Is Big Mouth actually based on the life of Nick Kroll? The American actor co-created the series and voices a character called Nick who is loosely based on himself - but as the hormone monsters and other surreal elements suggest, Big Mouth isn't a straightforward autobiography. As it turns out, Big Mouth is a tale of two stories - one about Kroll's upbringing, and one about the modern puberty experience.
Set in New York, Jenny Slate, Ayo Edebiri), Jay Bilzerian (Jason Mantzoukas), and Matthew MacDell (Andrew Rannells).
Big Mouth was inspired by the experiences of Kroll and his childhood best friend, Mulaney voices Andrew because Goldberg (below left) isn't an actor, and also because Mulaney is Kroll's long-time comedic collaborator.
A December 2020 report (via Netflix series:
"For every eczema-riddled short guy, there was an acne-smothered wet-dreaming giant, or an asexual unwieldy-breasted loner, or a wispily-mustached smelly jock. Every adult on earth has a puberty story. The trick was to construct a room where those stories could be told."
Kroll has explained that Big Mouth season 3 onward focuses less on his own background and more about what it's like to be a modern kid. The edgy comedy aligns with the times, and so there's a naturalistic feel to the various storylines, even if older viewers may be shocked by the "provocative discussions" that Kroll and company hope will resonate with viewers. Thematically, the Big Mouth says that the show is applicable not just to puberty, but to struggles that people experience throughout their lives: "Kids who are around 12, 13, 14 years old are a great proxy for what all of us are trying to parse through this - that everybody's just trying to figure it out."