Comedian and actor Adam Devine has entered the reality arena. In “Bad Ideas with Adam Devine,” out weekdays on Quibi, Devine and his celebrity pals travel to different far-flung locations to do dangerous activities. Each episode features a new jaunt with a well-known friend. “For the most part, everyone I talked to [who appears on …
Comedian and actor Adam Devine has entered the reality arena.
In “Bad Ideas with Adam Devine,” out weekdays on Quibi, Devine and his celebrity pals travel to different far-flung locations to do dangerous activities. Each episode features a new jaunt with a well-known friend.
“For the most part, everyone I talked to [who appears on the show] was excited,” Devine, 36, tells The Post. “Because it’s not every day that you call someone up like, ‘Hey, do you want to go deep in the Amazon jungle together?’ ’”
Devine is best known for movies such as “Pitch Perfect” and shows including Comedy Central’s “Workaholics” and HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones,” co-starring Danny McBride and John Goodman.
One episode of “Bad Ideas” features Rebel Wilson joining Devine in attempting action-movie stunts with no prior training. In another installment, “Silicon Valley” star Thomas Middleditch joins Devine in the Bahamas for a hot-pepper eating contest, while “Workaholics” co-star Anders Holm and Devin drive an ice cream truck along a “death road” in Peru — complete with hairpin turns and thousand-foot drops.
“Anders said, ‘I trust you because you know my family and won’t want my children to grow up without their father,’” Devine says. “He was guilting me into being extra cautious.”
“Bad Ideas” was filmed in January and February, right before the pandemic’s travel restrictions. “I talked to Quibi yesterday and it’s a huge show for them, its doing great and I’m excited people are tuning in,” Devine says. “I think it’s resonating because people are stuck at home not getting to travel or see their friends.”
He says the inspiration for the series came from a number of his past experiences.
“Any time you’re a kid and someone has an insane idea, like ‘No, we shouldn’t jump off this bridge into this water’ and you do it — as long as no one’s paralyzed — that ends up being a story that you tell for the rest of your life,” he says.
“I’ve always had that in the back of my head. And specifically a few years ago when I was shooting [the 2016 movie] ‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates’ with Zac Efron, Zac asked me, ‘Do you want to go shark diving?’ I was like, ‘No, I don’t. But I’m trying to be cool, so, sure!’ and we went….And I remember getting back onto the boat afterwards being like, ‘This is a show.’
“Two friends going out doing something that you would normally never do in your everyday life, but you’re creating these memories that will last a lifetime.”
Devine’s daredevil streak comes in part from an incident when he was 11 and living in Omaha, Neb. He was hit by a cement truck and injured so severely he wasn’t sure if he would ever walk again.
“I think it was dealing with that situation where I was…really close to dying. And so after you see that, you realize how fragile life is,” he says. “Some people might have gone, ‘Oh, I must protect it at all costs,’ but I feel like for a lot of people who have life-threatening situations when they’re younger, they’re more fearless. Because they’re like, ‘I do only have one life to life, and I’m going to live it to the fullest.’
“That’s what I’m trying to do on this show,” he says. “I’m not trying to get hurt or get anyone hurt — but at the end of the day, I want to be an old person who has really cool old grandpa stories to tell.”
