104 Years of Comedy with Sarah Burns and Adam Pally

Paste: Was there anyone that you were like, “Oh my God, this is the funniest person I’ve ever met”?
Pally: Yeah, almost everybody I mentioned.
Burns: Chris Gethard.
Pally: I met Donald Glover when he was 18 years old and he had just moved to New York. Donald would come over and write sketches and you knew within a second of meeting Donald, you knew this guy was the funniest, most charismatic—this dude is like Eddie Murphy! He can do whatever he wants.
Paste: Ellie, Aubrey, Aziz, some of the actors from that list of people—I just see them doing the same thing over and over. You two are consistently playing different characters.
Pally: Yeah, you’re right. We have more range than those people. I think that they would agree.
Burns: I know Aziz would be the first to admit that we’re better than him!
Pally: I’ve talked to Aubrey so many time and she’s said, “I can’t even be in the same room as you because you’re so good.”
Burns: She won’t make eye contact. She kneels at our feet. But no, it’s pretty rad. I met Aubrey when she was still a teenager and [recently] I was walking through Times Square and she’s like on a Gap ad! It makes the world feel small and, like, cozy.
Pally: And possible! To us, a lot of those people broke before I did and when someone like Aubrey or Ellie or Bobby hit…I know Bobby got on SNL the same year we drove 12 hours to Montreal talking about what he was going to do for his audition.

Paste: Tell me about your SNL auditions!
Burns: I was a personal trainer for cats. “You’re cats with the dangling bellies—no more!” I have three cats and they all could use a little ab work.
Pally: I did one. It’s infamously horrible. You know the Counting Crows, Adam Duritz? I did a political talk show as Adam Duritz but I would ask a question, [he prompts Sarah] “Tell me about the new Republican candidates.”
Burns: You know Mark Cuban…
Pally: [In a whiny Duritz voice] Yeahhh…
Burns: And also…
Pally: Yeah…and that’s all I’d do for like an hour.

Paste:b> Pally: I made Seth Myers do it but it didn’t work. When I did his show [later on] I told that story and he was like, “Don’t it’s not going to work.” And it bombed, too!
Paste: Try it on Jimmy Fallon!
Pally: I should come on dressed as Adam Duritz.

Paste: With Slow Learners, what made you intrigued by the project and the filmmakers?
Pally: I think the fact that they had only done docs was the big safety net for the movie. I felt confident that they knew what was funny about found footage, that they could gather our footage no matter how dispersed it was.
Burns: I met them for dinner and I fell in love with them. I believed in them so much. They brought their baby that was like a second old. They’re humans! And I was like, “This is going to be fun.”
Pally:They’re a married couple, they have a baby—it was wholesome!

Paste: Especially after ya’ll have worked in TV so much recently, was this a breather?
Burns: I love doing films because it’s like an adventure. TV is a well-oiled machine and indie movies are bananas.
Pally: I always have a hard time with that question because I really don’t even think about [whether it’s a] movie or TV show. To me: Is it funny and do I feel like I can do something interesting with it? And, do you like me? I still feel that way! If you like me, yeah I’d love to do it! I just want to work.
Burns: I want a human to touch me! Will you touch me?

Paste: If you guys are saying the film was very improv and you had free reign, did you have anyone to reel you in?
Burns: We have such a great shorthand.
Pally: We have played a married couple a couple times, once in Monogamy. Also, everybody that we cast, they’re improvisers but they’re good improvisers and know the difference between running their mouth and then actually figuring it out. You didn’t need to be reigned in.
Burns: Like Mary Grill. Her mind is so quick and sharp. Catherine Reitman, Kate Flannery, Reid Scott…
Pally: Pete Grosz.

Paste: The cast was definitely a support for you both. Did the directors just cast these people and throw the script out the window?
Pally: Yes. I’d say that’s pretty much how it went. I like wine-movies where you open a bottle of wine with your wife—like a comfortable blanket. I wanted to do one. The directors showed us this and then were like, “Throw it out. Do whatever you want and use it as a spine.”

Paste: Given you both have already come up with exciting people, is there anyone you still really want to work with?
Burns: I’d really love to work with Wes Anderson!
Pally: You’d be great!
Burns: Actually, Jason Schwartzman said that! He said, “You should do one!” I really want to! I love his world. And I want to be on Portlandia more than anything in the world. Then, I’d die!
Pally: I want to do a play. I know that sucks. I don’t know, I always thought I was the type of actor made for a Neil LaBute play. But that’s hard to get people to see you as one way. That’s a dream of mine to be living at home here and taking the train to your play, working eight nights a week.

Meredith Alloway is a Texas native and a freelance contributor for Paste, Flaunt, Complex, Nylon, CraveOnline, Press Play on Indiewire and The Script Lab. She writes for both TV and film and will always be an unabashed Shakespeare nerd. You can follow her on Twitter.