Jack Innanen Channeled His Inner ‘Whiny Man Child’ for Big Mistakes

[This story contains MAJOR spoilers for Big Mistakes season one.]

Jack Innanen went from making people laugh on a vertical screen to bringing his comedic chops to the horizontal small screen.

The 27-year-old Canadian astrophysicist wannabe turned content creator turned actor first captured people’s attention on TikTok with his absurdist comedy skits. But once he realized he “could earn a living” doing this creative outlet he loved, he went all in.

The social media grind paid off because he eventually landed his first recurring Hollywood role in the 2024 series The Office Movers. But it was his charmingly naive Paul Baker character in FX’s Adults (which also has a season two coming) that really got people talking, including Dan Levy, the co-creator of Big Mistakes.

When Levy saw Innanen’s performance in Adults, he knew he found his Max, the oblivious boyfriend to Taylor Ortega‘s Morgan in the new Netflix crime-comedy series. The show follows two directionless siblings, Morgan and Nicky (Levy), who are blackmailed into the world of organized crime.

“The character was so fascinating to me,” Innanen says of his character Max. “I had joked that he’s like a man-child, and I was telling my mom about it and she was like, ‘Oh, you’re going to kill that,’ because I’m such a whiny man-child.”

Below, Innanen opens up about how he leaned into Max’s obliviousness in Big Mistakes, the scenes he’s most excited for fans to see, his hopes for a season two, his dream roles and his future plans with content creation on social media. He also teases Adults season two.

Having gone to college to study astrophysics, what initially sparked your interest in comedy and acting, because that’s quite different from astrophysics?

I always loved it, and I guess I didn’t really think that I could do it. And I had passions in that world and loved science, and I was like, “OK, I’ll pursue that because that’s more real and tangible.” But I had a crisis probably in my second year of university where I was like, “Oh, I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life.” So I started messing around on social media and was like, “Oh, I love this, and there is a world here I could earn a living at.” And that slowly progressed and then I moved to New York and started acting. It was a big 180, but it was kind of a slow burn in a way.

With Big Mistakes, how did you get involved in the show, and what drew you to the role of Max?

I’m such a fan of Dan, and [he’s] also just a Canadian legend and hilarious, and I’m a huge fan of [Schitt’s Creek] and everything he’s done. So I was like, no-brainer, I want to be a part of this. Then I was given the first scene with the engagement ring, and I ran it a few times and really got into it because the character was so fascinating to me. I had joked that he’s like a , and I was telling my mom about it and she was like, “Oh, you’re going to kill that,” because I’m such a whiny man-child. But I remember the little description said, “He’s an over-therapized man-child, grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, all that, but then he’s really sweet.” Then I read all the scenes and it’s just fighting with Morgan, fighting with Morgan, fighting with Morgan, and I was like, I don’t know how to make this sweet. So that was actually really fun to find a way to make him endearing and real. And I found that really fun and also really quite challenging.

Max comes across as this really unaware guy. Can you talk about bringing him to life onscreen, and what conversations you had with creators Dan and Rachel about it? 

His obliviousness is what’s also somewhat endearing but also what’s grounding. And Max and Morgan, [they’re] out of sync. They love each other, but maybe they should break up, but there is genuine love there. We talked about that, and that’s something real of having people from your high school days or earlier in your life feel like they’re grounding you, but also sometimes they’re weighing you back, so playing into that. And I think that was just really fun and not even challenging to play because that’s also all that I experienced on set. I never saw any of the other stuff. I was never on set for any of that. So it was fun that I would sometimes just read my scenes so that I could really just be in Max’s mind of, I don’t know what’s going on, why is my girlfriend being crazy? Why is she being so mean to me? Why won’t she just accept my love? So that was a strategy I tried to do, and I’m trying to really understand if it was me just being lazy or not but just to read my scenes.

You beat me to it because I was going to ask if you knew what Nicky and Morgan were up to throughout filming, or did you avoid those parts of the script to help keep Max fully out of the loop?

Being genuine, and I’m also feeling like this is a horrible actor move (laughs), but I would read it over once and then just focus on the stuff that I’m in because I couldn’t let anything else influence me. I did want to understand what Morgan was going through deeply so that I could almost push the buttons in the way that I think Max is doing unintentionally, maybe a little bit intentionally. But that made table reads really fun because I mostly just paid attention to Max and Morgan. And then all the other stuff, I’d be listening to the table and be like, “Holy shit, I forgot about that. Oh my God, whoa!”

Do you have a favorite scene from the show that you’re most excited for fans to see?  

