The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Barry’ Season 3, Episode 5 Recap With Bill Hader

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

Sean Fennessey and Bill Hader recap Season 3, Episode 5 of HBO’s ‘Barry.’ Now that the season is more than halfway over, Sean and Bill discuss the arc of the third season, how an episode with so little Barry can sustain itself, shooting intense action sequences, and more. Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Bill Hader Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is the Prestige TV podcast. Today we're talking about the fifth episode of the third season of Barry, and we're doing so with the star and co-creator of the show, Bill Hater. Let's dive into our chat. We're back with Bill Hater.

We're talking about Barry Season 3, Episode 5, Crazy Time Shit Show. The titles are good. The first thing we hear in this episode is a gunshot, and we cut back to Afghanistan, and then we see

Albert, but we haven't seen in a while, and Albert is back. Yeah. When you're making an episode like that in season two, where you're kind of exploring and explaining Barry's past,

and you cast the actor to play somebody like Albert at that time, are you like, this guy's going to be with us for a long time, so we got to make this right? Or does this something that you just realize you got to go back to where you started? No, you know, well, we were shooting stuff with James, who plays Albert.

He was so funny, and he was such a great guy and a really great actor, that that scene that the flashback of, we were shooting that scene, actually, of him being shot in Afghanistan. And Alec Berg and I were talking, and we both were like, man, what if at one point, he's, you know, an FBI guy who who's looking for Barry.

And, you know, he's the FBI is called in to solve Janice Moss's murder. What if it's him? And we both kind of like, ooh, and like, you know, put it in our pocket, you know, just kind of was, it was always a thing in the back of our head, you know, like down the road. So that, again, first day of writing was like Albert comes back, you know, like Revenge Army. Alec comes back, no acting class, you know, all that was up on the board. Before we get away from that,

I have to ask you about the cop in that scene, who we saw previously when Hank was describing the Raven, and he has that moment where he says, my patience was here, and now it's here. And then in this episode, he's so funny where he says, call me Big Cat. And then as Albert's leaving the room,

he says, welcome aboard Tough Turf. Tough turf. The thing my dad said, my dad used to say, My dad coached our, our, our, or my sport team, you know, like baseball and football and basketball. He would, he was always a coach. And that was a thing. He'd be like, all right, tough turf. What does that mean?

I have no idea. I still have no idea. And when I said it on the sag go, call him tough turf. And Gary went, like, he was like, oh, like, it's tough turf. He wasn't saying it like a name. He was like, glad you're back here on the tough turf. Like he thought I meant that. And I go, no, no, no, no, like, tough turfs a name.

And everybody was like, what are you talking about? And I go, no, no, no, you never heard that? No. And I was like, oh, my dad used to say that all the time. But Gary Krauss was in documentary now. He was in my favorite episode documentary now. The Eye Doesn't Lie, the Thin Blue Line one. He plays a cop in that.

And he is so insanely funny. And he has my favorite line of that entire series. series, which is if I was Don's lawyer, I would have told him to cool it with the chocolates. The way he delivered it, the whole thing just kills, like, crying, laughing. And he's just a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful guy from Ohio. And so, no, man, I, any time, you know, we could get him, we get him. He's hilarious. also hilarious, but in a more grim way

is Sally Saga with Joplin in this episode. Got to say, hot topic in the world of Hollywood, the idea of an algorithmized machine that determines what is and is not viable content in 2022. Can you just walk me through creating Banshee, incredible name for Network, by the way, and this whole story. Emily Heller came up with the name Banshee.

