Barry 04x07 live discussion + cast interviews
Click to view• Episode 04x07 is called, "a nice meal" and its synopsis is: "I was talking about office supplies!"
• The title for next weeks series finale was revealed a few weeks ago. It's titled "wow" and the synopsis is simple: "That's it." Thanks to Succession's supersized finale, the Barry finale will air a half hour later at 10:30PM EST/7:30PM PST.
• A number of cast interviews came out this week. Hader's interviews were all conducted before the WGA strike, and out of solidarity with the WGA he will not be discussing the final two episodes of the series until the strike ends.
“I definitely do not have my finger on the pulse of what people like, but I never have. I’ve always kind of enjoyed what I’ve enjoyed,” Bill Hader says, in a new interview. https://t.co/Agv0zVOgAJ
- The New Yorker (@NewYorker) May 15, 2023
• In a new interview with The New Yorker, Hader is asked whether he had the ending for Barry planned from the beginning. Hader says no, that he had a thought for how it could end in season 2 but that "how we got there is not at all how I thought it would happen."
• Hader talks about moving to LA in 1999 with the hopes of working in film and getting work as a production assistant and a postproduction assistant, and how in the mid-2000s he realized that he hadn't done anything creative in years. He started taking improv classes at Second City LA and eventually Megan Mullally saw him perform and recommended him to Lorne Michaels. He says, "it was preschool to Harvard overnight."
• He says that working on SNL taught him how to, "talk to department heads, wardrobe people, makeup people, and production design, and how to produce sketches."
• Says the Lonely Island made him want to produce shorts for the show, but that "what [Lonely Island] liked was very good for the show, and what was in my head was not very good for the show." He points to "The Tangent" Digital Short he wrote with Fred Armisen as an example of the tone of things he wanted to make that didn't 100% work with the show.
• He speaks about finding his place within a stacked class. "The people I started with, like Andy Samberg, had whole followings online...Kristen Wiig was a legend at the Groundlings. Jason Sudeikis was a legend at Second City. Hearing what they had done, I felt incredibly outsider. I was, like, 'Oh, I've been taking improv classes for a year and a half.'" He says that his way in was impressions, and that he took inspiration from the type of roles Phil Hartman played on the show in the 80s.
• Says the first time he met John Mulaney was when Mulaney was writing on Demetri Martin's show. They went out to dinner and he saw Mulaney and thought to himself, "why does [Martin] have a ten-year-old here?"
• Is asked about leaving SNL and he remembers the press around his departure had the tone of an industry that was sure they'd never see him again.
• The discussion turns back to Barry and how many reviews and critiques of the show have focused on how the show "no longer feels like a comedy" in seasons 3 and 4. Hader says that he thinks comedy, "can hold a lot. Comedy doesn't have to be just pure hilarity and farce."
• Discusses Sally's arc a bit and her season 3 story arc where she does everything right and her show gets cancelled because of the whim of the algorithm. He's asked if he's fascinated with losers and he replies, "winners are so boring. Doing a show or a story about somebody who's rich and powerful has never interested me. But I've never seen them as losers, per se. I just see them as people getting in their own way."
• Is asked about his future projects, and how he feels about the state of movies right now. He says that in the 90s Being John Malkovich and Armageddon were on screens right next to each other in the same theater, but now theaters only show Armageddon. Says he wants to make something weird and hopefully that ends up happening.
• Says that he's happy his route to directing took so long and that he had years of working behind the scenes in Hollywood and on SNL. "I had those jobs. I know what it's like when someone at the top is miserable and yelling and screaming. It just makes everybody's life miserable. The crew and all these people, they have families and lives, and yeah, they're being paid, but nothing's worth keeping someone up for twenty hours because you can't make up your mind. I've been in that situation of driving home on no sleep because the director was a perfectionist. It really ingrained in me how you treat a crew, how you treat people underneath you. It's a stressful place. But that doesn't mean you have to take it out on people."
Bill Hader Breaks Down What He’s Learned from Directing ‘Barry’ https://t.co/fEVISnOd2v pic.twitter.com/Um8jOXRh1D
- IndieWire (@IndieWire) May 19, 2023
• Hader was on IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit podcast and discussed his evolution as a director over the past four seasons.
• He talks about how he often has a clear picture in his head on how he wants a scene to go but often collaborates with the actors and crew on set and changes it as he goes.
• He talks about shooting on location which he calls a "punishing stage" in the process, and how he plans his shots in details so they don't waste too much time shooting coverage. “I’m taking pictures the whole time with Artemis explaining to Gavin Kleintop, the first AD, ‘Here’s our coverage. We’re gonna see this and we’re gonna see this. We’re never gonna see over there, we’re never gonna see over there. So it’s all very, very planned out.” He does say this sometimes leads to going into the edit and realizing that a scene doesn't work and not having enough footage to cover it.
• He says, "where I usually get in trouble is when the visual idea gets in front of what the emotion of the scene is. So I'll do a shot that looks amazing, but you're so caught up in what's happening with the characters that it doesn't really matter."
