BillHader breaks down making of Barry Season 3, why he loves ‘Children of Men,’ and what makes a great oner in our exclusive 50 minute interview which you can either watch or read.
With Barry Season 3 starting this Sunday night on HBO, I recently conducted an extended interview with Bill Hader, where he broke down the making of the series and revealed what goes on behind-the-scenes to bring one of the best shows on television to life.
I really like this season. I would definitely say it's, we definitely tried to, the best stuff I always feel are the people who are making it for themselves. For us, within the writer's room, it was just saying, "Well, what would just happen next?" And trying to go deeper. And make sure that it's growing. That we're not doing the same things over and over again.
But to really answer your question, no. I mean, I feel Glenn Fleshler is an amazing actor, played Goran, and it just became really apparent by the end of Season 1. Where it's, this won't work if Goran's around for him. And it's how the writing went. That was awful. That was really tough, because we all really loved working with Glenn.
HADER: Oh yeah, no. Not at all. We're posting Barry. So today we've mixed Episode 6. So I'm going to that after this. So we're mixing episodes right now. And then I'm also this morning writing Season 4 and doing press. So, it's a lot of work.HADER: No. It's not the way it really works. It's all like, "Hey, let's see how things go and..."
Yeah. The thing that Barry does so exceptionally well, and I commend you and Alec and everybody who works on it is that you manage to make something that is very funny and also very dramatic. And the filmmaking behind it is also just so well done. It balances all these different things. And each part is just so exceptionally well-made.
And you go, "Whoa! That's played better." Now all suddenly all this stuff that we were kicking down the road, now it's all moved up and now this is cooking. But you have to go through the process of making it. Building a thing and then tearing it down and then building it up again and tearing it down. Then you just basically talk about it ad nauseam. Then by that point, writing it is very quick, because you've talked about it so much.
That's something that I found also very interesting about the season, is that the structure of the show has completely changed, which is what you're addressing. For fans, what do you want to tease them about Season 3? What is it actually with the relationship with HBO now that you've made two seasons? They know what the show is, how much do you have to lay out to them everything you want to do with like a Season 3? How much is it them being a little more hands off-ish? I'm just curious what the notes are like from HBO and how much do they want to know?
When you guys are writing the show, how much are you thinking about budget when you're actually writing? How much are you thinking about like, "Well, we can block shoot this." I guess I'm curious about that. Is there a character that ends up being the toughest to write for in the room or is it all pretty much the same?
So yeah, it's a thing that we have to remind ourselves, or I have to remind myself, he needs to at least want something every episode.In the beginning of Season 3, there are some pretty emotional scenes that you have to perform. I believe you're also directing. What is it like for you when you are doing these really emotional scenes and also directing?
And it was like, "Interesting." Then the conversation that happens afterwards is what happened, because then you go talk to someone else and go for, not to ruin anything. But it's like, if Barry flipped out on somebody and someone was like, "We have to report him to the cops." I asked them, I was like, "Well the cops wouldn't anything. What did he actually do, he just gets mad at somebody.
HADER: That was the very first shot of the very first day of shooting. That was Gavin Kleintop, our fantastic first AD and very much my partner in all this stuff. So, it's very rare to get a first AD who's a total film fanatic and is like, "I get it. I see totally what you're trying to do." He was like, "You know what'll bond the crew together, is if we do this big oner on the first day, first shot. So, we had what they call a day zero.
And the great one-shots, the Copa Shot in Goodfellas, it tells a story. That oner is the best one, because it totally tells you a story of, "Here's how these guys work. They go in through the back. Here's this life that Lorraine Bracco's character is being introduced to. So for me, it was to show my own experience, the enormity of running a show in the house.
HADER: Yeah. A lot of times it comes later because I'm still focused on what the story is and what the characters are going through. And then a lot of the times, the camera work will inform that.There's a shot later or before actually that shot, was a bunch of actors in a hallway that ends in the closeup of one specific character. That was a way of introducing that character. These two characters' dynamic for the season.
And so it was like, "How do you keep it composed? How do you keep it simple?" I just want to know where all the lights coming from. What's the source? A lot of comedy is very overlit because they wanted you to feel bright and fun, and we're having a good time. So everything is just, it looks like a spotlight's on it. But I much prefer things that, you see shadow, you see contour. Its people are being lit by a source that's way off-screen, things like that.
HADER: And you just, I'm not on social media or any of those things. But the real answer is, I don't know. I have no idea. I mean, I know how I feel about certain things. But things are pretty complicated. And I'm not on social media because I am wrong all the time. I will be at a dinner and I will go, "Well, isn't it this?" And someone's like, "Well, no. It's actually this." And I'm like, "Oh, that's right.
HADER: Any of them. I think he's such a great actor. I love Ben Mendelsohn. I have to give credit where credits due. The Ben Mendelsohn stuff in episode three is Emma Barrie, the writer of that episode. She was really, she's really funny. And she loves Ben Mendelsohn.So someone else on Twitter mentioned this Barry slaughters about 25 people in the most recent season finale.
HADER: Yeah, it's so funny. Real quick, because I was talking about this with somebody, if you had to name your favorite movies. I was like, "I don't know if I could." But, I could say, "Well, here are the ones that hit me and changed me." And if I had to go Scorsese, it would probably be Taxi Driver. But it was just because when I saw it, you see a certain movie first and you go, "Well, is that their best movie?" I don't know.
HADER: Yeah. It's a completely different movie. I mean, that's why to me, it's always like, "What are the ones that hit me?" That you went, "Oh, that's how comedy..." I get asked all the time, "What's your favorite comedy? And I was like, "I don't know." But I mean, Spinal Tap and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I saw really young. I was like, "That's how you perform comedy. You don't push, you play it subtle.
HADER: It just by virtue of one of the characters getting their own show. So it was by that you had to just go, "Well, if that would happen, let's say the fastest, that would happen where they're writing and shooting." We gave it six months and then, so it was by that. And then that led us to go, "Well, where's everybody else at right now?"
HADER: Not really deleted scenes. But we will cut lines or little moments, or we'll cut a scene. There's one scene later in the season that's a pretty funny scene that actually has a guest star in it that we cut in half just because we thought it was really funny. And we tried a bunch of stuff, and it just wasn't working the way that I thought it would in the edit.
It's so funny because I love oners. But I especially love them when they're significant to the story. But I wonder if the average person watching at home, who's not a cinephile...I think they feel the tension of a oner. But I don't know if they really realize they're in a oner.
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