And new Medusa's. That was also in one more. So great. Yeah, I think that was just kind of like, oh, it'll be funny to have this place that she feels like is very important to her because it's like you have to make it a place that would be perfect for Sally and what she wants to do. And they do allow her to do the things she wants to do, which is make her personal story. So it was a perfect kind of home for her. and um but you know it doesn't matter who's running the place or what the face of it is it's the algorithm is the is the important thing and i honestly i will say this aspect of the of the story

this season was something i had no real um i'd never have dealt with in that world so it was definitely something more from the other writers and and i think Alec Berg and his time working at Silicon Valley just knows so much about these things. So the whole thing about like taste clusters and vectors and all that was all like I've just in the writer's room going like, so what is it? You know? And but it came from, I can say, I had a friend who had a show on Netflix. I won't say who, because it was a sad story, but had a show on Netflix. And I was like, I can't wait.

you know, when Zika told me when it came out and everything. And he texted me a picture like, we're on the homepage. And it was like, oh, my God, congratulations. I'm going to watch it tonight. And by the time I got home to watch it, I had to type in the whole, it was just gone. And I was searching for it. And I go, hey, what is it still here? I'm still looking for it, you know?

And that was the first time I heard, like, yeah, apparently the algorithm didn't like it. You know, and so it wasn't that long. It wasn't like 12 hours. It might have been like a day or two or something where I was like, hey, man, where is it, you know, to be fair? But I just thought that was interesting because we wanted Sally's story emotionally to be a rise and fall. You know, it kind of a she gets everything she wants. And then to Amy Gravitz note from the last episode,

when I wanted it to be Sally at her premiere yelling about Pam and I went, I don't know why this doesn't work. Amy Gravett at HBO said, you know, I think maybe it's, you want to see her do everything right and the show be good and then it's not her fault at all that the show gets canceled. That's this other thing. And that was right because with her going off on Pam, it seemed like the show getting canceled was now her fault, you know,

it was like her being an asshole or her getting too full of herself. And so, yeah, you know, we were, that's kind of, it's really funny. Yeah, the whole, I think Alec and I were just talking about that in the room and I was like, what is it that they love? And it's like people eating desserts, Dave Patel, New York, Central Park. Like, I don't know if any of that's true, but that just seemed like stuff that, might be something that people like, like that they would know and that,

uh, yeah, new Medusa fits fits the bill, a little bit better than, you know, the other thing. Well, honestly at the risk of revealing too much,

like I work at Spotify. This is a company that uses this kind of data to make decisions. Like there is a lot of truth to what's in it. Like on the one hand, when I was watching that scene, I was like, this is actually a pretty broad like as a joke, the idea of the show being canned after 12 hours,

but on the, other hand, on the same day that I watched it, CNN Plus shut down after like 13 days. That's what I'm saying. Like, that's like there, yeah, some, a reviewer or interviewer said the same thing to me who had seen this episode and was like, I just thought that was a little bit like too broad capital S satire type thing. And I was like, but it happened. Like, it happened to my friend.

Yeah. It's happening. I'm like, that's a good. example of like, well, we can do this joke because it happened. I know, I know it happens, you know? I kind of learned that at South Park, you know, like, believe it or not, it was always like, you know, we would kind of go off on like dumb tangents and stuff about stuff that, it was like getting all the crap out of our system of the dumb ideas or the overly offensive, stupid, easy ideas. And then you would get to the thing that's like the truth.

And it's like, and it always come from, oh, this is an actual thing that happened, you know. I think great satire on some of, you know, like Dr. Strangelove is crazy, but a lot of that is true. You know, there were people, you know what I mean? Like, it could happen and that's why it works so well, and it's timeless to me. That's two Kubrick references in two episodes for you. I'm just going to put that in. Yeah, man. One of my faves.

Is Barry Lyndon coming up in the next episode? Oh, yeah. I'll figure out to get them all in there somehow. Okay, that sounds good. Speaking of satire, I really liked the gene storyline in this episode and the idea of the apology tour, which along the same lines is kind of like the algorithm machine in Hollywood, the apology tour and why are people apologizing is a really interesting through line for him. Can you tell me about that and the writing of that storyline?

Well, that again was kind of the in the bit in those reshoots where it was like, oh, he was going to apologize to Joe Montania. And then it was like, oh, maybe this should be like, we have no other scenes of him, really. It's just in the episode as written, it was like he shows up a Joe Montania's house. And that whole scene was like a perfect example of leading with comedy and leading with a set piece and not needing to be one.

