Born and raised north of the river, the 28-year-old comedian, actor and writer moved east a few years ago — and it’s probably the furthest he’ll venture from home.
“I wish I could be one of these people who’s like, ‘I’m going to go live in Spain for a year.’ I’m not,” Reich admits at a hip coffee shop around the corner from his flat, sipping on an iced latte despite the dropping temperature. To cope, he’s sporting a red Vivienne Westwood scarf over a simple black jean jacket and white T-shirt.
To his credit, Reich did once try out New York City for a month and a half in the early days of his stand-up career. He’d grown up a fan of movies and shows set in the Big Apple — “Frances Ha,” “Girls,” “30 Rock” — but it didn’t live up to his expectations. “Because I was kind of this pretentious teenager, I was like, ‘I gotta move to New York in my 20s, it’s going to be fucking incredible.’ And then I eventually went and I was like, ‘This sucks.’ They didn’t get me!”
Luckily, Reich’s hometown has provided the perfect backdrop for “It Gets Worse,” the comedy series he wrote and stars in that also marks A24‘s debut U.K.-made show. “Everyone I’ve ever met is here,” he says of London. “It’s perfect.”
Judging from our one hour at the coffee shop, this isn’t that much of an exaggeration. Reich is approached twice, once by a friend and once by a stranger, both gushing with praise about “It Gets Worse.” “I haven’t laughed out loud like that in ages!” a 20-something girl excitedly tells Reich. “Amazing work.”
When we meet, the show has been out in the U.K (via Channel 4) for just six days, but Reich has already been surprised by the enthusiastic reception and rave reviews from The Guardian, The Times and more. And on Friday, it will premiere across the pond on Paramount+. “So far it’s been such a nice, warm reaction for a show that is, I would say, at points really unbearable to watch,” Reich says with a laugh.
Inspired by his favorite American shows, including “Girls,” the comedy follows three best friends and roommates — Ethan (Reich), Abi (Emily Fairn) and Sam (Olive Gray) — as they navigate their 20s in London after moving out of their shared flat. It possesses that dry, awkward, self-deprecating British humor that is clearly shared by its author, along with a healthy dose of pessimism (as is implied by its title). The result is a hilarious, all-too-real depiction of the existential angst that has come to plague Gen Z-ers across the globe.
“The show is meant to be about three characters who see themselves as main characters in a TV show about themselves,” Reich explains. “And they’ve grown up watching all of this stuff about how being in your 20s in a big city is mean to look, and they’re failing to do it.”
Ethan is looking for love in all the wrong places while refusing to look for a job; Abi is doing everything to convince herself to stay in an unfulfilling relationship out of longing for a traditional life; and Sam is a struggling writer who finds herself sharing an apartment — and a lover — with her ex. In short, adulthood isn’t what they thought it would be.
“It’s this pseudo intellectual, kind of self-aggrandizing thing of, this has to be romantic in some way,” Reich says. “It’s people living for the plot, and it’s like, there is no plot, sweetheart. This is your real life.”
Was “It Get Worse” based on Reich’s real life? Yes and no.
“My friends find it funny when I say it’s not, because they’re like, it obviously is. But it’s not true events,” Reich says. Ethan, Abi and Sam aren’t based on real people, but are instead “sort of different versions of me,” he adds. As for Ethan’s love life: “That’s based off like, 50 people — an amalgamation of some of the most inaccessible kind of bisexual men that I’ve thrown myself at in the most desperate ways. All of whom I’m still friends with.”
Beyond the three main characters, “It Gets Worse” also features an eclectic ensemble with some of the most impressive cameos in recent TV memory: There’s Andrew Scott as a hot therapist, bestselling author Zadie Smith as the show’s narrator and voice of reason, artist BabyMorocco as a douchey DJ, “Chicken Shop Date” host Amelia Dimoldenberg as an annoyingly nice it-girl and “Inbetweeners” star Blake Harrison as a quirky lodger Ethan’s mom takes in. Reich even recruited “Girls” creator Lena Dunham to play the Millennial girlboss at Abi’s office, who has become — in a plot twist 13-year-old him would not believe — a mentor of sorts.
The two met after Dunham watched a recording of Reich’s breakout Edinburgh Fringe Festival comedy show “Literally Who Cares?!” in 2022 — before it was picked up for HBO Max. “I get a call being like, ‘Lena Dunham’s written a part for you,'” Reich recalls. “I literally fell to the floor. I couldn’t believe it.”
That part was in “Too Much,” Dunham’s return to TV nearly a decade after “Girls” and love letter to her new life in London. Reich played Boss Gibbons, the painfully Gen-Z co-worker of Megan Stalter’s expat Jessica, in his first-ever screen acting role. “The first time I met her, I was so nervous — two seconds in, I’m screaming laughing,” he says of Dunham. “She’s just the easiest person to be around, and that whole thing was so fun.”
Naturally, Dunham gave Reich notes on the “It Gets Worse” pilot, and to his surprise, offered to guest star. “She went, ‘Oh, and I’d love to be in it if you want me to be,'” he says. “I was like, ‘What are you talking about?! Do I want you to be in it? Uh, yeah. I’m gonna write a part now.'”
Similar to “Girls,” “It Gets Worse” doesn’t shy away from sex. In fact, there’s an entire storyline based around a sex party gone wrong. But Reich insists he’s not trying to make a “conscious political statement” about sex on screen, despite reports that Gen Z could do without it.
“I just think sex is funny,” he says. “It felt to me like there was an era of very clean, sort of idealized sex scenes; almost educational on the one hand, or so eroticized that it becomes not hot on the other hand. Both of those things are great — it’s not, in my experience, how people have sex.”
Now that the series is premiering in America, Reich is anxious to see if it will be New York City stand-up all over again. (Judging by Variety‘s glowing review, it won’t.) “There is some kind of significant cultural difference in what people find funny intuitively, so that will be interesting,” he says.
But Reich is hopeful that “It Gets Worse” will get a chance for a second season — he has “loads of ideas” — just so Ethan and his friends can see how much worse it can actually get.
“No one’s gonna make it! It’s in the fucking title,” he says with a cackle. “People going, ‘Aw, do they end up together?’ Bitch, read the title of the show. No one gets what they want ever.”
However, “The worst it could get is if it gets canceled, of course,” he adds, turning slightly serious. “But it was fun while it lasted. There’s a little bit of a badge of honor, I think, for a canceled after one season show. Kind of a cult classic.”
He’s also eyeing film in the future — maybe a rom-com, though he isn’t picky. “I’d love to do anything. Please, God,” he says. “If this is my job for the rest of my life, I’ll be the luckiest boy in the world.”
