Warning: Spoilers ahead for the first three episodes of Not Suitable for Work season 1.
Young Gen Z men are currently facing a double-edged crisis. On the one hand, they are feeling the economic squeeze of rising housing costs and erratic job markets. Simultaneously, they are navigating a rapidly shifting cultural landscape that rightfully challenges old patriarchal norms—yet often leaves them without a clear framework for what modern manhood looks like.
While many shows (including the Emmy-winning Adolescence) about boys and young men tend to explore online incel culture or both casual and systemic misogyny, Mindy Kaling’s latest project, Not Suitable for Work, offers an antidote to the dour depictions of toxic masculinity. Created by Kaling, the new Hulu comedy series follows five work-obsessed 20-somethings struggling to find that elusive work-life balance in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood.
Living across the hall from investment banker AJ (Ella Hunt) and aspiring celebrity stylist Abby (Avantika), best friends Davis (Will Angus), Josh (Jack Martin), and Kel (Nicholas Duvernay) represent a trio of archetypes that any Gen Zer will recognize. There’s Kel, the struggling artist who abandons a stable career to pursue his true passion; Josh, the nepo baby suffocating under his father’s shadow; and Davis, the classic finance bro holding onto outdated views about women.
“I often see these stereotypes that Gen Z are lazy or extremely online ‘screenagers,’ and as someone that works with young actors, writers, showrunners, production assistants, that could not be further from my experience,” Kaling tells Teen Vogue. “Part of the reason I wanted to make this show was to shine a light on the qualities I see in young people today, like their ambition and resilience and longing for a time where they live in the real world, not online. Young people today work a hundred times harder for a fraction of what was available when I was their age for example, but you don’t always see that portrayed in media.”
“I feel the same way about these male friendships,” Kaling continues. “To portray an average Gen Z male friendship as toxic would be getting it wrong. It was easy to develop this dynamic on screen because we saw it in real life. This kind of open-hearted, supportive relationship is one of the best things Jack, Will, and Nicholas bring as people to this show.”
Over the course of eight episodes, as they support each other through personal and professional misadventures, the guys are not afraid to talk about their feelings—or to call each other out when one of them crosses a line. “The writers do such a good job of setting these [scenarios] up, because there’s friend groups like this,” Angus says. “There are people like this that don’t call each other out and that have these viewpoints.” As much as NSFW is a heightened comedy, Martin adds, the show still feels “true to life” because Kaling “nails the kinds of people who really live in these places and how they interact with each other.”
Below, the men of NSFW open up to Teen Vogue about playing out a surprisingly rare non-toxic depiction of male friendship, and what they think the new sitcom has to say about coming of age as a man in today’s culture.
Nicholas Duvernay: Obviously, Kel quits med school to pursue acting. I’ve been an aspiring actor. I’m still an aspiring actor, but [I’ve been through] the process of learning how to audition and what casting calls are legitimate. [Kel] ended up selling his likeness, because he thought he was going to get his big acting break. You really have to be in [the industry] for a certain period of time to find the things that are legitimate. You have to work the odd jobs. You have to wait in long lines just to not get seen. So it was odd for me—it didn’t really feel like I was acting when Kel was an actor. There was an ease to it for me, and a little PTSD for sure, because there were some difficult times. [Laughs.]
Jack Martin: Where I went to high school and college, [there were] very competitive environments where people are very concerned with where they end up and the status of that. When you’re in one of those worlds, it’s all-consuming and around you all the time. Josh feels like a character from that world, and it feels very familiar. Post-grad, becoming an actor, is totally different. But for what this show is about, in Murray Hill, it’s very accurate and real to that experience.
Will Angus: I think all these characters are pretty much relatable, at their core. This is a big transitional phase in their lives. They have this exact idea of what their life's going to be like. I had that with my life where I knew exactly what I wanted to set out to do. You think you know everything and you have your future figured out, and you really don't. A big part of Davis's arc is that he has a desire to be a career-oriented, high-functioning workaholic—always on, people always liking him. He sets out to do that at the beginning of the season, and it doesn't exactly go his way. Life doesn't work out how you think it's going to work out.
ND: Kel understands Davis’s longing for love. We see Kel teeter-tottering—he likes a girl, doesn’t really know how to approach her, doesn’t know how to necessarily talk to her. I think that’s something he and Davis share. Meanwhile, [Davis] is over here booed up the whole time with different girls, so he knows how to do that. Kel and Davis specifically share the awkwardness or not knowing how to get the girl, but we have that longing for love throughout the whole season.
