The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Barry’ Season 3, Episode 1 Recap With Bill Hader

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

Sean Fennessey is joined by Bill Hader to recap Season 3, Episode 1 of HBO’s ‘Barry.’ Sean and Bill discuss the events of the episode, as well as how Bill approached writing this season after so much time has passed since Season 2. Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Bill Hader Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are you a sports fan who didn't know the NFL draft was this week? Then boy, do I have the teaser trailer for you. I'm Danny Heifitz, and I host the Ringer NFL draft show every week with Danny Kelly, Ben Solek, and Craig Horlebeck. We're doing mock drafts before the draft. We're great in picks after the draft. Now, do we know which picks were good and who's going to go where? No, absolutely not.

We can't predict the future. But people like hearing about it. Yeah, don't you, you sickos. So we talk about it anyway. So come listen to the Ringer NFL draft show. And guess what? If you like the draft, but you don't like me, you can go listen to the Ringer NFL show with Kevin Clark and Nora Princeziati and our other NFL experts,

or you can go to NFL draft.com to check out our massive draft guide. So come listen to the Ringer NFL draft show and the Ringer NFL show on Spotify because they employ me, or it's also available on all the other platforms that don't employ me. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is the Prestige TV podcast. We're going to be here every Sunday night recapping Barry. Who better to do it with than the writer, director, producer, star of the show. The Great Bill Hater. Let's get right into our conversation about the first episode.

So Bill Hater's here. We're talking about Forgiving Jeff. It's episode one, season three of Barry. Very excited to have him. Before we get into the episode specifically, Bill, at the conclusion of season two, how much did you know about where you wanted to take Barry Block's story going forward? I think it was nothing, really.

We didn't know anything. We just kind of episode, you know, season two ended, and it was kind of, like we had some ideas, but nothing concrete at all. And then let's see. So we finished the episodes, I want to say, in early spring 2019 for season two. And then we started back up writing season three in October of 2019. And then so these episodes,

were, you know, first day of, you know, writing episode one of season three was kind of like, all right, so Kusano knows. What do we think, you know? And I think very quickly that first meeting, I feel like I remember saying we should get rid of their acting class. And Kusina, Barry should just know that Kusina knows in the end of the episode. should be with him with a gun to Cousinot's head, you know, and like, let's just get right to it.

Instead of, if I was watching the show, I would start to get a little antsy if it turns into kind of like a cat and mouse thing with Cousinot trying to get information and Barry doesn't know. You know what I mean? It was just kind of like, let's just get to it. So I think by doing that, it kind of, you know,

The writers and I just felt this kind of permission to, you know, start kind of tearing it apart away. And it was kind of a bit like writing a new show because you didn't have the acting class. Everyone's in kind of different places, you know, especially the Sally character. And it was, you know, just more character focused, I think, you know. Did you find yourself getting a little bored with the structure that you had built over those first two seasons? I get bored very easily. Yeah, you know, I think there wasn't a piece of me that during season two is like, we're ending with another clash show.

Like, we can't do this every season. Like, both season one and two ended with this class show thing. And it was like, you know, we got to do something different. So I think that was for sure a big part of it. before we get into the details of what you're doing here, I got to ask you, obviously, this long period of time has transpired since people last saw the show. World's been in a pretty weird and dark place.

The show is kind of impressively dark, but was there any part of you that was rethinking, like the way you were pursuing the show or the tone of the show as all of this stuff was transpiring in the world? No, you know, never think of it in those terms. It kind of just is very intuitive, you know, but I will say that, you know, we wrote the I want to say the first four episodes and it outlines for the last four episodes of season three and we had had our first table read and then like the next day the world shut down and I think you know we were about a week away from shooting and so during that time that year and a half