Like, I hate to admit this. version of that where everybody took ketamine and and they were all like on drugs and it was like really really stupid but that's kind of what I mean by the South Park thing it's like you have to get that out of your system and then go wait a minute this is dumb you know what I mean but you you go there to to do it and write it and then wrote another version of it that we shot that just wasn't right um that was again just too joky and we thought it was so funny but the emotion wasn't there. So so much of this is the simplicity of

Jean, and Laura Sanjia Como says in the episode, it's like you're apologizing to feel better about yourself. You don't actually mean this. So Henry is such a good actor. He understood when he apologizes to that showrunner, who has a great reaction, I thought, he just did that. I thought it was so great.

For throwing hot tea in his face on murder, she wrote. Henry kind of just instinctively knew he's like I'm going to walk over and like hey this is all right I feel great now the way he sits down you know yeah exactly he like kind of snuggles into his director's chair yeah now he's like that was all right apologizing felt okay now I'm loved you know I made someone like that person loves me now

you know he didn't even remember a throwing hot tea in the guy's face he's gonna give a shit you know and getting his son that house I think does matter to him, but you're, I mean, that to me was, was more of a like, you know, ignoring the fact of where did that money come from, you know, you're just kind of like, dude, I don't know if it's the best idea to teach Chechen drug money and buy a house. You should ask where that money is from, you know. But, you know, so that and that, I feel okay saying that because that doesn't like lead to anything. It was just like a funny thing that, you know, Barry gives them all that money and

feels bad. But yeah, so by the time you do get to the Joe Montania scene, it was kind of saying like, you know, just play this straight and for what it should be. And the comedy bits will feel organic, you know. So, and a lot of the stuff that's funny that scene is from Joe Montania, and a lot of it, he improvised. His reaction, just the look on him after the Laura San Giacomo,

kind of showdown and unfortunately he leaves dinner is he's priceless no and he's just ah fuck i like it when it was act it was written but he says it so well where where jean basically paraphrases this um because we talked a lot about um in the writers room of flannery o'connor story uh a good man's hard to find and and um the misfit i don't know if you've ever read that story but it's fantastic but the there's a line in and i'll paraphrase it is like um Because everyone should go read that story. It's kind of, it's a big influence on the show. I mean, you want to talk about tonally, you know.

You know, it's basically like, oh, that person would be an amazing person if they had a gun held on them all day. You know, like, if you're being threatened to be killed, then you can suddenly be the human being you're supposed to be on some level. but you should see the story. I'm paraphrasing it. Read, read it. But anyway, he kind of says that, and then Joe Montana goes, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Maybe recalling his days working with Mammett or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, yeah, Mammett filled a gun on him once. But I just thought, I mean, he's just a lovely guy. And Laura is just lovely, too. I mean, she's just such an amazing actor.

And it's great. You keep plucking all these people this season out of our memory banks, our movie and TV memory banks, you know, and Edith Gish and I can't, I can't really take a lot of credit for that, that Sherry Thomas,

our casting director going like, you know who I've always loved is Laura San G. Como, and I think she'd be great in this, you know, because I'll describe what I, you know, think the character is. And I'll say,

you know, I think Annie's kind of, you know, New York, you know, experimental theater in the 70s, you know, and then didn't,

met Gene. They had a relationship and then he blackballed her and now she's just been teaching art and in L.A. and maybe been married and divorced and everything and she went. Oh, what about Laura Sandia Como? She'd be phenomenal.

She was. She dated Willem Defoe in the 70s for sure. Yeah. I don't know if she did for sure, but that idea. You know, speaking of a good man is hard to find. Personally, we don't see that much in this episode is Barry. This is Is this the least amount of Barry we've ever seen in an episode of Barry?