JM: When Josh is with Kel, there’s a real sweetness to it; there’s real heart to it. Kel is such an eminently good person, and Josh wants to be a good guy so bad. At the end of the day, Kel is a much better guy, actually, so Josh feels that deep down and wants to understand that and maybe get some of it from him. Josh sometimes feels like a mentor or teacher to Davis. [Laughs.] What’s funny is that he’s a baby who doesn’t actually know nearly as much as he thinks he does, but there’s a lot of scenes where he’s explaining something to Davis like he knows better. That’s exclusive to [Josh’s relationship with Davis] for some reason.
WA: Davis gets TLC from Kel. Kel’s so sweet with him and gentle with his emotions and how he needs to approach life, so it makes Davis more empathetic, more in touch with his emotions. But then he goes to Josh. I feel like Josh is way more blunt with him, and Davis does actually see Josh as a mentor, just a little. He sees him as this guy who’s high-status and smart. Those are two things that Davis very much values.
JM: I think he’s a beautifully written nepo baby. [Laughs.] He’s very accurately depicted where he really doesn’t want to be a nepo baby; he wants to be better than that. But, of course, like most of them, he does want it. He wants the benefits from it. At the end of the day, when he realizes he’s not going to get the Wes Dryden job, he does name-drop his dad because he would rather do that than not get the job. So he doesn’t want the association, but he also really wants the association. I really enjoy satire of rich people. It can be really funny. And even though it’s a very different show, a character that I looked to as inspiration a little bit was Kendall Roy in Succession, because I think he deals with a lot of the same dynamics that Josh does.
ND: Kel is living as an actor. He wants to be accepted. He wants people to like him. No one likes being told that they can’t do anything. So he goes into this classroom, and these little girls are telling him that he’s set up to be the worst substitute teacher they’ve ever had. He feels under-qualified as a med student, as an actor, and now as a substitute teacher. So he’s like, “Why does everyone think I’m so incapable of doing anything? I’m going to be good at this. I’m going to read all the books, even though I don’t really want to read Jane Austen. I’m going to drink the matcha, even though it tastes like dirt.” He really goes full-on to prove to others, but also to himself, that he can fit in somewhere. Even with his roommates, he’s caught between two worlds. These guys get on, but Kel comes from a very different place [socioeconomically and culturally]. So I think [because of] the isolation overall in his life, he had to go fully on this to find something that he could be good at.
WA: I see Davis as a fraternity guy who went into getting funneled into a finance job in New York. I know so many guys that went down that same path. The difference is Davis has these friends who care about him and the people around them, so he’s able to unlearn these behaviors because of his friends. I had the same concerns, actually, when I was looking at the pilot. I was like, “Oh, he seems like this fratty, douchey guy. I don’t know if I really understand Davis.” But then you start to peel the layers back, and you realize it’s a personality he’s projecting, because he feels like, for some reason, that comes along with the status of being this alpha male workaholic guy. But those things don’t have to coexist.
JM: The world has changed. What the Murray Hill world is all about, to me, is that these people are entering an elite world that’s supposed to give them the keys to the kingdom, and then that’s not what they get at all. I think that’s very representative of at least that pocket of the Gen Z experience.
WA: In general, there’s the perception that male friendships are very reserved and [men] don’t share with each other. That was actually never my experience. I felt very connected with my friends, but I’ve seen that [other] version on TV—with people scared to talk to each other and make each other feel better. So it’s great to see. I feel like they do a really good job of showing the experiences I had with my friends.
ND: Just to piggyback off a little bit of what they beautifully said already—there’s this idea that guys don’t share their feelings with each other. These guys [in NSFW] go to dinners just to cry, and they’re very in touch with their emotions. Especially in this day and age where you have hypermasculine [ideals], the manosphere, and those things being pushed out there—which maybe is where Davis came from, the things he used to hear, or some of the people he used to hang out with—[it’s important to have] this group of friends and be able to talk about feelings. They create a safe space for each other so that [outside] noise doesn’t feel more normal and more affirmed in today’s society. They still have that place where you could say, “No, that is weird. We shouldn’t talk like that,” or “We maybe shouldn’t do that.” I think they do a great job of creating a safe space for each other.
