By Nina Metz
Chicago Tribune

Two married couples meet for dinner and then much more in “The Overnight,” the psychosexual comedy (now in theaters) fueled by booze, pot and a few deep-seated anxieties. As the hours go by, the politesse between these new friends gets chucked aside entirely, laying bare more vulnerabilities than anyone fully knows what to do with.

The movie is the first feature-length project from the production company of Adam Scott (“Parks and Recreation”) and his wife, Naomi (a former producer on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”), and it plays out as both a reckoning with domestic boredom and a satire of Los Angeles bonhomie.

“As far as our taste goes, it was something we would want to see,” Scott said when we met over a burger while he was in Chicago last week.

Life is messy. Sometimes relationships go flat. To be human is to be absurd. But despair not: “You think this is the first time someone has yacked near the pool?” says the evening’s host (Jason Schwartzman) to his worse-for-wear guest played by Scott. It’s less a question than a breezy reassurance that all is good, vomit-splattered pool deck or not.

Oh, but for the grace of mind-altering substances goes this foursome into a helter-skelter night of (sometimes naked) adult misadventures.

“One of my favorite movies,” Scott said, “is ‘Sex, Lies and Videotape’ … it hit me at a particular time in my life where, I was 16 I think, so it just blew my mind. Because I was like, ‘What? What, what — what are …? What are they talking about?’ I didn’t understand, sexually, what it was they were getting at.” Writer-director Patrick Brice’s script for “The Overnight” wanders through similar thickets and sexual hang-ups, with Scott as an intensely wary and apprehensive participant.

In person, though, Scott has a calm affability that is offset by a knowingly dry, deadpan sense of humor: Witness the first exchange in this edited transcript of our conversation below.

Q: You worked with your wife Naomi previously on the “Greatest Event in Television History” specials for Adult Swim that re-created the opening credits from 1980s TV shows. Is that a good fit, working with your spouse?

A: Well, we’re getting a divorce …

(I laugh and hit my head on the wall behind me)

Are you alright?

Q: Yes! I deserved that, though!

A: Yeah, what are you laughing at that for?

It’s actually great. When we made “The Greatest Event” episodes, we didn’t know how it was going to go. I was directing and she was producing. So she was the person that was like, “You can do this, but you can’t do this.” Or, “You have to (expletive) hurry.” And that was great. She anticipates my needs and knows when something’s bugging me.

Like, all that (expletive) that in marriage is annoying, on a set can come in really handy. And I find it very attractive to see her bossing everyone around.

So it ended up being a great partnership in that way. And that carried over into “The Overnight.”

Q: You’re naked in the movie, but you and Jason are actually wearing prosthetic appendages.

A: By the time we put them on I was fine because there is — it’s not real. The thing is, though, now whoever sees the movie knows approximately what I look like naked. But it’s not my penis.

Q: If you’re worried about love handles, all of that is revealed.

A: Exactly. So there’s that. But beyond that, Jason and I were pretty comfortable wearing them and once we had them on, we were like,”‘Great! What do you want us to do?”

Q: And that was different than if you had been fully naked, no prosthetics?

A: Oh God, yeah. So it was not the most comfortable night of my life, but not nearly as uncomfortable as I had anticipated.

Q: One of the movie’s early jokes touches on status, which can feel especially acute in a place like LA. Did your experience of that change after you joined the cast of “Parks and Recreation” and became more widely known?

A: I had a weird reaction to it. Like, I always thought being recognized a lot would be wonderful and wanted it so badly for so long. Like, really craved it, because it’s an immediate sign that you’re doing something right — if you’re an actor and you’re getting recognized, then that means you’re succeeding. Doing it for a long time, and never getting that, can really beat you down.

When it started happening to me, the fact that it didn’t feel like I thought it was going to feel — it wasn’t that warm embrace that I thought it was going to feel like. It wasn’t that thing that made everything click into place.

