Adam Pally knows his bros. He bro-ed up the medical field on “The Mindy Project” for the past two seasons as Dr. Peter Prentice and, before that, he introduced America to the gay-bro, playing Max Blum on the sitcom “Happy Endings.”
So it must have come as a relief that, in the new movie “Slow Learners,” he plays a total nerd. With a little digging, Pally found some common ground.
“In my real life, I’m actually quite shy,” Pally, 33, admits. “It takes a little bit of time to get to know me, and I kind of put up a bunch of barriers, one of them being a very overtly outgoing persona.”
In the romantic comedy, which premieres Monday at the Tribeca Film Festival, with no theatrical release date yet, Pally plays that shy guy: a sad-sack high school guidance counselor who decides to snap out of his lame life and try out a fast-paced summer full of alcohol, sex and trendy clothes.
“I thought of the character as what would have happened if I got into some kind of car accident and all my ambition was gone, and I just was, like, very content,” says Pally of his character’s original demeanor.
The New Jersey native, who lives in LA with his wife and two kids, doesn’t know much about complacency.
He’s wrapped up his time on “The Mindy Project” and now has a deal with ABC to write and produce projects. He’s also starring in the 2016 comedy “Dirty Grandpa” with Zac Efron and Robert De Niro.
But first, in “Slow Learners,” he’s pumped to be playing a romantic lead, something he never saw in his future. In fact, as a writer, he didn’t see himself acting at all, let alone in a rom-com, a genre of which he’s not particularly a fan.
Although, he says, “I like drinking wine with my wife on the couch and watching a movie like that.”
Maybe he’ll warm up to the genre too, since, after all, he can be a slow learner himself.
“I tend to learn things after I do them. I’m kind of impulsive. Like, I’m learning marriage and kids is hard,” he says, laughing.
“[And] I’m still learning my limits,” he adds. “I guess I’m always kind of evolving my limits on alcohol and drugs. I’m always like, ‘Oh, that’s too much. Now I know.’”
For tickets: tribecafilm.com, 866-941-3378. Screening at Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas (260 W. 23rd St.) and Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11 (102 North End Ave.).