Inside “Adults” Showrunner Stefani Robinson On Crafting a Comedy About Growing Up (Or Not)

When Stefani Robinson, Emmy-nominated writer and executive producer (Atlanta, What We Do in the Shadows), first read the pilot for Adults, she didn’t expect to feel something so familiar. “By the end of it, I really felt like I was the sixth character,” she recalls. “There was a coziness, a closeness.”

Adults, the new comedy series created by The Tonight Show writers Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw, and co-executive produced by Nick Kroll, follows five 20-somethings stumbling their way through early adulthood. While the setup — a group of friends figuring out life — might seem familiar, Robinson leans into that.

“I was actually attracted to the show because of its conventionality,” she says. “We weren’t setting out to reinvent the wheel, but to explore the wheel. These types of shows work because they feel like home to many people.”

Adults isn’t just a comfort watch. Underneath the raw, explicit jokes and unfiltered youthful energy is a quieter aim; to capture the confusion and expectations of becoming an adult. “There’s something charming about that period of life when you think you’re grown, but you’re constantly reminded you’re not,” Robinson continues. “That push and pull is where the comedy lives.”

Korengold and Shaw’s Late Night Sketch Comedy Roots

The creators came from late-night television, a world built on tight jokes, punchlines, monologues, and sketches. That DNA pulses through Adults, Robinson explains. “They conceive of funny moments almost like sketches, and I say that in the best way. It always felt like we knew what we were building toward — a moment, a comedic punch.”

Stefani Robinson

Their experience made them “joke machines,” as Robinson very seriously puts it. “Every time we needed a new joke or something wasn’t working on set, it took them like 10 minutes to come up with pages and pages of alternatives. And they all worked!”

But Robinson’s role wasn’t about “out-joking” anyone. Instead, she saw her contribution as helping deepen the emotional and thematic world of the show to complement Kronengold and Shaw’s core strengths. “The thing I was most excited about was just holistically — who are these characters? Where have they been? Where are they going? What are we trying to say with them?”

And as Adults evolved, Robinson helped frame its episodes, not as rigid narratives, but as linked emotional beats — each one orbiting a central question, “What does it actually mean to grow up?”

Defining “Adulthood” 

That central question became the show’s thematic spine. “It sounds trite when I say it out loud,” Robinson admits with a smile, “but we all had to agree on what adulthood even means to us.”

What they landed on wasn’t a clean definition, but rather a framework. “In your early 20s, being an adult is about wrestling with responsibility. Responsibility to yourself, your friends, your job. That’s muddled and confusing when you’re young. That confusion became our north star.”

Originally, the show had a different title — Snowflakes. Robinson liked the self-awareness in that. “It was kind of a tongue-in-cheek way of saying. ‘yes, it’s hard to be young,’ but also these kids are making it harder than it needs to be. They’re not bad people, but they’re kind of stupid in the way we all were in our 20s. Hopefully they’re on the way to becoming better.” Hopefully responsible adulthood will follow.

By renaming the show Adults, the team embraced that contradiction. “They don’t look like adults. They don’t act like adults. But they’re trying their best,” she notes. “And that’s what matters.”

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The Five Co-Dependent Character Cluster

When Robinson joined Adults, the five-character structure was already in place, inspired by people the creators knew in real life. But it was Robinson who helped flesh out those personalities, partly by drawing from the cast’s real-world chemistry. “These actors are actually great friends,” she shares. “They FaceTime each other, go out to eat, and kind of behave on set the way they do in the show — stacked on top of each other, constantly touching. That closeness was inspiring.”

Each character holds their own distinct point of view:

Issa (Amita Rao) is bold and crass, but gets things done like getting into a rave by flashing. “She’s incredibly front-footed, strong-willed, but also deeply vulnerable,” Robinson says. “She often contradicts herself, which makes her feel so real.”

Samir (Malik Elassal) is soulful and anxious. He’s an overthinker, pondering the vagaries of perpetual unemployment and his love life. “There’s a fear in him — ‘Am I doing life right?’ He’s clinging to adolescent ways but desperate to be taken seriously.”

Paul Baker (Jack Innanen) is the journeyman and newest addition to the group. “He’s easygoing. Nothing needs to mean anything, which is such a contrast to everyone else.”

Anton (Owen Thiele) is the showman and everyone’s bestie. “He wants to be liked, to be wanted, but would probably rather be alone. He’s the quiet critic of the group, watching his friends make mistakes with love.”

Billie (Lucy Freyer) is the careerist and fears that she’s peaked too soon. “She’s obsessed with adult approval,” Robinson explains. “She wants to feel like she’s contributing and on the right track — again, something I completely relate to.”

Issa (Amita Rao) Photo by Pari Dukovic/ FX

Despite their distinctiveness, Robinson acknowledges they sometimes blend, just like real friend groups do. “I think they’re so distinguished, but they also sing together. They’re in conversation with each other throughout the season.”

They are constant works in progress brimming with ideas – most of them bad. But they always show up for each other.

When asked whether there’s a central character — the nucleus of the group — Robinson resists. “I hate that I’ve even thought about this,” she laughs. “But what’s been cool is how different people respond to different characters.”

One friend sees themselves entirely in Samir, another is convinced Issa is their spirit animal. “It becomes this Rorschach test, depending on how someone lived their 20s — or is living them.”

And for Robinson herself? “If I had to choose which character I most resemble…  I’d say Samir. There’s a line in the pilot, something like, ‘Everyone told me to grow up, but now that I’ve grown up, everyone’s annoyed I’m here.’ I felt that deeply.”

Still, she relates to Billie too. “I was obsessed with work in my 20s. Career was everything.”

For all its humor and absurdity, Adults treats its characters with tenderness and respect — even when they’re being completely ridiculous. “They’re figuring things out. They’re collecting experiences,” Robinson notes. “They’re not asking the right questions yet like, ‘Am I a good person?’ but they’re growing.” It’s a process.

And that, to her, is the point. “Adulthood isn’t a fixed destination. It’s a slow, meandering, often humiliating journey. You hope you’re better tomorrow than you were today.” Some argue, it’s over-rated.

In that way, Adults doesn’t just speak to young people — it speaks to anyone who’s still trying to get life right. In other words, all of us no matter your age.

[More: Stefani Robinson On ‘What We Do In The Shadows’ & ‘Atlanta’]

by Staff Writer

From our in-house editorial team.