Pete Davidson’s Life Imagined Without Comedy In "The King Of Staten Island"

Ahead of the film’s video-on-demand release next month, a brand new trailer for the Judd Apatow-directed comedy The King of Staten Island, starring Pete Davidson, has arrived. 

Davidson plays Scott, a 20-something-year-old who has a general lack of ambition after his father, a firefighter, passes away during 9/11. The film follows Scott as he finally begins to deal with his grief, while also dealing with the fact that his mother has started dating another firefighter. The film stars Bel Powley, Maude Apatow, Ricky Velez, and Steve Buscemi. 

In addition to starring in the film, Davidson co-wrote the script with Apatow, which is loosely based on Davidson’s life. Apatow told Entertainment Weekly in a lengthy interview published on Friday that The King of Staten Island was built on imagining what Davidson’s life would be like without comedy.

He shared with magazine, “The movie is an imagining of what Pete’s life might have been like if he never found comedy. Comedy really was his savior, it gave him direction. And in the movie he’s someone who is flailing about, not sure what he should do with his life. He wants to be a tattoo artist but he really hasn’t tried that hard. A lot of what we discussed was how when you have a loss in your family it brings up all of these issues that take a long time to work through. By writing this movie and thinking through his life, he hopefully had a cathartic experience trying to let go of a lot of the obstacles that have complicated his life.”

The King of Staten Island is set to be released on June 12th.

Check out the trailer below and let us know if you’ll be watching the film when it drops.