Behold the The King of Staten Island Trailer From Pete Davidson & Judd Apatow

The combination of Saturday Night Live‘s most offbeat cast member, the lovable if occasionally troubled Adam Davidson and comedy’s most reliable, sturdy father figure, writer/director Judd Apatow seems like a perfect match. Apatow has nurtured the career of a slew of promising comedic talents, including Seth Rogen, Amy Schumer, and Kumail Nanjiani. With Davidson, Apatow’s steady hand has found perhaps the perfect live wire.

The two teamed up for The King of Staten Island, which they wrote together (along with former SNL writer Dave Sirus), and which features Davidson in a role tailor-made to his talents. He plays Scott, a weed-smoking 24-year old with a love of tattoos and little else. Scott dreams of becoming a tattoo artist but his skills aren’t quite there (there’s a great sight gag in the trailer that proves this). What Scott has is a serious case of arrested development, sad-laughing through life while still living with his mother Margie (the always-welcome Marisa Tomei), sanding down the edges of his ennui with weed. The trailer reveals that the Davidson/Apatow dream team looks, well, quite dreamy! There are laughs, of course, but also a surprising amount of feelings here, too.

The story of Scott is more complicated than just some loser who won’t move out of his mom’s place. His father, a New York City firefighter, died when Scott was seven. Scott’s younger sister (Maude Apatow) is heading off to college and implores her older brother to get a grip. Scott’s already aged out of the cute and careless bracket and is steadily moving into becoming a sad adult. Then his mom Margie starts dating the fairly obnoxious Ray (Bill Burr), a firefighter who dredges up all of Scott’s feelings about the force, his father, and his own life.

The cast is rounded out by some spectacular performers, chief among them are Steve Buscemi (he plays a veteran firefighter—Buscemi is a former firefighter himself) and the always fantastic Pamela Adlon.

Check out the trailer here. The King of Staten Island will be available on-demand on June 12.

Featured image: Pete Davidson as Scott Carlin in The King of Staten Island, directed by Judd Apatow.

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The Credits

The Credits is an online magazine that tells the story behind the story to celebrate our large and diverse creative community. Focusing on profiles of below-the-line filmmakers, The Credits celebrates the often uncelebrated individuals who are indispensable to the films and TV shows we love.