Q: Validation?

A: Yeah! It didn’t feel like that.

Q: What did it feel like?

A: It feels isolating, which I did not expect. And no one tells you that. It makes you feel self-conscious and isolated and gradually I started feeling like I had a disease on my face. That’s what it really felt like, because I would just feel people looking at me. Slowly but surely it started happening and it was weird …

Therapy has helped a lot with me kind of figuring out why I would react a certain way. It’s a far more complicated thing than I anticipated. And I’m not even that famous! But I have had a whole process that I’ve had to go through.

When I’m out and people want pictures, I don’t do it when I’m with the kids. And I feel bad, because sometimes it’s young people who you feel like, if you said no …

Q: They’ll remember it.

Dude, when I was 13, Chris Elliott stopped for me and my brother and talked to us for like 20 minutes! And I remember every minute of that! Now I’m 42, and I still remember how important it was to me and was inspiring and all that. So just blowing people off … it’s a difficult thing.

Q: What about when you see someone who’s also famous but you don’t know them?

A: I’m of the mindset of: They don’t know who I am. And if they do, why would they want to say hi to me?

But just two nights ago, my family and I were out waiting for a table at this restaurant and Miley Cyrus walks in, and I saw her and I just thought, “Oh, I’m not going to. Why would I?” I mean, my instinct was to say hi but then I was like, “Wait a second, I’m not going to — why am I doing this?” And then she came over and said hello and I was so taken aback. Like, how the hell would she know me? And then I thought, “Oh right, I was on a TV show.” It was very nice, because I actually really like Miley Cyrus.

Q: Were your kids impressed?

A: They were weirdly nonchalant about it because I think, for them, they’ve grown up seeing (Amy) Poehler on the set of the show. They know Chris Pratt. So for them, it’s just like, the people on the billboards are daddy’s friends. So Miley Cyrus walking through a restaurant, for them, is not that big of a deal.

Q: Your kids are going to be insufferable!

A: I know! Because the rest of the night Naomi and I kept referring to it. Like, “Guys, how about Miley Cyrus at the restaurant?” And they were just like, “Yeah.” It was not a big deal for them.

(We start talking about something else when Scott returns to the Cyrus anecdote)

Now I feel gross because I dropped names during a story about my kids.

Q: But in a way, that’s your life.

A: I guess so. I try to avoid any of that sort of thing with them. Like, I’ve never brought them onto a red carpet or anything like that. I just don’t think that’s an appropriate experience for them. So I try to keep things very separated but also want to allow the fluidity of it being our life.

And I actually like the fact that they didn’t really give a (expletive) about meeting someone famous.

Q: That they’re not dazzled by celebrity.

A: Yeah! We were mystified by it. We thought it was so funny that they don’t give a (expletive) about this, but maybe the fact that it wasn’t a big deal was healthy.

(When ordering his meal, Scott mentions the french fries at his hotel, the Park Hyatt, were surprisingly good)

Q: That’s a fancy hotel, I wouldn’t necessarily associate them with french fries.

A: Is it fancy? It seems fancy. I just didn’t know.

Q: I would think you’re accustomed to fancy at this point in your career.

A: Well, I don’t have a good barometer for it. I didn’t grow up with fancy.

I now have been at hotels where I’m like, “Whoa! This is nice!” And then it takes me like two days and I realize: OK, this isn’t that nice, it just seemed that way. They’ve done a good job of making it seem that way, and little by little I’m noticing that this isn’t fancy.

And then I’m like: Wait, then what’s fancy?

Q: Like when they fold the end of the toilet paper into a triangle?

A: Yeah, that doesn’t mean it’s fancy but it tricks me into thinking it’s fancy.

When I got to the hotel I was like, “I think this might be fancy.” And then someone told me U2 was staying there. So I’m like, OK: It’s fancy.

Because there’s no (expletive) way U2 would stay at a non-fancy hotel.