The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Barry’ Season 4, Episode 3 Recap With Bill Hader

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Sean Fennessey is joined by ‘Barry’ cocreator-director-star Bill Hader to break down the third episode of the season, as well as its shocking ending. Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Bill Hader Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Ryan Rosillo. I'm the host of the Ryan Rissolo podcast at The Ringer. We are a sports show, but we do it a little differently because we want to cut through all of the nonsense and try to figure out what's really happening and give you those bigger picture observations. Do a lot of NFL, a lot of NBA, and of course, college football. Also have a great guest lineup, a lot of athletes, front office guys. And even we do some actors and writers from famous TV shows and movies, plus our life advice segment at the end of every show. So make sure you follow the Ryan Rissillo show on Spotify. I'm Sean Fennacy, and this is the Prestige TV podcast. Today, we're talking about the third episode of the fourth and final season of HBO's Barry.

We're doing so with the star co-creator, director of Barry, Bill Hader. What's up, man? Hey, how are you? I'm doing just fine. We're talking about your charming today, the third episode, which is written by Emma Barry and directed by you, dude. And this episode opens with a guy riding on a truck holding a machine gun. And I'm wondering why that was. the first image that we saw in this episode um well we had to kind of get the story of noho hank and

crystal ball's empire building you know the sand empire and i don't know you just kind of had that image in my head and there's a shot in british on the river kawai over the opening credits that's it's like a camera locked down on a kind of a train and these guys sitting on the train and i i don't know it I was thinking of that maybe. It was like while we were setting it up, I turned a car. I'll go, remember the shot and Bridgingler Kauai with the guys on the train at the beginning? And he said, no.

But yeah, I just don't know. You just haven't, you know, it's nice to start an episode with an image, you know. Also, it's kind of funny that this guy is holding a machine gun while driving on top of a truck in downtown LA. And no one really seems to notice. I like the idea, too, of that truck. being full of not necessarily illicit materials, but just sand that is being treated like gold. Yeah, and he's making it, by him standing at the top of the gun,

he's making it illegal. Right. Like, he's caught a lot of attention to himself, which I thought was kind of funny. Very quickly from there, we see Guillermo del Toro, again, Toro, which was a very fun little cameo treat. How did that come about as the, I guess, the connector for the assassins that Cristobal and Hank hire?

he's always been a fan of the show and we met through that by him emailing me saying, I love your show and it was very sweet. And then we have a mutual friend and Alfonso Coron, so we would all kind of connect through that. And then he texted me after watching season three

saying, I'd love to be in Barry. And I said, oh, yeah, okay. And it just so happened that there was this part of this kind of fixer guy who connects the two assassins to the, um, the Kilbury in prison. And, uh, and,

yeah, I, we called him Toro and that was it. And then I call, I emailed them and said, Hey, yeah, so you're in the show.

Uh, you, you shoot in September. Your name's Toro. And I said, costume-wise, I don't know, maybe like, you know, remember ever James almost at the end of Blade Runner, that kind of thing. And he was like, absolutely. And so he and Tiffany White Stanton, our costume designer, worked on that costume.

And that is his cane. He brought her his own cane. And he'll text it. I'm bringing my own cane. And he came to set with his lovely wife, Kim. who's an amazing writer. And he sat and watched a shoot the shot you just described. He watched playback of the guy on top of the of the truck.

And he was like, that shot is fantastic. And he just, he, he was very sweet. And when we shot the scene with him, he was saying things like, you're really going to block it like this?

And I was like, hey man, come on. And then I was sending videos to Elphongo Corona of Guillermo on set. I'm like, Guillermo, will you do this? And I would give him direction. And he'd be like, no, Bill, I'm not going to say that.

You know, you're just sending shit to him. And Alfonso was like, Guillermo was texting me that you don't know what the fuck you're doing. But he was really sweet. And Anthony and Michael Irby were just, you know, I'm like, I'm doing a scene with Kimmel Dutoro. This is crazy. That reminds me of stories you hear about young directors hiring John Houston act in movies. and he's kind of like, you're not doing this right while on set, giving people shit.

