One of the most interesting characters in The CW’s new show The L.A. Complex — a series you should be watching, if you’re not already — is Nick Wagner, the hopeful stand-up comic who, at least at this point, has seemed to be the perpetual underdog. Nick is finally finding his footing as a comic, finally getting some laughs at the expense of his own personal misfortune.
KSiteTV spoke with Joe Dinicol, the actor who plays Nick, as the cast was shooting in a store on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles last week. This will be the first of several L.A. Complex interviews to be rolled out in the coming weeks. Don’t forget a new episode airs tonight at 9PM (ET!)
The first question, of course, is how it feels to play a comic who ends up bombing out as painfully as Nick did in the early episodes of The L.A. Complex. “It’s devastating,” he laughs. “But I think that’s what, ultimately, the good stand-up comics end up playing on. That sort of sad, desperate stuff that goes in their lives. They’re able to become comfortable with it and make it funny. So I think to see him at this point — to see people way, way before they become famous — is interesting. If he does become a successful stand-up comic, you’ll be able to see the seeds of that uncomfortable stuff that drove him at the beginning,” he explains.
“I think he starts building a confidence when he starts joking about his life,” he continues. ” I think the best stand-up comics are the ones who are the most sincerely themselves. The most honest. Whether it’s talking about themselves or their beliefs, as long as they’re honest and truly themselves in what they talk about, that’s when they find their voice. So, yeah. He talks about what’s uncomfortable, but he talks about it because that’s him. So when he’s honest, it works.”
Will this honestly bring him closer with Abby (Cassie Steele)? “I think that’s the idea,” he says. “I think that’s the way he would like it to play out. I think he thinks if he’s a good guy, and he’s honest, then eventually that will pay off, and he’ll win the girl.” Abby might not be the only girl in Nick’s future. Joe tells us that Nick Wagner is about to meet his match – a female stand-up comic who takes him to task. Could she be a potential love interest? “She could be. She could be a love interest, she could be a nemesis, she could be all of those things,” he teases.
One new character we won’t seeing Nick interacting with — at least not yet — will be played by Growing Pains’ Alan Thicke. “I haven’t gotten to work with him. He’s playing a producer and actor on a television show that one of the characters cast in. He’s sort of the patriarch both on screen and off. An overbearing family man. I hear he’s fantastic,” he says.
This week’s episode sees the characters from the show all having unique L.A. experiences that aren’t necessarily about Hollywood. “Abby and I spend the day together. Tariq and Kadrick spend the day. Everyone spends it outside of their regular Hollywood, Los Angeles lives. You see different facets of each of us,” he explains.
What else is coming up for Nick in the show’s future? “I think one of the cool things that’s going to happen for Nick is that the sort of ‘nice guy’ persona – it sort of stops working,” he says. “He gets confronted with a situation; a challenge and a bit of a competition where he has to switch things up. I think we see him go a little darker; a little edgier, and maybe have to play a little dirty. That, I’m really looking forward to playing with. I think it’ll be cathartic for people to see he’s not just a one-dimensional nice guy character. He has some edge and some guts to him, and I think that’ll be fun to see how that doesn’t work out for him,” he laughs.
Don’t miss The L.A. Complex tonight at 9 on The CW! Here’s a promotional trailer for this week’s show:
