Adam Scott gets interviewed by DETAILS magazine

Parks and Recreation's Adam Scott

Now that the 38-year-old Parks and Recreation star has landed his first lead in a feature film—this month's Friends with Kids—what's he thinking about? Channing Tatum's ass, of course.

DETAILS: Your character on Parks and Recreation, state auditor Ben Wyatt, has to "resign in disgrace" to continue dating Amy Poehler's deputy parks director. Have you ever had to do that?
Adam Scott: I resigned in disgrace from Johnny Rockets after one day. The guy was like, "All right, so here's where the fries are," and then this fifties song came on the jukebox and he's like, "Oh, excuse me for a second," and ran over to the waiters and busboys and they started singing and doing a little dance. And then he runs back and he's like, "Sorry—every time this song comes on, we all get together and sing!" And I was like, "If you'll excuse me for a second . . ." and I left. I was in uniform—a paper hat, the whole thing. Never picked that paycheck up.

DETAILS: Did you have any food-service jobs that lasted a week or more?
Adam Scott: I delivered pizza for a summer in Santa Cruz, where I grew up. It's kind of the stoner capital of California, and we also delivered calzones, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and movies. So I'd deliver, you know, a pepperoni pizza, a cheese calzone, a Cheech and Chong movie, and some Cherry Garcia. And they would just invite me in and get me stoned. It was actually a great job.

DETAILS: Ben Wyatt openly nerds out on things like Batman and claymation. Are you harboring any nerd quirks of your own?
Adam Scott: I think that anyone my age was a big Star Wars fanatic as a kid. I also have a skill where, if you throw a movie at me, I can tell you the year it came out—anywhere from 1980 to present day, with 90 percent accuracy.

DETAILS: Okay . . . Heathers?
Adam Scott: Nineteen eighty-nine.

DETAILS: Pretty good, but IMDb also lists 1988.
Adam Scott: You know what? It was probably at Toronto in 1988, because that's in the fall—and then it came out in the spring of '89.

DETAILS: Wow, that is nerdy. So, on Parks, the cast always seems to be having a ton of fun.
Adam Scott: You don't have fun at work? You work for Details. You sit around and talk about hot dudes like Channing Tatum. That guy looks like he was sculpted out of ivory. If they made casts of asses to sell at adult stores for people to have sex with, they would use his ass. Sorry for everything I just said.

DETAILS: In Friends With Kids, you play a single New Yorker whose friends stop hanging out after they have babies. As a father of two, do you hang out only with other parents?
Adam Scott: No. But it's true that your friendships change. Me and Amy are the only people on the Parks cast who have kids, so we listen to everyone's conversations about what they're doing that weekend, and it's just like, "Fuck you, guys." Aziz [Ansari] always has to fly somewhere really awesome, do stand-up, and then hang out with some kickass people afterwards who'll all tell him how rad he is. And I'm going to a 4-year-old's birthday party.

DETAILS: You have a sex scene in which you warn Jennifer Westfeldt that you're a "grower, not a shower." Have you ever heard anyone actually say that?
Adam Scott: One time, from an actor. We were talking about doing nudity in movies. And I was like, "Now all I can do is picture your tiny flaccid penis."

DETAILS: Did you know that your cater-waiter uniform from the late, great Starz show Party Down was a popular Halloween costume last year?
Adam Scott: When we did the show, no one was watching. So a couple years later, being a thing that people dressed as for Halloween? Our minds were blown.

DETAILS: But that costume's so easy! White shirt, pink bow tie—and then everyone who wears it wins indie-cool points.
Adam Scott: So they get all the hipster cred without having to put in very much work. What's so wrong with that?

DETAILS: Step Brothers, in which you costarred with Ferrell and John C. Reilly, is another cult comedy—not everyone's seen it, but it has some diehard fans.
Adam Scott: I still can't believe I'm in that movie. It's so, so great. I remember reading the script, like, "I will never get this part, but it's going to be so fucking awesome." I couldn't believe how fucking hilarious it was. I'm saying "fuck" way too much.

DETAILS: It's okay. We're a men's magazine.
Adam Scott: Well, there you go.

DETAILS: You've done other work that's passed under the radar—anything you wish people had seen?
Adam Scott: I've done a lot of indies that just kind of disappeared. But I have to say, things that people don't see are usually shitty. Things disappear for a pretty good reason.

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