Yeah, he was messing around, but he had a lot of fun. And then writing the scene, you know, initially it was just going to be two assassins in the outline. And it's Toro connects them with assassins. And then as I'm writing it, it's one of those great things where you're writing the scene and they say, you know, I'm going to put you in touch with Chui and Nestor Flores. and then you just write, you know, Cristobal says the guys with the podcast, just to solely entertain yourself because you're bored.

It's like, the guys are the podcast. And then I'm like alone laughing in my office that these guys have a podcast. And I was like, well, what's the podcast? And then, you know, I just remember writing that whole scene and showing it to Duffy Boudreau. And he didn't laugh, but he goes, yeah, this is good. And like we did. Then we just moved on. That sequence is chillingly accurate in terms of many conversations I've had with family members about my entire career.

Just explaining what a podcast is and how there's no video. Yeah. And podcast is voice. And Guillermo Dutoro improvised. You're thinking of the TikToks. It's very, very good. So it leads to fuchs and. and Fuchs kind of being stuck now between a rock and a hard place here where, you know, he has been betrayed and he calls Hank and then this kind of unfurls this.

I don't know. I don't know what's happening between Hank and Fuchs, but have you found that there's been some, were there any challenges when you were writing this season about making all of the connectors or all of the characters connected to each other despite the fact that you have people in prison and you have left their home states? Yeah, yeah, but that was kind of the theme of it, no matter what they do, they're connected by their bad decisions. And they're all kind of like leaning on each other in a weird way, you know. But then, you know, it's a thing you initially can write sometimes where there might get information from some other character. And then you say, no, man, it's got to be, it should be few. saying this, right? You know, we have those epiphanies a lot where, you know, it's some random person having a

scene with them. And it's like, shouldn't this be Fuchs, you know? But Fuchs's thing initially, this is interesting, was that initially Fuchs was calling Hank and we shot this saying, have you ever been called Boo Boo Boo the Fool before? And, you know, those guys are making fun of him now. And he's, he's angry. and then he says you know we got to

like fuck this I want you to kill I want you to kill Barry and and Hank is like hey man it's already handled you know just and then it was this thing a fuse going it is wait I'm just you know he's blowing off steam

but it's wait he is oh okay you know and then he starts to he initially pretended like okay great great that's good like let's get rid of him and then you saw that he was having this turmoil inside of him.

And I showed the episodes to some people in, you know, Kyle Ryder and Jeff Buchanan are editors on episodes one and two and Emma Berry, uh, writer, um, all said, yeah, a few saying that it's just like one too many turns,

you know, it's weird. I'm having a hard time buying that he would go from kill him to then seeing a scene from Rain Man and then being like, okay, I don't want to kill him. And so was an interesting thing of pulling it out. So when you see him on the phone and he's talking and he's saying, you know, I've been called this, this and this and, you know, fish tits and everything in prison or whatever, that is actually an outtake from another, from a, from a, the, the scene we shot where he's saying, I want you to kill him.

And that is, uh, we a d-yard it, but that, that, that is Stephen Root. walking to his mark and we were just going to the footage and we found him and so what he's actually saying is he has the phone up to his his mouth and he so his mouth is covered and he's going so i enter in here and then i walked to this mark right bill and then i turned to camera and i'm like that's right stephen and we had that footage so we just alexe greer the editor was like oh my god look what i found and so we were able to put that in and then a dr him talking over it and then ended up saving the scene. Yeah, remember you talking about reshoots a bit during our chats on season three,

but is that common for you to have to kind of salvage or redefine a moment with loose footage? Yeah, yeah, because we're, I mean, we're writing these things fairly fast, you know, and like anything, what you need is time. It would be great in a perfect world to write a full season and feel really good about it and then step away from it and then look at it again. But the reality is, is that it's constantly morphing and constantly honing. You know what I mean? And so I don't know how you shoot stuff without going back and doing pickups,

you know, unless, you know, you just honed the script like a perfect diamond, you know, like a play or something. I don't know. But even plays or be morphed, like, you know, they have that whole process, you know, of, you know, rehearsals and previews and all that stuff where you can, like, rewrite things. And so, but that was, like, a very good note of, and there's another note when we talk about the next episode that I can explain to you that Kyle also gave me that we put in this episode to set up something in four. Interesting. Yeah, I just think when we think about making films or TV,

we assume that there's just this kind of like godlike control over every step of the process and just don't realize how quickly things change on a day-to-day basis. Well, it's constantly changing it forever changes. I mean, I just went to the premiere and watched the first two episodes with an audience. And the whole time, I was like, oh, we cut that too short. We should have cut back from this and back again. And the rhythm of this isn't we kind of, to take time out of the episode, I think we screwed up the rhythm of this moment. You know, it's, you're never really satisfied.

So I understand when people say like, oh, the thing has to be kind of right away from them. I get that. Let's talk about Barry's journey in this episode. You know, the episode opens with him effectively detailing the ring of crime to the FBI and his attempt to kind of get protection from the FBI. and his attempt to kind of get protection from the FBI. And then, you know, after the conversation with the Vanity Fair reporter and when the Vanity Fair reporter tells him what Gene has said about him, he kind of unravels in an interesting way.

And, you know, I didn't really feel like I had a firm grasp on what was happening to Barry at that time. Like I was hoping you could kind of talk me through, especially that sequence in the yard where you're sort of screaming by yourself. And then there's this one onlooker. That to me is what writing it meant was that you see him with the FBI and he's talking about, about you could tell that he's giving all this up. But what he wants mostly is like, I want to go into witness protection with Sally.

And then you realize he hasn't even talked to her about it yet. But he's like, she made me feel, I make her feel safe. So he's just kind of running with this. you know, this is a way to a new life. And then when he sits down with the Vanity Fair reporter and the Vaynery Paper reporter says, this is what Jean Kusno is saying. It's two feelings.

One is, oh, wow, he's talking shit about me. Like, in Barry's mind, there's a version of this where Gene Kousno still feels for him and loves him. So it's a bit like breaking up with somebody and they dumped you and you think, but they still love me and then you're talking to someone and they go, you know, they were just talking mad shit about you at this you know, they said like how horrible you were to date and whatever.

So there's that emotion. And then there's the other thing of if like Barry says in the scene, you know, if he says this stuff and it gets out, it's really going to fuck up what I have going on in here. You know what I mean? If that becomes the story that is going to hurt my witness protection shit, that story's out there because then everybody's going to know about it. And I want to keep this thing contained.

you know and it starts this kind of thread throughout the season of Barry very very being threatened by Kusenos's narrative of what their relationship was and what happened during season three so when he says to the reporter can you please not write this and the reporter goes oh I'm going to write this it just sets him off because now he's out of what he what he now has is under massive threat so he flips out and then he's out in this yard and I just like the image. It says this image in my head when we toured that prison. I saw that yard.

It's like this mini yard. It was so interesting of a guy there. We shoot it early in the morning where the sun's kind of slanting in like that. And he's just arguing with himself, you know? and then walks over and there's this guy staring at him. Maybe is that one of the podcast guys? We don't know. And then he walks towards Cameron and then he gets an idea,

oh, I'll call Hank, you know. And so that's what that was, was kind of an image, but it's also it was the idea of he's feeling alone again. You know, he's feeling isolated. and he's yelling and he has no control. So the only thing he can yell at is nothing. You know what I mean? He's just, no one's listening to him, you know?

So by making him small in the frame in this kind of brick thing, just watching him spin out like that, I thought, like, kind of got the emotion right, you know? Well, one of the things I was wondering was, as soon as the camera pans and you see the onlooker, the other person in the yard. I was like, is this, are you trying to say that he will always have an audience or because of his notoriety now?

Like someone will always be looking at him. Like, what? I was trying to unpack that. Oh, no. It's, I think it's just like a red herring. Like, oh, that's the, that's the podcast guy. Got it. Okay.

It was solely like, wait, is that the podcast guy now? Because I was trying to just keep the tension up of, okay, these guys are in there. Where are they? I'm so honored that the podcast guy is an assassin. I just feel like it means I have a huge future. I'm not going to lie. We weren't thinking of you, Sean. God damn it.