I was just, you know, we kind of were mapping out what a season four could be, but in doing that was going back and rewriting season three. Actually, you know, the tent pole scenes and the tent pole moments were all there, but again, it was just kind of honing it and focusing it. And in doing that, especially I'll say in the later episodes this season, it did come out quite dark. But it felt, and I don't know if that was just being in the middle of this pandemic and the way politics were and, you know, George Floyd and all these things that were happening while we were writing it. I, it has to seep in somehow, you know, but it wasn't a conscious thing, you know. But again, it was just kind of a intuitive feeling. feeling and an emotional feeling kind of going where these characters at emotionally and what what makes sense kind of each step of the way and and so yeah that's where that came from so when we first see barry this season he does he looks a little different he's like he's a little more a little more haggard he's like simultaneously more blank and more deranged than ever and then he he does something extremely violent and kills two people kind of on a whim it feels like yeah I mean, he's being paid for that job, but he ends up shooting the guy who should be paying him.

So he gets angry. I think it was, you know, there was a version of this that was very early on of Barry. You know, the original open of it was him, I want to say at a gas station at night, and he's talking to a guy and the guy wants his wife killed. And Barry says, okay, and he gets the money from him. and then Barry kills that guy. And I remember he had his car in reverse, so the car starts to drift backwards.

And I had this idea that the car would be drifting backwards and Barry's kind of redouling with Barry, tracking with Barry while the car is kind of next to him while it's moving. And it was this kind of long orchestrated tracking shot. And as he's walking, he's on the phone. he gets on the phone and it's to the wife. And he's like, it's done.

So it's like, oh, the wife had paid him and he double crossed this guy, got money from him. And so he's getting double the money for one hit. And, you know, it was interesting. And I was like, oh, I think the shot could be really interesting. It's at night in L.A. And, you know, but it was all about that. It was kind of like, well, here's where he's at. You know, it didn't really have anything to do with, as you're writing the show,

these themes start to come up, you know, of forgiveness and people apologizing and, you know, all this stuff. And, you know, forgiveness has to be earned. And as I was trying to, you know, as we were doing that, I just that open just started to feel not as not right. And so I remember going into my office and just writing that new version, which is what you see. and it being about, let's have him killed a very idea of forgiveness. It might be more interesting that he's supposed to kill this guy, and then the guy who hired him,

one minute is like, I want you to cut his eyelids off, and then less than 10 seconds later is like, hey, man, you know, let's call this off. I feel bad, you know? And it's like that guy has a thing that Barry doesn't have, you know, and it's a thing that he will never get, you know? and he feels like he doesn't deserve it or does he deserve it.

And so it was a good place to do that. And then these other things started come in of like when we found that location, it was like, oh, it would be nice to have that tree in the background. And then you're hearing this guy saying, please forgive me. That's the first thing you hear. You know, please, please forgive me. And then Barry's just eating a donut deep in thought. And that right there tells a story.

know, oh, this is where he is now. You know, he can be having his breakfast while this guy is begging for his life, you know, like, you know, 30 yards away from him. Yeah, you mentioned something interesting there that I wanted to ask you about. Because when I was watching that scene, it's like, it's a little bit Miller's Crossing. It's a little bit Cormick McCarthy, you know, with the tree on the cliff. And you mentioned when you were originally conceiving the opening scene of this season that, like, a shot was appealing to you, that you were like, I have a cool idea for how to

shoot something. How much of that comes into it when you're in the writing process now? Are you like, I want to challenge myself as a filmmaker or whoever's directing the episode? Yeah, it's just, I just like shots that tell a story, you know, and it's like, how can we tell a story through, you know, cinematically? And I think it's a thing, especially with television, that I think is an old kind of trope is that it's not cinematic. You know, it's all about talking heads and stuff. And, and, uh, I, I would love to be able to, you know, I have the opportunity at HBO and everything is to try to make it as cinematic as I can because that's that's kind of what I enjoy um so yeah definitely when I'm writing this stuff it's always like what are the shots

you know what what how can this tell a story and and a good example of the thing I was telling you before at the gas station it was just a shot didn't really tell you anything it was just kind of like oh well, you know, that's kind of interesting that, you know, maybe this thing's following and around and you can't get away from it or something. And that's, you know, the car or whatever. But it just wasn't, again, it's like when I say tell a story, it's not like super didactic or something, you know, it's just a feeling, you know. It's like an emotional feeling, you know.

