Jack Innanen remembers it like it was yesterday — the lightning bolt moment that made him change his life. It was shit.
It was 2019 and the Canadian native, who grew up in a town roughly an hour outside of Toronto, was attending the University of Toronto for
astrophysics. After returning from a family trip to Cancun, Innanen was studying at the school’s dark, brutalist library. It was below freezing. Snowdrifts felt waist deep. And a man walked in and poured a bucket of feceson a student unprompted.
“I was like, ‘I gotta get the fuck out of here,’” Innanen, 27, recalls. “What do you mean [school] sucks and I could get shit dumped on me? I just remember going, ‘There’s more to life than Robarts Library and problem sets.’ I can do more.”
Innanen, 27, has come a long way from that despondent life as a STEM student. With 3.3 million followers on his main TikTok page and 1.2 million on his highly beloved spam account, Innanen is best known online for his videos mocking Gen-Z’s most annoying, insufferable men — often with his signature surrealist and fourth-wall-breaking twist. It’s not uncommon to find comment sections in stitches over videos of Innanen satirizing the trappings of “performative men,” trying to shove a copy of Joan Didion’s The White Album into a pair of selvedge denim with too-small pockets or attempting to lure NYC art baddies into a date with an iced matcha latte and a neo-feminist screenplay.
But most people might recognize Innanen as the undeniable breakout star of Adults, a half-hour ensemble FX sitcom created by former-Tonight Show writers Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw and executive produced by Big Mouth comedian Nick Kroll. The show follows a group of twenty-somethings attempting to manage the chaos of life while sharing a house in Queens, New York. Innanen stuns as Paul Baker — full name all the time — a Canadian newcomer to the group who becomes integral to his friends’ emotional processing all while operating as the resident Gen-Z eye candy. The role — think sexually fluid hunk with a ’stache and a dresser full of crop tops — has earned Innanen the distinct internet honor of “white boy of the month” and a new round of devoted fans who just can’t get over that face.
With the release of Adults’ highly anticipated second season on Aug. 27, Innanen has reached the point in his career where people on the street are more interested in his TV roles than his short form videos. It’s a roundabout kind of fame that’s dominating the entertainment industry, one where stars master millions of views per day and then have to tackle the infinitely harder task — tens of thousands consistent viewers every week. But with fame on his doorstep, Innanen seems to be less focused on fighting for projects and more on setting up firm boundaries between his work and personal life. Telling the world every thought and creative whim built him a following. Now, Innanen’s on a mission to convince his followers the hottest thing he can possibly do is shut the fuck up.
“My leading mantra in life is ‘To each, their own,’’ Innanen tells me. “I don’t like being perceived, let alone discussed. So the less I say on a lot, the better. Everyone should have their own things that are just for them.”
IN ORDER TO MAKE FUN OF a character, you have to understand him. Which is why on a deceptively warm day in New York City’s Seaport District, Innanen and I trawl through the shelves of McNally Jackson bookstore for our favorites. There’s a pensive look on his face as he scans the spines and a trendy Loewe bag in his left hand. It’s all the hallmarks of a performative male crawl — the only thing we’re missing is the matcha.
“Wait, we’re getting close to the book I was going to show you,” Innanen says, thumb hovering for a moment before landing decisively on the sci-fi epic Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. He then moves with ease through the nonfiction section, pointing out personal favorites and books that have stumped him. “I read bizarrely,” he says, mouth quirked with a barely restrained smile. “I read Napoleon’s biography and start not understanding because I need some pre-cursory knowledge on the French Revolution. Then I’ll buy French Revolution books and then I’ll start reading on the history of Paris. I just get too deep.” His internet habits are equally diverse. “Reels has been my drug of choice recently. I’m a junkie,” he admits, voice mock-conspiratorial. “TikTok’s more polished and produced. My Reels is a 70-year-old man accidentally recording himself to like a Megan Thee Stallion song.”
Let’s be upfront about it. It’s doubtful Innanen would have gotten this far in his career if he wasn’t so hot — something Innanen himself thinks about. “I definitely wouldn’t have gotten Paul Baker if I [wasn’t] conventionally attractive,” he says. “But not too handsome, that’s where I live.
I went for this new season of White Lotus and the guy that got the role was the most classic Hollywood handsome. I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m a little boy.’ Of course, it wasn’t me.”
Many of his TikToks, whether they’re sketches or quick bits, rely on this level of self-awareness and self-deprecating humor. Innanen’s most popular videos make toxic masculinity and rigid political ideologies the butt of the joke, often followed immediately by quippy shirtless videos. The underlying and often reiterated vibe is that this dude respects women and works out. It’s no wonder that Innanen falls into the role of Paul Baker so easily. The character shares many of the same laid-back personality traits, Innanen’s desire to help his friends, his love of his mustache, even his affinity to lean into his physical attractiveness — all just dialed up to shine on TV and with a sprinkle of himbo charm.
