HBO‘s fantastic action-comedy series “Barry” hasn’t aired since 2019, as the pandemic hit in early 2020 just after season two ended and threw a wrench into their plans to shoot season three. They ended up shutting down two weeks before the start of filming, with all of the season’s scripts written. Now, season three is finally on the way and the show’s star/creator Bill Hader is speaking about the delayed development/production, offering some insight on season four.
The Hollywood Reporter mentions in the primer for their interview with Hader that he is directing five of the eight episodes in the upcoming third season and is already “planning to direct every single episode of season four” as that season is already being outlined/written.
Hader says during the heat of the pandemic they eventually set up a virtural writers’ room to start working on season four but during that process decided to revisit/tweak the season three scripts as well.
“We were trying to get more to the reality of things,” Hader says. “Are we getting to the honesty of this, the brutal honesty of it? Are we going too far? Is this too silly? Is this too disturbing?”
He also suggested that the new season may test the loyalty of the “Barry” audience and cites Martin Scorsese‘s “Goodfellas” when telegraphing the darker character moments of the show.
“Barry’s back is against the wall and he’s freaking out and he has this in him,” Hader told THR. “There’s only a matter of time before it starts going out on the people he loves. In the writers’ room, people go, ‘Well, that’s going to be really upsetting.’ And it’s like, ‘But yeah, to not do it, it feels like we’re purposely avoiding it. And you don’t want to go, ‘Well, he’s only mean to these people.’ It’s like, ‘No, he’s mean to everybody.’”
“I don’t know if he will hold the audience’s loyalty this season,” Hader said of season three. “It’s OK. I remember watching ‘Goodfellas‘ growing up and going like, ‘Wow, look at his life. This is great.’ And then they shoot Spider [Michael Imperioli’s character], and you just knew that this was real.”
“Barry” finally returns to HBO and begins airing on April 24.