Yeah, yeah. That tends to happen a lot. And then we kind of go, wow, Barry's not in the episode a lot. We should probably figure out how to get him back into the episode. But it just felt like those other characters more, you know, Barry's storyline this episode is essentially like trying to, you know, in the reshoots, we added that scene of him going to Hank and Christobal for relationship advice. And that, because we had shot that scene with me.

and Sally on the couch where I say like, you know, here's all the things I could do for you. But it felt like there was no, hey, there was no setup for it. It kind of came out of nowhere. And so when we were in the edit, Frankie Gutman and Ali Greer and, you know, we were all sitting there talking about it. And it just was like, you know, maybe it'd be nice if, and I thought, well, maybe it'd be nice if Hank gives him this idea because we had that scene. of Barry looking at them at the end of four going like, well, that's kind of like a real loving

relationship. So my mind, it made sense that then he would then go to them for relationship advice, even though he killed all their buddies. And, you know, but he could, you know, have that conversation with them. And then it turned it, I think, into a really funny scene. But it gave him the idea then of like, I'll expose myself. You know, I'll show a little bit more of myself to her. And then his way of doing it was to make a colloquy. And... It's like a sixth grader. It's crazy.

Like a sixth grader, but you know what that's from? Do you know where... Do you get the reference in that? No. I'll tell it and then this kind of ruined... This might ruin the fun. But it's from the movie Thief. Oh, of course.

Yes, when he makes his pinboard, yes. He has his pinboard. And if you see the picture of Willie Nelson is the same picture of William Nelson. That's our little like... Because Duffy Boudreau, who I grew up with, who writes on the show, we both always thought that was really funny because I remember we were watching Thief when we were teenagers and then he's like, this is what I care about and we just started laughing really hard.

Does he actually show it to Tuesday Weld in the movie? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I want. And it was just like, what is he like five? But doesn't it seem like something Michael Mann would have done? Like, doesn't it seem like Michael Mann probably did something similar? He does it also in collateral a bit too where he like, it's like a, it's like a, it's like a screenwriting thing of like, here's everything that matters to this character visually,

instead of them saying it. I'll have them have a collage that he carries around. And I just, we always thought that was funny. So it was like, oh, Barry will make that for her. So that actually cut together pretty well because me putting the collage down for her and being kind of stoked about it and her coming in, I'm looking up. Those are like, that's like six months apart.

You know, that's, we shot that early in the schedule, I feel like, or maybe four months apart. But there's like a big gap between those two things. It's just interesting to kind of take him out of the mix a little bit. And then the one of the, you know, we only see him really in that department store and then the conversation with Hank and Christobal. And then that moment at the end where he's kind of explaining what he can do is you saying.

Yeah. And yeah. And then when he's coming home with the groceries and you. Right, right, you know. But yeah, his storyline is basically that episode is, is, was even flatter before the reshoots. But it became about like, how do I, I need to win Sally back by showing a little bit of who I am. And then it turned into that scene on the couch, which I thought, I thought that scene came up pretty good. It's a pretty, pretty great.

It made me think of, I don't know if you've seen this yet, the card counter. And I was like, oh, yeah. And I was Barry in Abu Ghraib? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It just was funny just to, like I, the first time I did it, like when I, it was much more kind of factual, like I was just saying it factual. And then Duffy and Alec were like, oh, you should say it like sweet, you know. It's it's kind of like the Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross sequence. It was like, oh, yeah, this is, this is good. Yeah. It reminded me a lot of you reading the Glenn Gary Glenn Ross speech in the first season, you know, where you're like, why is he so chipper? He doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. that he yeah Duffy

have that line of basically you plan a seat and they hang themselves pretty good we introduced the the motocross racing siblings of Taylor yeah in this episode who are not interested in Fuchs's offer

until mention is made of the hot tub a little mini action sequence unto itself the sound and the like abrasiveness of that scene is awesome yeah that's a guy, one of the stunt drivers, Clay, that's his place. So that's where all those guys go and train and practice and stuff. And they're all real motocross, like stunt drivers.