And that opening thing initially was like, well, this is just kind of about the shot. It's not really about anything else. Is it up to you to self-edit that? Do you have to say, or like, will Alec help you realize that? Or is it always you saying, like, I'm not, this isn't the right idea. It's usually me. It's usually me. Everyone else is like, yeah, it's great, man.

That's the hard thing, you know. That's the hard thing is everyone's usually like, awesome, you know. Now, when it comes to story stuff, when it comes to story stuff, Alec, Duffy Boudreau, yeah, it's a different thing, you know, where you're reading the story. scripts going, hey, you know what, I just looked at this scene and I really don't know if this is deep enough or are we saying the right thing here? Is this really what it should, you know, what is the purpose of this? How does this move things forward?

You know, that's a big thing we say a lot is like, well, what am I getting? What's the new information? You know, that's the thing that, you know, I've learned a lot from Alec and Liz Sarnoff because they have much more experience writing on television than I did when I started. of this thing. So it was it was kind of like, yeah, what what's the, you know, what are we like, like

everything has to kind of you know, move the story forward, you know. So speaking of that, I thought of this just as I was watching the opening minutes of the first episode. It's, you know, Barry is doing freelance assassin work kind of

harvested off the dark web, I guess. Is that, is that a thing? Is that a thing that people, did you guys research that? Yeah, yeah. is it is a thing in the dark web you can hire hitman how did you how did you come upon that did you i watch pretty much every true crime show on the planet i'm not watching like old movies uh you know it's like between old movies and true crime shows that seems to be my uh Achilles heel and it's funny my whole family is that way so you know my sister is it's kind of the place, like if you have a thing on and it starts my sisters and my dad and I can go,

oh, I know this one. Oh, no, it's the brother. The brother sets up the husband's brother. He kills the wife and the brother. Yeah, this is crazy. And they catch him because, you know, there was somehow gunpowder on his socks, you know. It's an adorable family ritual. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But there was a thing about. I want to say a 48 hours or a dateline or something about a guy that you could find people on the dark web. You could hire Hitman. So it seems like your character and Sally, Sarah Goldberg's character, have kind of leveled up. You know, you're living together now in the show. She's writing and starring in a series based on her experience from her scene that she performed at the end of season two. How far ahead in the future are we? Has a lot of time past?

Well, yeah, I think May says it, detect. of May says it to Kuson, I think it's been six months. Okay, six months. Yeah. I was curious how you feel about the idea of people kind of leveraging their trauma for creative work in Hollywood. Yeah, I mean, everybody kind of has their own. Some people do it and it's really, you know, they're playing themselves, you know.

But I always found that I feel like the interesting, you know, art, you know, without sounding pretentious or whatever, but it is, you know, it does come out, when the more personal you make it, the more authentic it feels. It's kind of like having a conversation with someone. You can tell when someone's kind of usually if someone's being, you know, being genuine or not, you know. So you can feel that in acting and you can feel it in the writing, you could feel it in the direction. You know what I mean? So I don't think I'm somebody, though, that if I did a thing about the actual whatever, having anxiety on SNL, that wouldn't be an interesting show about a guy on Saturday Night Live.

I don't really have any sympathy for that guy or I don't find it that interesting. But that does make it sound like you made a show about all the murders you did, you know, all the assessing work you did. That's all the murders I did. I watched the true crime shows to see if I pop up on it. I go, oh, I'm curious. No, but I think, you know, by making it a hit man and then trying to take the genre out of it and go, well, where do I emotionally kind of can fit into there? And it's, you know, and Alex's doing the same thing and Duffy Boudreau's doing the same thing. Like, we're all trying to go, you know, a lot of times in the writer's room, it almost could feel like a group therapy session, you know.