“I feel like Paul Baker’s pimp in a way,” Innanen laughs. “I’m gonna slut him out for my own gain. And I think I’m [allowed]. If they want to typecast me as Handsome, Charming Guy, let’s get that going. White boy of the month? I love it.”
Life in Adults revolves around the friend group’s Queens home, owned by the jetsetting parents of Samir (Malik Elassal). The group — made up of high-strung news freelancer Billie (Lucy Freyer), chaotic diva Issa (Amita Rao), and life-of-the-party Anton (Owen Thiele) — are all at different places in love, life, and career. But the close quarters and intimate relationships mean that personal problems immediately become group issues and, as sitcoms go, quickly spiral out of control. Ensemble sitcoms live and die by their chemistry, so the cast — encouraged by Kronengold and Shaw — spend almost every waking moment together while filming. (Ironically, Innanen lives in Tribeca but films the series in Toronto.) During pre-production, the group drank margaritas in Elassal’s hotel room, went on weekend outings to hockey games, even shared their biggest secrets. (“We all have nukes on each other, and that’s a good thing in friend groups. Mutually assured destruction”). While the bonds they explore on-screen might have been scripted, the relationships have morphed into something more real. “It’s just the five of us on this very unique journey that only the five of us understand,” Innanen says. “You become incredibly close very quickly. It’d be hard not to.”
Season One saw the group desperate to help Paul Baker avoid being deported to Canada. Paul Baker, who is dating Issa, agrees to marry in order to stay in the city. But when Issa remembers she’s already in a green card marriage, Anton saves the day. The season finale ends with the entire group encouraging the newlyweds to kiss, only for everyone to realize the two are actually attracted to each other.
Sexual tension between Anton and Paul Baker wasn’t in the original pilot, but Innanen says that the relationship quickly became a bigger deal later on in the filming process.
“The second season explores the indirect aftermath of [the kiss] chewing away at different people and different relationships. It’s fun and messy,” Innanen says, laughing. “We were joking on set. Every scene [the directors] would be like, ‘OK, Jack just shoot a look at Owen.’ Every single scene, ‘Let’s just get one of Jack looking at Owen.’ But it really is a love story this season. Big feelings all come up to the surface.”
ACTING HAS BECOME INNANEN’S FULL-TIME JOB. Following the release of Adults Season Two, he’ll move on to film a recurring role in the next season of Dan Levy Netflix comedy Big Mistakes. But that means less time for Innanen to post. “I’m going through a [transitional] period. Most of my time is spent on acting work, so there’s been neglect. My relationship with social media has changed drastically. I don’t love it the same way I used to.”
But he’s still not quite sure how to navigating new fame and an online fanbase at the same time — especially since Innanen doesn’t ever think he’ll stop making videos for TikTok. “What level of [fame] I’m at right now is perfect. I don’t want anything more,” he says. “There’s something about being appreciated that’s really special. But a lack of anonymity is really terrifying to me.” When a fan found Innanen and Adults guest star Jake Shane at a Toronto Maple Leafs game, she handed them her infant. Once, while at a urinal, the man next to Innanen asked for a photo. “That’s just a disconnect,” Innanen says, scratching the back of his head. “I was like, ‘Hey man, outside. Not when I have my penis out.”
And it’s not just physical boundaries in question. Online fame means every action, every post, every decision is up for discussion. Innanen rallied his internet fandom to campaign for a spot on Season Two of the hit hockey romance Heated Rivalry. But when he was offered the role, he turned it down — sending his fanbase into turmoil.
“It was something that was really exciting, but just didn’t work out,” he says, carefully. “So much is beyond me, and I’ve learned how much. But it’s such a cool show. I’m very excited to see what they do with it. It was unfortunate.”
Since manifesting has proven successful once, Innanen hasn’t given up the practice. Right now he’s thinking about how his schedule will accommodate reading the sequel to Children of Time, the 600-page Children of Ruin. He’s also hopeful that one of his next projects will be a romantic comedy similar to Set It Up. (“I love rom coms. The 2010 Obama millennial hope core era, where those millennial [bands] like Empire of the Sun and Grizzly Bear would play in the background? That’s what I wanna do.”) But at a time when other actors might be trying to desperately avoid being typecast, Innanen seems to be relishing being the internet’s cutie of the moment. And if the only thing people know about him is that he’s hot — leaving his personal life to him — that’s a place where Innanen is happy to stay.
“Acting is deeply about your relationship with rejection, and I’ve always had a really pretty good relationship with it,” Innanen says. “With Adults, I was the guy. Same with Big Mistakes. It was meant to be. For other roles, if I’m not the guy, I’m not the guy. And that’s pretty comforting.”
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