Bill Hader brings ‘Barry’ light to dark like the rest of us?
The ‘Saturday Night Live’ alumni was recently nominated for Emmys for his dark comedy series
The premise of Barry, by Bill Hader’s own description is “crazy.” A violent but outwardly gentle hit man falls in love with community theatre, but he still has murders to carry out. Oh, and it is a comedy. But the HBO show — created by Hader and Alec Berg — was well-received by audiences and critics as a showcase for Hader’s innovative writing and acting range.
The show received 13 Emmy nominations recently, including nods for outstanding comedy series and for best lead actor and best director for a comedy series, both for Hader. He also earned one for best guest actor in a comedy, for his hosting appearance on
Saturday Night Live in March.
Part of the show’s charm is its self-referential approach to the world of acting: The scenes at the community theatre are an affectionate send-up based on observations Hader and Berg made while developing the show by sitting in on classes in Los Angeles.
And yet, it is still a show about a killer. In an interview Thursday from Toronto, Hader talked about the future of Barry and about reconciling that darkness with the humour. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation:
Your portrayal of Barry is interesting because he is so different from many of the characters you are known for. He is reserved and a bit quieter. How did you go about developing him?
Alec Berg and I talked about the character and said if you want someone to figure out their goal and to become a human, it should probably start in a place that’s very repressed. It was all kind of story-based. You know what I mean? I approach acting through writing. But we never talked about it in terms of the guy. It’s weird.
I will say from an acting standpoint, you do get pigeonholed, you know? Especially when you come out of Saturday Night Live. You’re kind of a funny, goofy person, and it is nice to be able to take control of a bit and write your own thing and say, “I want to kind of go over here.” And hopefully, people will follow.
How did you find out about the Emmy nominations? Were you watching the livestream No, I am outside of Toronto, shooting It 2.
I just went to the gym, and then I just was about to eat breakfast and my phone started going crazy. I had forgotten the day of the nominations and I was like, “Wait, what happened?”
Did you say you forgot the nominations were on that day?
I did, yeah. I’m a little out of it because we are shooting like crazy. That’s not me not caring. That’s me just working crazy hours on It2.
The show is definitely violent and has a lot of dark themes. Is it actually a comedy?
I don’t really think about it in those terms. I mean it’s legitimately funny. I think it has big laughs in it. The premise is so crazy that we decided the way to play it was straight and kind of true to life, and to be real for the characters and real for the situations. It was more of a reflection of telling a story and making it feel real. It’s like life. Some situations were really funny, and some were really sad. For whatever Barry and these characters are going through, you want to fill that out. So to us, we were constantly just trying to honour the story.
Do you have to put yourself into a dark head space to play Barry? Or is it just another head space?
Oh no. If you saw me on set, I’m goofing around the whole time.