it can be kind of very open of people talking about, you know, all the right, Jason Kim, Emily Heller, Tau Klaid, Emma Berry, you know, all of them were, Liz Sarnoff, we're all kind of saying, well, you know, one time I had this experience, you know, or this experience, and it's a very kind of safe zone to do that because that's where the work gets. You know, when I was at South Park, we did that. that, you know, and sometimes at South Park, the idea would start in a place that was

hyper offensive, you know, and it was almost a way of going like, well, here's the dumb idea. Let's all start doing the dumb, obvious, offensive version of it. And now it's like, okay, now I got that out of our system. What is this really? Do you know what I mean? And so it's, it's a messy experience. So it's like, I get it when people are doing it where it's, you know, whether it's a singer or a painter or anything where it's like, wow, that is directly from your life and that is just naked, you know, I admire it and it's interesting to watch or listen to. But me personally, I don't think my life's that interesting. Well, on the flip side, though, I feel like one of the best parts about this season so far is, you know, where the show you

to be about people on the fringes of the industry. Now you've got your characters are in the industry. They're making a TV show. Yeah. That was very important. Yeah, that was an important distinction of now we have a whole, the world's opening up. And it's a bit

like when you move to L.A. I think you move to L.A. and you don't know anybody. And the more you're at it, suddenly you're bringing people coffee, but now you're bringing, you know, Brian Grazer coffee, you know, or whoever, and you're like, whoa, you know, it's, it's, you know, that happens. You start to kind of be in the

orbit of bigger people, you know. My favorite scene in this first episode is the, is that Elizabeth Perkins playing the network executive? Yeah. And she's looking at the footage of Joplin and she immediately recalls a different scene from a different show that she had watched five minutes of probably earlier that day and just the idea of like I'm sure that you or people in your writer's room had probably a very similar experience. Emma Barry and Liz Sarnoff kind of gave me, I remember I was in my car and I called them and I was like what what like what are bad notes you got and they both. Liz said the one of this actress is good but that might bite that could bite you in the ass. That is a thing she heard in an actual meeting and then Emma it wasn't to the she goes they

always, she goes, I always, I was, this one person would always say, um, just, they felt like they had to ask a question. And so they would ask like very obvious questions. And then, and so I wrote the thing of like, well, does a mother and daughter live together, you know? But, uh, yeah, but then Elizabeth Perkins and Joanna Sotomura, who plays the assistant, is so funny in that. I mean, that's not supposed to be funny when she goes, do you live with your mother and she goes, I did. The way she says, I did, just killed us. It's so earnest. And Jesse Hodges is so funny in that, because I just said to Sarah and Jesse, you know, just kind of mumble your own experience with your mother. And so Jesse improvised, like, my mother died when I was, and then in the

edit, we had Elizabeth Perkins cut her off. So when Elizabeth Perkins came in, it was another. actor and unfortunately that actor had to have surgery and had to step away and so Elizabeth Perkins literally was hired on a Saturday and shot on Monday. It was crazy. Pretty incredible. Shortly after that, we actually see Sally quickly assuming the role of the talent and like treating her friend who is also her assistant badly and the Sally character is super interesting. Yeah, it's like what you're doing with her and what Sarah's doing in the performance is really interesting because she's obviously a person that like we have a lot of empathy for, but you've always been unafraid to show her flaws and her, you know, egotcentrism in the character too. And this year feels like it's kind of amped up. Yeah, because she's making it, you know, and she has a lot to lose. And, you know, she's interesting because she's actually good. But, you know, this kind of her whatever. I never think that she's mean. She's just in her mind she's being honest.

You know, so we always have to write it from the standpoint of like, it's honest. You can't, you know, you know, and Sarah says that line of, can you, oh, can you cut up those characters for me? I just love the way that you do it. If she does it smar me, you know what I mean? It doesn't work. But if she does it just genuine, like she thinks she's giving a compliment, it works, you know? And so I think Sarah really understands the character in that way of like, here's how you modulate this to make it not feel like, yeah,

that she's like a total monster all the time. Was one of the appealing things about doing this storyline for Sarah's character doing a little bit of the Francois Truffaut, day for night. Here's what it's like in my life every day as the showrunner star. Yeah, I mean, the big oneer shot in that is very much. kind of autobiographical in a way of, well, here's what it's like, you know, here's what it looks like when you get exactly what you dreamed, you always dreamed you wanted, you know, you always wanted to be directing. For me, it was like, man, I just want to be directing. This is what I've always

wanted, you know, and then you get it and it's very overwhelming, you know, and it's a lot of pressure on you. And then when you're acting on it, it's a whole other pressure. And so it was nice for me to kind of, you know, the one, the oners I like always kind of tell a story. And it was nice to try to do that with this where, you know, I just thought, oh, when I enter on the stage, I always feel very small. And this, and this stage and the sets feel so big. And there's this feeling of like, oh, I'm like in charge of this. you know but it's so big so it was purposely like let's start where she's very small in the frame and then she enters this kind of tableau of her past and then she has to kind of with detachment

watch these two stump people reenact one of the worst moments of her life and and then as you're doing it you're slowly pushing in and then it slowly becomes subjective you know it's very objective and then you get really subjective where then you go into darkness and she has a moment to breathe and then the being the silhouette, the red light. And my favorite moment of that whole shot actually

is when she goes in and she hugs Elsie Fisher and the camera's right over her shoulder and you see the hair and makeup people on Elsie Fisher and then the AD steps in. It's just so claustrophobic. And then every move wanted to reveal new things. So as she moves to the bed, you see all the network, everybody over at the, you know, at Video Village and everyone's on their phones.

And I don't have that at HBO, but it's like, you know, you have that over there and you have the, you know, cameras right in your face and you're trying to remember your lines and there's spraying shit in your hair and all this stuff. And it was just a lot of fun. And that was the very first day of shooting, first shot, first day of shooting. And Gavin Kleintop, our first AD was like, if we do this, this will like just bring everybody together, you know? And it'll make a big sense of accomplishment for the crew. And it was, we rehearsed it one day and the next day just came in and shot it. And I think you're seeing take, I think we did 16 takes and that's take 16.

Oh, wow. I mean, it's an amazing act of choreography. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when she says, well, how long is even pushing you have sex? Like, you know, as she's talking, I think with, we cut. And if I let that play an extra like five seconds, you hear the whole crew like erupt

and applause because everyone was like, we got it. You know. I was curious if you related to the kind of stage managing that Sally's trying to do during this period, too, of like, look at how perfect my personal life is. And my boyfriend comes with flowers. Do you have those anxieties as somebody who's in that role? Not really, no. I think, yeah, I think on set, I mean, I don't think anybody assumes I have a personal life.

You're like the teacher in high school. Yeah, yeah, I'm a teacher in high school. It's like senior teacher at a grocery store and you're like, what am I, dad? What's going on? But, yeah. No, I've never felt that. But that was always a funny thing and bring me flowers.

And that was a reshoot. We went back and reshot Barry buying the flowers. That was initially not in there. And Amy Gravitt said, you know, I think it'd be nice to see him buy those flowers. And I knew what she meant by that, you know? And then, and then, you know, he's like, oh, yeah, he's on the phone with someone wanting to be murdered.

And he asked them about, like, flowers. yeah, I got that. Like, it kind of, yeah, you know what I mean? If I could say it eloquently, I wouldn't make it. But it's like, it just, it's a feeling, you know? And that's Aida Rogers, our producer, who's the woman on the phone. She did a great job. She's really funny when she loses her shit when you are distracted.

