Bill Hader on the Miraculous Final Season of ‘Barry’

I have a sense that there’s an element of autobiography in Barry–which is a funny thing to say about a hitman. 

You’re not the first person to say that. There is some sense of autobiography in it, in terms of feelings you have. We talk about this in the writer’s room a lot: things that you’ve done, and being able to forgive yourself, or not, for certain things. I don’t like it when I get angry. I’m a pretty nice person and I’m a pretty laid-back person. But when I’ve really lost my temper at times in my life, I’ve always felt terrible afterwards. So it is in moments of examining, well…Why do I feel that way? And going like, Oh, it has to do with an insecurity, or feeling that you’re not being honest up front. I’ve had a Midwestern “hold it all in, be polite” thing my whole life. And then suddenly you just explode, and you go, What was that about? 

Also, you know, I’ve dealt with anxiety and depression. And you start to put those things in the show and sometimes you don’t even realize you’re doing it. Then you watch it and go: Oh man. It’s always interesting when people very close to you watch the episodes and go, “Wow. I know where that came from.”

In Seasons 1 and 2, I could honestly say there were moments where I was still seeing Barry as a crime show. And then for some reason—maybe it was a pandemic—something switched in me. Because I will say that during the pandemic, I got very depressed. And so…you know…you get it out in the work. That’s what the work is for. That’s when you engage with it.

With this final season you directed every episode. How do you balance acting and directing on set?

The real trick is you need someone who’s objective to kind of say, “I need you go again.” Like, there’s a scene in Episode 1 of Season 4 where I’m in a bathroom and I start hitting the wall. Like, I really freak out. I did the first take and kind of was like, I don’t know... and Gavin Kleintop, our first AD, and Duffy Boudreau, the writer, came in and they were like, “Yeah, I think…we should probably go again.” [Laughs.] They didn’t say it was bad. They were like, I feel like we should go again.