Jack Innanen

Photograph by David Urbanke

[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.

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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.

Laurie Metcalf, Elizabeth Perkins and Jack Innanen in Big Mistakes.

Netflix

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

Jack Innanen Channeled His Inner 'Whiny Man Child' for Big Mistakes