And then, you know, Alec and Darren, the DP, yeah, they just did a really cool job with that sequence. Like how fast they're getting to Stephen is kind of nerve-wracking. I just, I, and so, yeah. I thought it was really, really, really well done. And then Stephen's really funny. And then, yeah, I mean, that's the thing with the show is in our minds, because we're living with it every day. Everybody remembers the hot tub.

And it's like, no one remembers the hot tub. So it's like, thank God for previously on. Because, you know, the hot tub, it's like, wait, what? And it's like, well, it was one joke in season one of Taylor just wanting a hot tub by and bring up, We'll have some chicks up here and all this. But yeah, that he would go to his family. And then it was also interesting to us that if you really got serious, like Barry didn't kill Taylor and he didn't actually kill Ryan Madison,

but it was just the, again, it doesn't matter. It's like the implication of it, you know, like, we thought that was interesting, you know, because sometimes we did have people going, well, he didn't kill, he was supposed to kill Ryan, and he was going to actually kill Taylor, one point, but he didn't do either of this, you know. But I don't know. I thought that was interesting.

I also love the idea of using Albert as this figure who knows a little something about the circumstances, but also has great instincts and the Raven Task Force and the idea of one was breaking that up in real time, which leads to this pretty incredible. I guess it's a raid. It's sort of like all three of the forces converging on each other. Yeah. And that was also, you know, Darren Tiernan shot that. And then Wade Allen, Stunk Coordinator, and then Eric Schoon over our production designer.

I mean, that whole setup and having to have, like, the parking garage there was solely for that raid scene because we wanted Butteer to be on top, like, with the elders. And then you see it all go to shit with them on the, them seeing it. I've never seen that before like a perspective shot of a major action sequence overhead like that yeah it's I mean in my mind we're ripping off Road Warrior

it's when they're on top and he has a big telescope and he's watching the you know the fortress being attacked by oh okay that was visually what I kept saying you know it's Road Warrior where he's on top he's got the long telescope and he's kind of sussing out like

you know, the two factions are at war and everything. So I think, but again, that's one of the things like, I remember being in the writer's room, and initially it was going to be just a traditional action sequence. And then we were just talking and being like, it might be funny if it's like it's just from one person's point of view, like whose point of view it's from. And then we thought, oh, what if it's Bautier?

And he's got the elders on the phone. and then it was like, oh, if he's like way far away and he's filming it and you see it all go to shit, that could be pretty funny. But now, Alec and Darren did a great job with that. But I just, in the meetings and stuff, I think I said, road warrior, road warrior, like an ad nauseum and then showed the scene to everybody.

Like, you know, it's this, you know? And I think I just got on everybody's nerve as usual. It's a great choice. you could have claimed credit for the originality, you know? No, no, no. In my mind, just completely ripping off Road War. But it has a comedy thing to it.

And you got Michael Ironside there, which is kind of cool. I was going to ask you about that. Yeah. It's really funny cameo. Yeah, Michael Ironside, like, this is crazy time shit show. But yeah, that's one of those sequences that, you know, there's a lot of planning and it's really hard.

And then you see it and you kind of go like, it, you know, it's all from afar. And everybody's like, are you, you're not going to go down there to see the, you know. Yeah. We're having real stunts and shit going on. And it's like, no, it's not as interesting. It should be far away, you know. So at the end of this episode, when you look back at everything that's happened,

you've got the Chechen plant heroin farm is blown up to shit. You've got Hank and Christobal effectively, you know, been separated because Elena has arrived and now Hank is on the run. That was another thing. I mean, how dumb are we? We didn't even set that up, but she arrived. You just saw them show up. Well, you did it pretty economically with her just getting off the plane, though.

That works really well. Yeah, that was definitely something where we were in the edit and L.A. Greer was like, do you not have Elena arriving and saying we need to go to the, like, that's the shit when you're riding. You're like, no, man, anybody would do that. They should just show up. That'll be interesting. And instead it was just crazy confusing of like, wait, who are those people?

