PARK CITY, Utah (AP) ― Way, way back before they were Oscar winners, back when they were honing their skills as members of The Groundlings comedy troupe, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash started writing together.

This was even before Rash’s role as Dean Pelton on NBC’s “Community’’ or Faxon’s starring turn on the short-lived “Ben and Kate,’’ and years before they joined director Alexander Payne to co-write 2011’s “The Descendants,’’ the best-picture nominee that won the Academy Award for adapted screenplay.

Faxon and Rash were just starting out in Hollywood then when they penned their coming-of-age story “The Way, Way Back.’’ Now, with Academy Awards on their shelves and decades of acting and writing experience behind them, the longtime collaborators are making their directorial debut with that nearly 10-year old screenplay.

“While the Oscar was this wonderful experience and we’re so indebted to have been a part of ‘The Descendants,’ this felt like, well, this was also our baby, in the sense that it started everything,’’ said the bald, bespectacled Rash, 42, in an interview earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, where the independent movie premiered.

“‘The Descendants’ and the success that it had ... provided the momentum for this to happen and for us to return to things that are important to us, such as ‘The Way, Way Back,’ the first script we ever wrote,’’ the ebullient Faxon, 38, added.