It's like, yeah, you hired me to kill someone for you. So yes, I am. This is the introduction to gunshot visual that we see the blood coming out of Sally's head and the sound cuts out while Barry's speaking to her. And, you know, it's a pretty bold choice. And there's always been a little bit of kind of like, I don't know, what would you call it, like absurdity or magical realism or something where we're kind of getting into Barry's psyche throughout the show over the years. But it does feel like this is the big signpost of like we're entering a descent into me. madness. Like, what was the thinking behind that decision? Yeah, and it's also very kind of, um, it's like a trope that you've seen, you know,

it's like Macbeth. It's in Macbeth, you know, um, and, um, and even that film possessor does it, you know, where he's seen shit that's not there. And, you know, so it's a, you know, it's a pretty well-worn kind of trope of somebody watching, you know, but, but, but, but, But the idea of them being shot in the head and the sound initially shot and scripted, it was like the scene is going on and they keep getting shot. So it was like squibs going off on everybody. And the idea was that it just everything felt normal, but they were being shot. And it was this thing we tried and then we got into edit and it just did not work at all. And so Frankie Gutman, the editor and I decided like, oh, what if you just make it four headshots for her and Kusinau.

And when you shoot, like the sound goes out in this teak, and then Dave Wingo or composer was like, what if we do this tea kettle thing? You know, and it just worked great. Yeah, it works really well. Which takes us to the other person who we see the gunshot on, Gene, who, Jean's in a tough spot. He's in a bad place in this episode. and it's an interesting challenge for Henry too because I feel like Henry got reintroduced again as someone that we love in our culture

by playing Gene over the last couple of seasons and now it's almost like a different character like what was your thinking with putting him together this season? There's something that happens to these characters where they kind of, when something terrible happens they kind of go, you know, at the end of two, he's kind of comatosed. You know, he kind of goes to, he's,

he's not fully himself, you know, he just saw the woman that he loves, you know, dead. And, um, so, you know,

he's trying to, and he knows it's Barry, or he's pretty sure it's Barry. The more he kind of plays it out in his head, it's like, yeah, obviously it's Barry. So,

yeah, I mean, Henry still manages to get big laughs, though, even when he's doing this stuff. You still, we always, write things incredibly straight and dramatic.

And then it's like, again, I get bored and we start adding humor because I just start to get bored. And so, like, even that scene with him and Sarah Burns at Gary Krause, we added the thing of, you know, could you, could you say the Raven and he echoes what everyone, the what? You know, like, and he did a bunch of different takes of that and all of them really funny. And him looking at his gun, it's like, oh, let's make. sure there's like a little card from rip torn there and to just you know it's just it's just leveling out the thing a bit you know but he's playing it like he's in a drama which is important

the dictated but not red note on the rib torn card is why do you like that one else sound that funny it's really fucking funny that was the part that made me laugh the hardest and everyone else was like oh yeah dictate around whatever and i'm like that's so funny that he dictated that to some poor assistant. The idea of someone working for Rip Torn at that time in general is just funny. Yeah, too, and being like, fire this off to Cousineau. And it's for a gun. So

I'm just, it was just making me laugh that Rip Torn handed some assistant a gun and said, take a letter. Like, that's funny. It's really brilliant. Noho Hank emerged as a hardcore fan favorite on the show. Obviously this season, he is

in a different place and he's in love and dating and I don't I don't I don't think people are were predicting this necessarily what were you thinking about is Hank one of those characters who like was supposed to not continue to be on the show but then yeah he was so good yeah Anthony Carrigan was just so funny and what he did was so funny that we didn't kill him in the pilot he was supposed to die and then uh it was like alec and I just said oh we'd be crazy to kill this guy um so but yeah you know when we were talking about season three, it was like, well, Christopal

and Hank, it seemed like that was happening, you know? And it was kind of joky, and it was like, well, let's make it real. And it's like a real, and it's a, it's a full relationship now, but they're hiding, you know, they're like, kind of

like what Barry does. It's a secret life, you know? And in Christopal's case, it's like a double secret life, you know, and so um, he, uh, So yeah, that was really important and to show it that they're really in love. And then I think, you know, it was like, oh, we need, you know, the writers room we all were talking about.

