Exclusive Interview with the Cast and Creators of truTV’s First Scripted Comedy, ‘Those Who Can’t’

truTV’s first full-length scripted comedy premieres this week. Airing tomorrow night at 10/9c, Those Who Can’t is about a group of high school teachers who don’t quite have it all together.

The show stars Adam Cayton-Holland, Andrew Orvedahl, and Ben Roy who are also the show’s creators. I got the chance to speak with the three of them about the creation of the show, as well as some of the things we can look forward to in this first season.

Cayton-Holland, Orvedahl, and Roy have known each other for years, and began a comedy troupe in Denver, Colorado called, “The Grawlix.” Their group later began a web series of the same name, which eventually led to them to where they are now. The web series initially focused on what it was like behind the scenes of their comedy show, but it wasn’t long before they transformed their characters into teachers.

“That’s when the scripts started getting a lot of attention. Eventually, Amazon become interested in it and we got to make a pilot for them when they were doing their original content,” said Adam Cayton-Holland, who plays the role of Loren Payton. “Ultimately, truTV sort of pounced on it after some indecision by Amazon, and they bought it, and now here we are.”

The characters aren’t the sort of stereotypical high-school teachers you’d expect to see, and they usually find themselves getting in more trouble than the kids. “In many ways, they just amplify our negative character traits. We just sort of took our worst character traits and ramped them up,” said Andrew Orvedahl, who plays Coach Andy Fairbell. “Me, for example, I’m very gullible. I’m very naïve. I’m probably not as dumb as my character on the show [laughs], but I am quick to trust people, and I’ll kind of a fall for anything like the coach Fairbell character.”

Cayton-Holland, on the other hand, described his character as “a pretentious bro,” admitting that in real life, he’s been accused of being pretentious at times.

For Ben Roy’s character, Billy Shoemaker, it all comes down to emotion. “With mine [it’s] this Pandora’s Box of emotions – of rage, and sadness, and his insecurities that Shoemaker, my character, has. I may be the closest to my own character. Other than – I don’t think I’m that mad or anything. But I’m definitely the most emotional and anxious,” Roy said.

One of the things that makes Those Who Can’t unique is the way it all started. As Roy explained, “Being in Denver and being in the middle of a very insular comedy scene, without having started in Hollywood or doing the majority outside of that environment creates a different style, much the same as comics from Austin have a very specific style.”

“I never would have envisioned that it would get to the point where now we’re making a show. It was mostly done to entertain an audience at a live show,” Roy continued.

For Cayton-Holland, their purpose hasn’t changed since the group first started out. “We can’t believe this happened. We’re happy it happened, and we worked towards it,” he said. “But it’s always been funny for funny’s sake for us. Kind of existing outside of the mainstream Hollywood thing. So it was always, what makes us laugh first? And that’s still our kind of rule. We hope that translates. We don’t care about what’s fashionable on TV or what trends are good in comedy. It just like, what are we laughing at?”

You’ll get to see a lot of familiar faces on Those Who Can’t, including Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Crazy Ones), Susie Essman (Curb Your Enthusiasm), T.J. Miller (Silicon Valley), Mary Lynn Rajskub (24), Peter Stormare (Fargo, The Big Lebowski), and Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs).

“Every time somebody new was coming into it, I was always concerned. I’m like, who’s gonna be an asshole?” Roy said. “None of them were anything but terrific to work with. Sarah Michelle Gellar was so nice, and she was gracious with her time. I mean, she doesn’t have to do this. She’s at a point in her career where she can do whatever. She was terrific.”

There was one guest appearance, however, that had the cast members particularly excited: Mark Hoppus from Blink 182. “He has a guest role on an episode, and that was the one where extras and crew members wanted autographs,” said Orvedahl.

“I love Blink 182. I always have,” Cayton-Holland added. “So when he was on set – I don’t normally pester people for photos, I don’t like to do that – but I was just like, you and I are taking a photo, and I’m posting this immediately.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen Adam fully time-warp to the nineties right in front of my face,” Roy laughed.

Each of the cast members also shared some of their favorite scenes and episodes from the first season, though choosing just one was a difficult task!

For Roy, his favorite scene overall is between the character of Loren and T.J. Miller’s character. “They have this great back and forth in the pizza shop, which will make sense in the episode, but the dialogue in the episode and the way Loren and he riff together is probably one of my favorite scenes,” Roy said. But the scene Roy had the most fun doing was something else entirely. “I got to destroy the gymnasium. And anytime, as a person, you get to destroy something – there’s nothing better.”

Orvedahl said his favorite episode was one that mimicked a horror movie. “It’s just a very different feel. We were doing it largely at night. It was very dark, very spooky,” Orvedahl said. “I’ve never been part of a horror movie production before, so for me, that was probably the most and fun and unique.”

One of Cayton-Holland’s favorite scenes comes from an episode where the teachers go on strike. “Ben’s character, Shoemaker, and Maria’s character, Abbey, are kind of like jumping up and down on the table, getting everybody fired up for the strike,” he said. “I really like that scene because you see the whole cast.”

Take a look at the trailer for Those Who Can’t here:

You can catch Adam Cayton-Holland, Andrew Orvedahl, and Ben Roy on Those Who Can’t, premiering Thursday, February 11th at 10/9c on truTV.