Nick Kroll (‘Big Mouth’) on submitting season opener for Emmys: ‘It worked on all the levels we wanted it to’ [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW]

Nick Kroll understands that writing a season premiere is no easy task since it involves reminding people of what happened previously while setting up what’s to come. But with the opening episode for season four of “Big Mouth,” Kroll felt like the show really hit a sweet spot with how it came out. “This episode actually worked on all the levels that we wanted it to work on, which is not always the case with the first episode of the season,” he tells us in our recent webchat (watch the exclusive video above). The episode “The New Me,” in which the kids go off to summer camp, was recently revealed to be the show’s Emmy entry: “It was covering new ground for us, but it was also covering some real ‘Big Mouth’ stuff that felt both exactly in the realm of what we’ve come to be known for, but also new subject matter and new kinds of jokes.”

“Big Mouth,” which airs on Netflix, revolves around a group of middle schoolers who are dealing with everything involved with puberty. The two main characters, Nick (voiced by Kroll) and Andrew (John Mulaney), are based on Kroll and co-creator Andrew Goldberg from when they were friends as kids. In the show’s first three seasons, it managed to break into the Emmy race on several levels. In 2018 it scored a nomination for Best Music and Lyrics for the original song “Totally Gay,” and the next year it broke into the Best Animated Program category for the episode “The Planned Parenthood Show.” It was nominated again last year for “Disclosure the Movie: The Musical!” and the show scored a win for Maya Rudolph in Best Character Voice-Over Performance.

When thinking back on Rudolph’s win at the Emmys in September (her first of two that night), Kroll can’t help but smile and sing her praises. “I mean, it’s so crazy to think that Maya Rudolph had not yet won an Emmy. It’s kind of unfathomable because she’s literally the most talented person.” While Kroll also calls her portrayal of Connie the Hormone Monstress to be iconic, he also raved about how much everyone enjoys working with her. “We’re so proud that she’s a part of our show and has been such an incredible talent, a force and she couldn’t be just a better team player with us and do all the crazy things we asked her to do.”

In terms of the upcoming fifth season of the program, Kroll said that he looked back at the seasons that people responded to the best when drawing up the season’s story. “I think when we did the seasons on shame and anxiety, people seemed to respond to that. It gives something for a lot of our characters to function around and so this is another season with big themes to it, which is really exciting.” The season will also serve as a jumping off point for the upcoming spinoff show “Human Resources,” which looks into the world where the hormone monsters come from. “We will have a bunch of new characters coming in the monster creature world. Many of those characters are then used as a way to introduce them to the spinoff and there will be more time spent where the kids might end up back in human resources for various reasons.”