PUBERTY HELL
Woman plays boy, 14, in comedy ‘Chad’
Nasim Pedrad, unlike most adults, wanted to go back to high school.
So she created “Chad,” a halfhour comedy, premiering Thursday on TBS, about a 14-year-old boy trying to fit in. Pedrad, 39, stars as the teen — complete with the bad haircut, the lousy posture and often the bad attitude.
“I just thought it would be cool to tell a coming-of-age story where the teenager at the center of it was played by an adult who’s in on the joke and can offer that perspective that only adults can offer on why teenagers are so funny having survived it,” Pedrad, who spent five years on “Saturday Night Live” before leaving in 2014, told the Daily News.
“I thought you could push the comedy a lot farther if Chad was played by an adult. I also thought I could just disappear into looking like a little dude.”
The 5-foot-4 Pedrad joked that the actual teenagers on set towered over her. But she had one advantage over them: She’s already been through puberty.
Surrounded by 14-year-olds, that’s a huge edge.
Chad, the awkward, bumbling teen at the center of the story, is in the middle of his worst years.
“Much like me as a child, Chad definitely embodies everything embarrassing and awkward about adolescence. He knows things aren’t going great for him but he absolutely doesn’t have the tools to change it or do anything about it,” Pedrad told The News.
“He’s also deeply hopeful, which to me is where a lot of the comedy comes from. He gets his ass handed to him in every single episode but he doesn’t lose hope that tomorrow could be different.”
And like Pedrad, Chad is Iranian.
The actress was born in Tehran before moving to the United States, and Chad comes from an Iranian family. That cultural flashpoint wasn’t just an aid in retelling Pedrad’s own childhood, but a chance to create a fictional world she rarely saw on television.
“When I was growing up, I’d certainly never seen a half-hour comedy centered around a Middle Eastern family. In fact, a lot of the representation of Middle Easterners when I was growing up, and even when I started my career, was predominantly negative,” she said.
“I was so excited with this to create a Middle Eastern character that was written from an empathetic place and was funny and nuanced and flawed, and flaws that were relatable not just to Middle Easterners but to everyone.”
The fictional Uncle Hamid, who comes to stay to help out Chad’s newly single mother, is based on Pedrad’s own “incredibly, heartbreakingly sweet” father, who appears in one episode. Chad’s younger sister, Nikki, is based on Pedrad’s own sister, comedy writer Nina Pedrad, who the creator says was cooler and more mature despite the age difference.
In every sense of the word, “Chad” is a family affair.
But it all centers on the title character and the awkward, clunky, cringeworthy moments of a 14-yearold boy.
“He’s deeply selfish and superimpulsive,” Pedrad said. “But hopefully you know it’s coming from such a desperate place, especially in moments when you see him crack and fall apart.”