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WA: I had the similar experiences every kid does, but weirdly enough, I went to an all-boys school and I feel like that helped us, more than anything, not concern ourselves with masculinity. There was never the social pressure to be masculine, to be alpha. I’m not sure why. I would have to think about it more. But as you get older, you realize it just doesn’t matter.
JM: Especially when you’re a teenager, as a guy, you get put in situations where you feel like you need to puff your chest out and seem like more of a man. As I’ve gotten older, it just seems so stupid to me. It’s such a waste of time, and, also, [trying to be overly masculine] is very obvious when you think it’s not. So I really try to just not concern myself with whether something is masculine or not.
ND: I always grew up having really long, curly hair. Somebody would come up behind me like, “Excuse me, Miss.” And I was like, “Yo, what do you mean Miss? I’m a guy, clearly.” Grappling with that as a young man taught me that someone else’s idea—their perception—of you doesn’t define your masculinity, and neither does your outward appearance or even fashion. Today, we did a photo shoot and I was in a crop top. There’s still those little [voices] that fester inside of you based upon how your dad or your grandfather talks [about masculinity]. You’re like, “Can I wear a crop top? Is that okay?” But just wearing what feels good to you, doing what feels good to you, staying true to yourself, getting away from societal norms is important. It’s imperative in a generation that is obsessed with defining what masculinity is.
WA: It was really fun. The part I enjoyed the most was I would constantly have to go back to the makeup trailer, so I would see in real time how they’re progressing my allergy. I’m actually allergic to shellfish, so it was quite easy to get into character. They had to do fake shellfish on set just because of that, actually. But it was in the top-3 fun parts of the shoot for me. Every time I saw myself in the mirror, I would forget what I looked like, that this is what [my co-stars] have been staring at the whole time. I’m beet red, and I’m drenched in sweat. So I’d get a good laugh out of that whenever I’d go take a break.
ND: Yeah, it was ridiculous. I don’t know how they found a take where I wasn’t laughing. Every single take, I broke. I felt so bad. Will made it so unbelievably hard, especially when he’s slurping this weird coconut water and marshmallow concoction. It was ridiculous. I feared for my job, because I was like, “They’ll think I shouldn’t be doing a comedy if I can’t not break.” But it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen.
JM: I couldn’t agree more. It’s all of our favorite scene for a good reason.
WA: I don’t particularly have a question I want answered, but I am dying to see what a date between Davis and AJ looks like. Because, in my mind, it is a disaster, and there’s no way it goes well. I have a feeling they’re going to start off on the wrong foot. It can’t go well. It won’t!
JM: I want to meet Josh’s mom. Meeting his dad and showing Josh and his dad together revealed a lot about why he is the way that he is, and seeing his mom would do a lot as well.
ND: I would love to see what it looks like if Kel’s parents supported him [as an actor]. Also, I would love to see Abby and Kel go on a date and see how that goes. I think it’d go well. I don’t know if they’re right for each other, but we’ll have to see.
JM: We have that story about Davis passing out on the lawn in college and Josh saving him. I think that’d be really funny to see. Post-grad in New York, especially in a place like Murray Hill, basically is college again.
WA: I want to see the first time they all met, the first time they all went out. I want to see Josh’s reaction to seeing his worlds collide.
ND: Not to piggyback off of Will, but that’s exactly what I was going to say—just seeing the origin of the group that we know now today. I think the audience and us [as actors], we would all appreciate that [backstory]—how it happened, where it happened.
WA: What if Kel didn’t like Davis right away?
ND: Exactly. He’s like, “Bro, your friend’s kind of misogynistic.” [Josh’s] like, “No, get to know him.”
ND: Off the cuff, I think Kel probably saw Davis’s heart. It’s undeniably massive in all of his actions. He is a very heart-forward person, and sometimes, you’re like, “What is happening [to Davis]?” But it is because his heart is leading him, and that’s something that Kel appreciates. Kel’s very in tune with his emotions and how he feels, so he appreciated that in him.
WA: I think that Kel is someone that is impossible to dislike, so Davis immediately liked Kel. It was probably just Davis kept getting in his own way in terms of Kel liking him.
ND: And now we’ve already made it that Kel didn’t like Davis!
WA: Yeah, I just decided. [They all laugh.]