The one that I’ve wanted to see so bad and want to see everyone experience is the penthouse getting shot up. One of my favorite things that people do and something I’m so glad that Big Mistakes did — and all credit to the writers and the creators on that — is kill people you don’t expect to be killed. So I can’t wait for that. The turn of my mom, that reveal. I’ve kind of looked at certain scenes, but I haven’t watched that because I want to experience that with people. And the bull stuff. I read in the script, pulling cocaine out of bull testicles, and I was like, “I got to see that, please.” (Laughs.) … The other one, just on a personal note, was Abby [Quinn’s] character [Natalie]. Abby plays drunk and she wants to kill herself in the last episode, and I just want to see that so bad because that’s so funny to me.

That plot twist at the end with your character’s mom, Annette, was also insane. Do you think Max knows his mom is the leader of a drug cartel? 

I might leave that no comment because I think that leaves so much room for a lot of fun, and I want the audience to take guesses. Yeah, I’m going no comment, but I want to comment so bad. (Laughs.)

If Big Mistakes gets renewed for a second season, what are your hopes for Max? 

I want to see how that relationship [between Max and Morgan develops], because obviously they’ve been thrown into chaos and the marriage and the implications of Annette [Elizabeth Perkins]. Oh, I couldn’t even think about it. (Laughs.) It makes me anxious. So I want to see that anxiety … I think it’s going to become full chaos. The curtain has dropped. The Wizard of Oz has been revealed in this way, but now you live and you’re married to the son of the Wizard of Oz. … Now that the curtain has dropped, there’s been a lot of conflict, but now I think it’s going to start getting direct, and people are going to start having their lives on the line in big ways and making big decisions. I’m excited for the stakes to get serious.

Given that you’ve really broken out in the comedy space with Adults and now Big Mistakes, is that your preferred genre? Or do you have other dream roles or genres that you would love to explore?

I love comedy. Comedy is why I wanted to pursue acting. It was comedy first and then acting as a vessel to portray that and have fun with that as much as [possible]. I also love writing so much. But it is really exciting to me to play something a little darker. And I think there’s been a lot of cool examples of comedians doing a lot of darker stuff, like the Jordan Peeles and the Zach Creggers of the world. They’re doing cool twists, and that’s something I really want to play. There’s something really fun about being a bad guy and would challenge me to find the truths in myself.

I know Adults has been renewed for another season, so can you tease anything about what fans can expect from season two?

Season two, we just wrapped on, so we’re all done and dusted. But this season explores the concept of love and relationships in your 20s. Because I think the first season was a lot about friendship, and this one, people are trying to find love. And what does that mean with friendship and with relationships? It’s really fucking funny. If they thought the first season was hilarious, they somehow even got funnier, and it was really fun to film. You just caught me after three months in Toronto living as Paul Baker, and I just forgot how much fun it was to be Paul Baker.

When it comes to TikTok, I noticed you haven’t been posting on social media as much this year. Has your relationship or perspective on content creation changed since pivoting to acting more? 

It hasn’t. Unfortunately, in some ways, acting is very time consuming, and so I don’t have time to make the videos that I want to make sometimes, and I think there’s a trade-off. Now that I’m off for a little bit, I plan to get back to it. But I don’t see me ever not doing that. That’s what I love. It started as a form of escapism or expression and what I love to do, and I see myself still doing that forever.

I do think my relationship, not with content creation, but with social media has changed in a way as well. I think social media as a whole, I’ve become a little disenchanted by. I think with the rise of AI content and slop content, and the heavy commercialization as well can be disenchanting, as well as big tech and what are you doing when you post on social media? What are you volunteering your time and energy towards? But the actual content creation and my place in it has such a truly deep spot in my heart. I was joking with my friend the other day, I was like, “If YouTube got deleted from existence, I think genuinely 20 percent of my daily happiness would be erased.” I have so much love for social media and content creation and what I do and what other people do, but, yeah, I see the world changing a little bit.

When you’re not filming or working, what does your perfect day off look like? 

It’s going to be horribly like man-child (Laughs). I would sleep in, order DoorDash, watch Minecraft videos, play Minecraft, feel guilty about that, go on a walk [and] come back home. The correct thing would be like, see friends, engage with loved ones, but it’s really just kind of bedrot. … Oh, honestly, I had that day the other day and I cleaned the hell out of my apartment through and through and felt good to live where I live. So probably cleaning and playing Minecraft and ordering food … and spending time with loved ones (Laughs).

If you had to describe what makes Jack Innanen, Jack Innanen, what would you say?

Probably the people I love, YouTube, Minecraft, OCD, low blood sugar. I feel like I’ve said Minecraft so much at the end of this, but probably that. (Laughs.) … Actually, scratch all the loved one shit. Make it just the word anxiety. (Laughs.)

A healthy amount of anxiety?

Or unhealthy. Who knows?