Sitting Down With The Cast of FXX’s ‘The League’ – Part One

Great panel first off, you guys were great.

Steve Rannazzisi: It was fun! It was our first one, it was nice having Jason next to me and ride his coat tails. It was an incredible experience.

I asked this to Mark earlier, who do you think is the king of improv on the show?

SR: Um, it’s tough. Everyone has specific ways that they improvise and they have tailored the way they do it based on their characters. Nick is very quick with the insults. Paul is a genius, I mean a genius at taking loads on his face. I mean like verbal loads and than turning it positive and throwing it back at you. You will never see something get thrown to the wayside. He will throw a ridiculous pop culture reference and come back at it. Jason is well you know, when you have a character like he has when you can literally say and do anything you wantm there has to be ways to make that go wrong, but he is perfect and so quick and so smart with his choices as Rafi. Everyone has their niche.

A lot of the team names changed throughout the season, what has been the funniest to you?

SR: I still love how Ruxin has an underlying joke between Pete and I about being gay, so Pete Top Kevin Bottom is my favorite. It has always been a bone of contention between us, to me I feel like its his constant dig.

Was there a way to position yourself to get to the top portion of the name?

SR: I think that the fact that he took the time to decide which one is which, makes it even more specific and more wrong. Kudos to Nick.

Were you into fantasy football before you did the show?

SR: Yeah, I played in a league with my high school buddies before we did the show, since then we have started with these knuckleheads.

Is there any intense rivalries?

SR: Depends on who you ask, if you ask me there is, because I feel like I had besides Jeff Schaffer the most knowledge and the most experience going into this thing. But I can’t fucking put it together. Every year I shit the bed, I made the playoffs last year and I should have one this league once or twice.

How are you doing this season?

SR: I’m losing to Jeff, Aaron Rodgers has no points in through the first quarter. I’m fucked.

One of my favorite episodes is the ‘Adult Halloween’ episode where you enjoy the booze cart, do you have your own Adult Halloween?

SR: I have two kids and this was the first year that I was home for Halloween. I live here in NYC and we brought the booze cart. As long as everyone is safe, we can all have a good time.

Thank you so much for sitting down with me, it was truly a pleasure.

Stay tuned for Part Two of my interviews with the cast of The League!

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