Amita Rao on 'Adults' Season Two and the Issa-Anton Dynamic
Amita Rao, star of FX's "Adults", says she's more interested in the friendship tension between her character Issa and Anton than the romantic love triangle. The show returned for its second season on Aug. 27. Rao discusses the unsaid conversations between the characters.
Rao, 27, balances her role on "Adults" with stand-up comedy, noting that live performance offers an immediate energy exchange that television work lacks. She and co-star Malik Elassal discussed the show's "energy shift" following its premiere, recognizing something distinct in how it captured a contemporary Gen Z perspective.
The actress acknowledges that audiences frequently conflate her with Issa, a confusion she detects in how people greet her. While she understands actors become "canvases for projection," she notes the distinction would feel more uncomfortable if viewers judged her personal creative work through Issa's lens. She and Owen Thiele deliberately explored the unspoken history between their characters to ground their friendship's tension.
The show's exploration of friendship dynamics within a romantic entanglement could resonate with younger viewers navigating similarly complicated relationships, where loyalty and attraction blur. By centering the Issa-Anton bond rather than the love triangle, the series may offer audiences a more nuanced model of adult friendship under strain. Rao's comments about audience projection also speak to how parasocial relationships shape viewer expectations of performers, potentially influencing how fans engage with actors both on and off screen.