Episode 341 - David Wain

"Ten years. And it was just basically me going through the rest of my life and never shutting up about it," says David Wain about his new film Gail Dottry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. "Any time anyone's like, 'What do you got?' I'm like, 'I got this.' And then they say no, and then I'm like, 'I don't care. Let's keep pushing and just keep going.'" That persistence, Wain reveals to host Tom Papa on Breaking Bread, is the through-line of a career that began with the legendary comedy troupe The State and continues through a string of cult films that often take a decade or more to reach the screen.

The State and the Long Arc of a Comedy Group

Wain was part of The State, an 11-person comedy group that met at NYU in the early 1990s and landed a sketch show on MTV. The group's longevity is unusual. "It was a remarkable grouping of people that met in college, and we all really loved doing it," Wain says. The lineup solidified early, and decisions were made democratically—"we fought through every decision." The group officially disbanded in 1997, but the members remained a family. "We just kept being like a family," Wain notes. That bond persists today, with nearly all 11 members still working together in various configurations, including a dad band called Middle Age Dad Jam Band with Ken Marino.