• Says that he's learned to become more precise and that it's important to hone in on the story. He says scenes in season 4 like Sally yelling at Kristen in front of the acting class in episode 4 and Gene's one man show in episode 2 were much longer, and how they cut them down to "its essence." He talks about trusting his editors Ally Greer and Franky Guttman to tell him when something is essential (some other comedies this season could've learned from him)
• he also says, "he learned on the first two seasons that shooting more than necessary is hard on the actors and crew and tried to strip down his writing process appropriately. “A scene needs to be about one thing. It can’t be about five things. And sometimes as a writer, you don’t want to make decisions. So you end up writing five things figuring, well, we’ll pick what it’s about in the edit and we’ll just see how this all feels. And that’s terrible to do to actors because they don’t know what they’re playing.”"
• He says that having a clear idea of what he wants has lead to better communication with the actors. "I always want to be very clear with what I want, and then we're working together to get there and I'm just being a cheerleader and a good audience." He also says that, "The best thing you can say to [actors] is, 'We've got it. Now let's try some other stuff.' Then you can just see them relax and after that take they always nail it."
• He also says that he tries to keep the number of takes he does to a minimum so he doesn't wear actors out.
Bill Hader breaks down tonight's episode of #BarryHBO including the Jennifer Lawrence cameo idea that got scrapped and the scene that was reshot weeks before the show premiered. https://t.co/zndwni4RFH
- TheWrap (@TheWrap) May 15, 2023
• Discusses the religious podcasts a desperate Barry listens to in order to justify going after Gene. Says the first pastor is voiced by Barry's composer Dave Wingo, while the second is voiced by SNL cast member James Austin Johnson. Bill Burr voices the third podcaster, the one whose words validate his murderous instincts.
• Says Stephen Root came up with the idea of black nail polish to complete Fuches's The Raven's eight-years-later look.
• He says that Nohobal and the giant statue of Cristobal that Hank put up in the lobby building is "like Barry looking up Abraham Lincoln and all these things, it's just a way for [Hank] not to feel bad. It's this giant corporation to his denial. 'I won't have to feel bad if I build up Cristobal's legacy. He died, but if I do this and have a big statue of him, I won't feel bad,; and live in denial that way."
• Sally's storyline was going to be different in this episode. She was going to have a daydream where she flies to LA and goes into the WBD offices where they're excited to see her. They tell her that Jennifer Lawrence is going to play her in the Barry Berkman biopic, and she goes to a party and sees D'Arcy Carden's character Natalie who apologizes to her and they make up. She also meets Jennifer Lawrence who tells her that she should play herself in the biopic. He says that the problem was that it was too close to Cousineau's journey at the beginning of the episode.
• Says that the big sequence with Sally is, "a manifestation of her guilt" and that it was initially written in a way to never show the guy behind her. In April they made a big change to the scene. Originally the voice coming through the door was going to be a mix of his voice, Henry Winkler's voice, and the voice of the actor who played the character she killed in season 3. It wasn't working and they changed it so only the voice of the character she killed comes through the door.
• Hader talks about wanting to tilt the room and producer Aida Rodgers being really excited to use a gimbal. It was the first thing they shot in the last block of Barry and it actually is Sarah Goldberg doing her own stunts. As a series wrap gift Rodgers gave Hader a series of photographs from shooting the series and one of them was one of her, Hader, stunt coordinator Wade Allen and a few other crew members next to the truck that crashes into Barry and Sally's house.
• Reveals that the last Barry scene they ever shot was the one of the agent coming up to Gene in the restaurant and saying, "take two more bites of that salad and come with me." He also reveals that the actor improvised the salad joke.
• Says that Barry was always going to end up in Jim Moss's garage.
• Hader was on the Smartless podcast last week and will be on Conan Needs a Friend this Monday.
• Henry Winkler did an interview on Sirius XM earlier this week and when asked to look back on his experience on the show and pick a favorite moment, he says that it was a moment he shared with Hader after shooting his last scene. Winkler says that after he shot his last scene, he thanked the crew for taking care of him these past four seasons. He shared a hug with Hader, who told Winkler that he loved him and thanked him for being a good collaborator.
“We signed up for a comedy, and since then, I feel like, we’ve run through every genre, from horror to thriller to drama”: #BarryHBO star Sarah Goldberg says she wanted her character to get "dark" and complex - and now in its final season, she reflects on Sally's journey. pic.twitter.com/XdY1G69Wfz
- CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) May 18, 2023
• Goldberg was on CBS Mornings and discussed her feelings on how Barry's evolution from season 1 to 4.
I interviewed #Barry costume designers Audrey Fisher (S1+2) and Tiffany White Stanton (S4) about fashion icon NoHo Hank, his most memorable fits, his Season 4 looks, and working with Anthony Carrigan https://t.co/AM9fwT2kdb
- Nicole Gallucci (@nicolemichele5) May 15, 2023
• Decider spoke to Barry's costume designer's about NoHo Hank's many iconic looks.
"Having seen how it's gone in Season 4, I wouldn't have it any other way. Is it surprising? Yes. But is it justified? Absolutely." Anthony Carrigan unpacks NoHo Hank’s journey, and discusses winding down this chapter of his career #BarryHBO https://t.co/kD4pIUwcbP
- GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) May 15, 2023
• Anthony Carrigan spoke to GQ about Hank's season 4 journey so far.
episode 7 got here way too fast.
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