his lungs.

Yeah, totally, he's amazing. He wants a contract where he has to do an episode every season.

The show is usually directed by Fred Savage. Fred Savage of The Wonder Years. And he also had a hand in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I guess my question is, "Seriously?"

Yeah, it's Wonder Years Fred Savage. You know, it's funny. I didn't know Fred before, so on the first episode of Party Down, which he directed, he walked up to me and was like, "Hey, I'm Fred!" And he looks exactly like he did back in the day on Wonder Years. He looks exactly the same except he's taller and has a 5 o'clock shadow. It's so weird. It's so bizarre. I was so into The Wonder Years. He's a great guy and a terrific director, so we had a lot of fun with Fred

One of the best parts of the show is your on-again-off-again relationship with Lizzy Caplan. I mean, if you guys hate each other, you are good at acting.

The chemistry just happened. We got her to do the show and we had never even met, but I was such a fan of Lizzy's. I thought we would have chemistry just from watching her. And if we didn't she would be good enough to fake it. Luckily we did, and I was right.

Well, your side project certainly displayed that love pretty blatantly. You guys did a True Blood parody with decaying mummies instead of sexy vampires and it was romantic.

Yeah, wasn't that sweet?

Sure. So, for viewers who haven't caught on to the show yet and are now convinced to jump right in, what should we expect from the second season?

When the season starts, Henry, my character, is the catering company's team leader, so he's the boss, and he's struggling with that. He's trying to set up his life—he has an apartment, he has a job, he has a girlfriend who is Kristen Bell. So there's a very comfortable house of cards set up. And suddenly Lizzy's character comes back to the catering team. And then everything gets screwed up.

And somehow, you bring Steve Guttenberg into it. As himself. Himself as an art collector and wine connoisseur.

Yes. It's a really character for Guttenberg. And he was so sweet about it. I didn't know what to expect, or what he was going to be like—if he was going to be weird about the episode kind of poking fun at him a little bit. The whole conceit of the episode is that his friend threw him a surprise party the day before we show up, and so he doesn't need the catering company but he forgot to cancel, so we spend the day hanging out with him alone. And he was just terrific. I'd love to work with him again. He's a great guy.

That whole episode played like an anti-Entourage. Instead of chilling with an action star hottie in Vegas, you're in Steve Guttenberg's hot tub.

I want it to start being called that. It should be in the title, in the promos. Because that's what it is. Maybe you could call it "Not your mamma's Entourage."

I'll put that in.

Or! Say, "Not your Ed Hardy wearing moron's Entourage."

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