I was like, it would be great if we had like an actually healthy relationship, semi-healthy, like, just an actual, two people actually in love with each other in the show. And, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that it was like a Romeo and Juliet type thing, you know. Yeah. he also gets to kind of underscore the theme. At least it seems like of this episode, if not the whole season of forgiveness has to be earned, which you mentioned already. Liz Sarnoff came up with that

like towards right, like in prep for season three. Like that line came in very late. And she was like, yeah, it's kind of like forgiveness has to be earned. And I was like, that's it. Yeah. Like, um, one last thing on this

before we wrap up this episode. So one thing I've always loved about this show. I assume people tell you this. This show is 30 minutes long. And seasons are eight episodes. And it is, you can wrap your arms around it. It's clear what you're getting. But as you build out the show, you're into the third season.

You mentioned Hank was supposed to die, but he didn't die. You have kind of more mouths to feed in the story and the world is getting bigger now. Is it harder to keep it this kind of tight little beautiful machine? Yeah, you know, you're constantly cutting stuff. And then, you know, if anything, it kind of goes back to what you were saying in terms of of, you know, shots and stuff. You have to be just really hard on the material and kind of say, like, what matters, what doesn't, you know, and, and, um, you know, our whole thing is always, like, how's this move the plot along? And, uh, and, and it's funny because we'll write, I was talking to hear him your eye about this, where it's like, you always feel like you, you've underwritten it.

And then you shoot it all. And then you get in, you're like, we have way too much stuff. We have to cut a bunch of stuff, you know. So I think because I've now had the experience of two seasons, and then even during the third season, as we were doing the third season, you know, in the middle of production kind of going, yeah, we don't need that. We don't need that. It can go right from here to here.

You know, I feel like I had that confidence to, you know, to say that. And I think, you know, and I think, you know, Alec as well, it was like, kind of like, oh, we know what the show is. You know, so, and I tend to shoot not a lot of coverage and not a lot of takes. It's always very kind of, you know, again, it's like from watching a lot of old movies. It's just this very, you know, the thing I've said at nauseam is simple dynamic coverage of just interesting shots. And, I mean, I think this season, what we try to do more is this kind of, you know, where you know, one shot can turn into another, one nicely composed shot will turn

into another nicely composed shot, you know, or blocking was a bigger thing, you know, you know, you watch like, you know, Polansky was really good at blocking, you know, like, are those Polish movies in general, like you're really interesting blocking in them. So, you know, just watching that stuff, but I bring that up because that ended up way, keeps it tight. You know, doing everything in one kind of weirdly keeps it.

You're like, you're creating, you're like honing these scenes and then those scenes become shots that you're honing, you know? And then it's, it just, hopefully we'll just string together. And that's why the edit is always so nerve-wracking because you want to see if it works.

And then you get in there and you're like, Oh my God, we undershot those. Oh, boy. I have a fucking idiotic. It doesn't seem that way at all. It honestly makes it easy to prepare for conversations like this because it's just like, oh, that's when this happens and that's when there's flow, which is probably what you're looking for. Yeah, you got to have this flow. And I just like stories like that.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I like movies that feel messy and kind of, you know, but I still feel like this has that, but it still feels lived in. It's not, there's nothing kind of, I don't know, OCD about it or whatever. It's just more honed. It's like a constant feeling of honing and focusing, going like, is that really what this is about? No, it's really about this.

Let's, you know. And, you know, we did two weeks of reshoots in February, you know. And that again was going back to scenes that didn't really work or that, you know, we wrote wrong and things that we thought were important. that weren't and, you know, so when we hit those, like, yeah, I was going to say maybe as through the course of the season, you can point out some things that kind of materially changed it when you went to look at it. Oh, 100%. And it's to that point of like, this feels like a tangent or this isn't really

what would happen. And it usually just came down to like logic and where the people were at in the story. Like, you know, oh, we're imposing this. The characters aren't imposing us. we want to talk about this, you know, or we want a big comedy scene here, and it just wouldn't work. You know, it's like, no, this is what the scene should be. Okay, well, let's wrap episode one there. When we come back next week,

we'll talk about what Barry's plan actually is to redeem himself in our forgiveness. It's stupid. Thank you to Bill Hader. Thank you, of course, to our producer, Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode. if you dug this conversation, stay tuned. Next Sunday, we'll be talking again about Barry, episode two, with Bill Hader.

See you then.