You know, and then you found it out later. And by having Elena show up, it was like, oh, we're all, it actually gave it suspense. You see she says it. And then you see Albert says we got to go there. And you're like, oh, shit, these two factions are going to the same place. But so we see that happen. And obviously, that's the end of something that was kind of beautiful in this, in this series to date was their relationship. and then obviously Barry embarrassing himself

by presenting psychological torture as an option to win his girlfriend back and Gene has just been told that he's only apologizing to make himself feel better and so everybody on the show is at a down moment or a low moment and then you conclude the episode with this kind of harrowing sequence in which Annabeth Gish and her son in the car

have an accident with a gun in front of Barry essentially before pulling away quickly. I've asked you about endings in the past, but man, this is like an expertly executed bummer of an episode. I mean, everybody is low at the end of it.

Yeah, and, and, yeah, that was, that was one that was always very dicey, too, about,

like, where does he get shot, how, you know, like that, you know, you talk about the tone. That's one where you,

you have to kind of go, okay, he gets shot, but it can't be like, you know, you get shot in the face or something like that, you know, it's got to be, it's more of just the, her trying to take responsibility for something and then, and then she takes responsibility for something else.

That's way worse, you know, and that, again, it's the kind of whatever, you know, each of these kind of stories hopefully have a different feel to them, the revenge army. And that one, it was always like, well, this, should be really tragic. And again, like, that would happen. She's never shot a gun before, and they don't know what they're doing, you know. And so it just felt right.

But I remember Anabeth Gish calling him being like, wait, so I shoot my son. And that's like, what? What? Wait, what am I? Can you, you know. And she has a son that age. And with Wade Allen. her husband is her stunt coordinator.

And so I think it is, it was pretty hard for her, you know. And I think she did a beautiful job. And the idea that Barry's there and he kind of knows something's up, you know. It's really effective and kind of grounding for a show, you know, that kind of swings through the comedy and the violence and the job. Yeah, that you just had that scene on the couch. That was kind of satisfying. We did a screening for the writers and you have that scene on the couch. and it was getting like,

everyone was laughing like really hard. We had like a big group of people in the internet at bay watching the season. And, and, uh, and that, that scene was getting tons of laughs. And then to go outside and then that happens and everybody just went, you know,

and they knew it was coming and the old, oh my gosh. You know, so that was really satisfying. But it's honest. As long as it's honest, you know, and it feels true and it's not retuitous or something like,

like that, it just feels, again, you play to the emotion of it as opposed to like, you know, some sort of, uh, because there was a moment where it was like, you know, you get in these meetings and people are like, you know, we could shoot half his head off. And it could be like, you look like there's a Bruder film. And it's like, what? No, no, guys, wait, stop. You know, because everybody's like, what's a technology now. We can make it look pretty fucking grim. And it's like, no, I, that's not what we're doing. Let's, let's stop, you know, because everybody wants their work. showcased, you know. So it's like, that's not the point of the scene. He's going to open up his jacket. It's going to be blood there. People are like, isn't that kind of boring? Don't you want to? I mean, it's a close gunshot, isn't it?

You know, and it's like, no, you don't understand. Did you read the script? You understand what's happening? This is a horrible, horrible moment. Yeah, no, we can make it worse if like, you know, the kids. And it's like, no, this isn't, what the fuck? You know? But those are the scenes, those are the moments you have.

And I get it because people want, you know, want their work to be seen, you know. And I think sometimes the sometimes people get like, they're kind of bored where it's like, what? It's just like catch up on his chest. And it's like, yes. I'll say your choice worked though. You know, you've left it. You've led us into another week on a Sunday night of, uh, of depression and angst. So mission accomplished.

You're welcome in episode five. as we say a lot of times we'll shoot something and like that and then after we all cut we all go comedy because it's just like oh brother we come to Barry Fur barrel laughs

that's been episode five we're going to do this again next week all right see you soon thanks to Bill Hater and thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode if you dug this conversation

please join us next Sunday on the prestige TV pod Bill and I will be back to talk about the sixth episode of this season. I highly recommend.