Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells are bloody hilarious
Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells are dangerously charming. Even over Zoom, they show up like it’s a cocktail party, both grinning and bantering, which instantly made me feel like the third (and luckiest) wheel in a well-dressed throuple (a dream come true, really). The conversation flows easily, veering from inside jokes to bloody body counts, with the kind of playful shorthand that only comes from real friendship. It’s less an interview and more like catching up with two boys you’ve been crushing on for decades and realizing, to your delight, that the crush still holds.
That warmth, wit, and perfectly timed eye-roll energy spills over into I Don’t Understand You, their new thriller-comedy about a married couple who head to Italy for a relaxing babymoon and end up spiraling into a murder-soaked, pasta-adjacent nightmare. The tone may be darker than we’re used to seeing from the duo, but don’t worry: the chemistry is still laugh-out-loud good, and the sweaters are still excellent.
There’s a moment about halfway through the film when Dom (Kroll) and Cole (Rannells) accidentally kill a man. Instead of descending into tragedy, Rannells’s character looks around, deadpan, and mutters, “We can’t keep doing this. We cannot do this when we get back to L.A.” It’s the perfect encapsulation of the film’s delicate tonal dance: panic, yes. Murder, sure. But also? Comedy.
“I think what the movie endeavors to do is to hold equal measure of both,” says Kroll. “You’re scared, and then simultaneously trying to find the humor in those scary moments. Without undercutting it, it’s just very human.”
Directed and written by Brian Crano and David Craig (who loosely based the script on their own disastrous Italian vacation and heartbreaking adoption experience) the film follows Dom and Cole as they stumble through language barriers, cultural confusion, and mounting paranoia in the days leading up to becoming parents. “It felt like we did two different movies,” Rannells says. “The beautiful Rome-y parts up front, and then three weeks in the mud and the murder.”
And yet, despite the absurdity, the story is grounded in something real. “They stay very united,” says Rannells. “There are a couple moments of friction, but they remain a team. It felt important to play a couple that wasn’t defined by a coming-out narrative or a tragic rift. They’re just…married. That’s the given. And then it gets messy.”
That messiness, which is equal parts low-stakes bickering and high-stakes bloodshed, is played with the kind of natural rhythm that only real-life friends can pull off. “We’ve known each other for years,” Rannells says. “We didn’t have to do much getting-to-know-you.”
“Andrew took care of me,” Kroll adds. “We’d take turns being the meltdown person. If he was hungry and cranky, I got him a snack. That’s love.”
It helped that the characters were modeled directly after the film’s creators. “So much of the dynamic was already on the page,” says Kroll. “Brian and David had been through this, trying to adopt, getting scammed, traveling abroad. We just got to watch them work together, see where they complemented each other, where they clashed. It was a road map.”
Also helping? A mostly Italian cast and crew, which added both real and fictional layers of miscommunication. “We didn’t speak Italian,” admits Rannells. “Nick tried. I gave up early. But that disconnect actually worked for the film. Dom and Cole aren’t supposed to know what’s going on. That’s the tension.”
“It also made the improv opportunities super fun,” Kroll adds. “The adoption video at the top of the film? We originally shot a version of that during development, and Brian and David let us run with it.” One of the film’s funniest moments—Rannells sighing post-murder, “We can’t keep doing this”—was improvised during a delirious 4:30 a.m. night shoot. “I lost it,” says Kroll. “It was the perfect tone shift. Reminded everyone this is a comedy. These are just normal guys.”
And that’s what makes the film work. For all its chaos and carnage, I Don’t Understand You has heart. “It’s about what you’ll do for the people you love,” says Rannells. “Even if that thing is…slightly illegal. In another country.”
“But seriously,” Kroll adds, “we approached it from the perspective of: what wouldn’t you do to start a family? The movie is a metaphor. A wild one, but a real one.”
So what’s the takeaway? Rannells grins. “Don’t kill anyone in Italy. Especially if you want to go back.”
Main Image Courtesy Of Vertical
