Adam Carolla is making his feature directorial debut with Road Hard. In Road Hard, Bruce Madsen (Carolla), after his movie and television careers have run dry, is forced to go back on the road playing one dingy comedy club after another. While trying to revitalize his career, rekindle his love life and put his daughter through college, Bruce knows one thing for sure – he must get off the road. Road Hard is the story of that journey.

So I’ve read that Lakers is your middle name?

Adam Carolla: It says it on my driver’s license and just about every official document like mortgages and health insurance and things like that. The moral of the story is if you don’t have a middle name, and I don’t have a middle name, and you go to renew your driver’s license and there’s that box that asks for a middle name, you can write whatever you want in that box and hand the paperwork in. From that day forward, that will be your name on every official document – your passport, just everything. The system turns out to not be that bright at the DMV. We don’t skim off the cream of the crop and send them over to work at the Van Nuys DMV.

When you were in The Groundlings, is that when you realized you were funny and could make a living from being funny? Was it earlier or later than that?

I was never a Groundling. I went through [the classes] and then I was asked to leave. With The Groundlings, it takes a number of years to go through the process and at a certain point, they either invite you to become a Groundling or they ask you to leave and they showed me the door. It’s hard to realize you’re funny when the funny people are telling you to leave, but I got a lot of good training out of it.

It’s like when they showed the auditions of famous people who auditioned and were rejected for Saturday Night Live. You just never know what people are looking for?

People have a pretty good idea oftentimes – and Jimmy Kimmel is pretty good at this-he found me, he found Carson Daly – but he’s been wrong about some people. It’s a tough game to figure out everybody who comes through your studio, or your theatre or whatever.

I always laugh about when I was doing my Terrestrial Radio show. We had three guests that our program director complained about the most: Zach Galifianakis, who had just said was comic death; Louis CK, who he just couldn’t figure out why we had him on the show, why we thought he was funny; and then we used to have Joel McHale who used to come by once a week to do a Talk Soup update. My program director just wanted them all to go away, but they’ve all gone on to make a decent living in comedy.

When I started doing my radio show, I said, “how about I do this radio show with my good bud Jimmy Kimmel?” And they said, “but he’s a behind-the-scenes guy.” So people can be wrong on these occasions. Not that I would have made a good Groundling. I’m not making that argument. You just never know.

I get asked a lot about how to make it big. Well, I haven’t made it big so when I know, I’ll tell you. What’s your advice for people who are trying to make it in comedy, writing, acting, music, whatever?

Be realistic and assess your ability for good and bad, because you may have nothing to offer. There are many people who decide they want to do something. I want to sing. I want to paint. I want to do comedy. Realistically, what can you bring to the party? So you’re funny. Are you funnier than the 10,000 comedians who are currently doing comedy? Are you funnier than 5,000 of those 10,000? Everyone wants to do something. I want to be in a rock band, but I can’t sing, so I do not attempt to start a band. That would be a waste of my time and a waste of time for anyone who came to see me. I wish I could dance. I wish I could speak a second language. There’s a lot of stuff I wish I could do, but I’m going to be realistic.

Whether you are going to write the next great American novel or you’re going to start a band or tell jokes or give Bradley Cooper a run for his money in the acting department, ask yourself, “what are your abilities? Do we need you?” What do you have to offer? I could say that if you wanted to open an Italian restaurant. There are 80 places that serve Italian food. Will you do it better than them? If the answer is no, then I would say to not open the restaurant.

On the other hand, if you’ve got something to say or you’ve got something to write or you’ve got something to sing, then by all means try it. My kids will watch the Olympics. When I ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they tell me they want to be in the Olympics. The next day we’ll watch Dancing with the Stars and then they’ll want to dance for a living. Then we’ll watch The Voice and they’ll want to sing. They see a race car and they want to race cars. They watch an astronaut movie and they want to be an astronaut.

Let’s not carry that behavior into adulthood. It’s really easy to watch a movie and think that’s pretty cool. The question, though, is can you do it? All kids point at the TV or billboard or see Beyonce belt out a number and think, that’s for me. Forget about what’s for you. What about us? I don’t mind watching Beyonce. I might mind watching you. So just be realistic.

Speaking of your kids, do you think you will try to steer them away from the entertainment industry? Or when they’re older and they want to work in entertainment, would you encourage that?

When I was starting out, nobody steered me away from anything. When I started out, there were a handful of jobs in entertainment. When I was at The Groundlings, the only place to go was Saturday Night Live. There’s no “College Humor” or “Funny or Die” or YouTube or whatever. Hell, there were only three TV networks then. I worked with a bunch of talented people and we all wondered where the jobs were. Now, there are 10,000 shows. My kids could be in show business on some show we’ve never heard of that’s on AMC4 which is only on the Internet and can only be seen on Blackberry devices, but they could technically make $39,000 a year in show business.

Half the people I know are on some show doing something, but they might not be getting paid. With the Internet and podcasts and YouTube, it’s all so vast now. It’s like my son asking me if he could make it to the NBA. No, but what if the NBA had 2,000 teams and most of them sucked? The team out of Sacramento might have a 5’11” center who’s slower than crap. Sure, maybe you can make it in the NBA, but what exactly is the NBA in this 2,000 team universe.

You’ve dipped your toes into politics. Is that something you might pursue later?

I’m not interested in politics. I’m just interested in opinions. People present problems and I present a solution and all of a sudden, it becomes this political statement. I’ve never thought of myself as political. Gavin Newsom might come on my podcast and make these proclamations. I’ll tell him what he needs to do and then I’m suddenly making these political announcements when all I’ve really talked about is family and education. I go on the Huffington Post and they ask about the school to prison pipeline. Then I ask, “how about family and education?” They’ll say, “that will never work” and I’m asking “really? You don’t think that will make an impact on the school to prison pipeline?” People always think it’s more complicated than just family and education. People should focus on family and education for a decade to see if it works, to see if it affects the school to prison pipeline.

I’m not political. I’m just telling you what the truth is. Everyone likes to politicize what used to just be just common sense or logic. I might say, “if you can’t afford kids, then don’t have kids.” Then people cause an uproar over something that until recently, everyone had agreed upon. If you can’t feed your 10 kids, then don’t have anymore kids.

Road Hard is your directorial debut. What surprised you pleasantly and/or unpleasantly about the directorial process?

It’s surprising how little there is to do in directing – and I co-wrote and directed it and I was just about in every scene. It’s kind of hard to direct it when you’re in it. You’re always kind of directing yourself anyways when you’re acting. This wasn’t Gone with the Wind or anything, but it’s a nice comedy. I find if you work with people who are very competent, and there’s a lot of really competent actors in this movie, and you give them good material, directing really just becomes more about organization. It’s like, you’re David Koechner. You’re a really funny comedic actor. You’re Jay Mohr. You’re David Alan Grier. You’re Diane Farr. You’re Larry Miller. You’re all really good at what you do and you have 500 years of experience under your belt. Here’s the material. I’ll give you a suggestion and you run with it. You’re good and I don’t need to sit there and coax a good performance out of you.

When the material is there and the acting is there. It’s like asking how hard is it to be a school teacher when all of your students have straight As and everyone has state-of-the-art laptops that were donated. It’s not that hard. And that’s basically how directing Road Hard was for me.

Road Hard releases in select theaters nationwide and all digital platforms on March 6.