I'm sorry. It's probably for the best. So the call with Hank that you mentioned is an extraordinary scene. And I'm not spoiling anything by saying that this is setting up, I think, some fascinating stuff for Hank in the next few episodes. And I thought Anthony was like amazing in this sequence. and direct, I wanted to hear from you

about directing actors talking into a phone because that is a little different than being on set with someone. So maybe you could talk about how you guys kind of put that scene together. Speaking,

that's Anthony Kim, you're going to call on you right now. That's what it is. Is that true? Yeah, that was Anthony Kirk. His ears were burning. We should keep that in. Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, that was Anthony right there. Well, I will, I'll say that Um, you know, my end of that scene, you know, we had one morning. We had exactly, uh, I think it was two hours to shoot me yelling to my, at myself and the, in the, what we just described out in the yard, the scene where I'm being taken out at the end of the episode where the guards are taking me out, a scene that's in, uh, oh no, it's in three.

where the guards are rushing towards the shootout and those guys are in the cages screaming. Near the end, yeah. And then the scene where my phone call, you know, we had like, we were like running so fast to shoot all stuff because they had their, the president was like, okay, you have this little window to do all this. And then in the first shot of episode four, so when we get to that, that was all done within two hours. And so I just remember we shot my side of it. And I'm doing the scene with Gavin Kleintop, the first AD. So he's reading off camera and I'm just acting to him.

And it was just like at one point they say, you know, you just keep it really simple. And then when he says, why are you lying to me? We just do a slow push-in because now the push-in to me is Barry's heart rate going up, you know? And then we matched it. on Anthony's side where when you say lying, you do the same slow pushing because his heart rate's going up. You know, it's that part when you're in an argument with someone where it's like,

oh, now this is real. This is, there's bad blood between that awful feeling of, okay, we're about we're getting in a fight. Now, Anthony was interesting because I initially photo boarded his scene to be a shot from behind, a shot, a profile shot, and then a shot, and then a close-up, right? And we were running really low on time because we had to get out of that warehouse set. We had so much to shoot in that warehouse set and I think a day and a half. And it was also like 100 degrees inside that set.

It was, if you remember in September, there was a massive heat wave in Los Angeles beginning of last September. And it was during that time we were shooting it. And it was oppressive. And so I decided, why don't we just move Anthony? So I'll just have the shot behind him. And I said, Anthony, when you get to a certain point, turn profile. And then when the, you know, and then when the emotion of you're confronting him, you turn completely around and we see your face.

And that take with Anthony, I was on the phone with him. I was at video village watching him. and I'm doing the scene with him, but I'm watching him on the monitor. And I'm playing it 100%. He's playing, he's going 100%. We're really arguing, you know. And it was just great, you know?

And Anthony is so, you know, he played that really well because it's a bit like, again, you're talking to an ex. It's like you're finally sticking up for yourself to like an ex-boyfriend. who has always trashed you and you finally have the guts to say, all you do is take and take and all you do is treat me like, shit, I'm nothing but nice to you and you just,

you're nothing but a piece of like, that's a very, it's a very relatable thing, you know, and we've seen it. So it was nice for him to finally unpack that and say that to Barry. And I liked playing, the only thing I improvised on my end was when he said, why you with the FBI I improvised on one take when we use it where I say, well, okay, now why are you lying? You know, which that's how Barry's brain works.

You know, he's caught. He can take responsibility and then he decides, now I'm going to throw this back on you and I'm going to double down on this because now I refuse to take responsibility for this. It hadn't even occurred to him that he was working with the FBI

and that that might be an issue because he's selling Hank out, but he's so caught up in this anger thing about Fugustineau that he's like, we got to get rid of him, you know? And so I love that moment when watching it when he's like, why are you working with FBI? And it's just so clear that

Barry hasn't, like he forgot about that. It feels like that's also the moment when your character says that and Hank essentially says the day you get out of prison is my fucking birthday. And you feel like, it's broken. know this bad relationship, this toxic relationship is broken now.

Yeah, yeah, it's fully broken. There's no going back from this. It's like, yeah, and then I like where he says, he goes, you got out prison, it's my fucking birthday, and Barry calls him on that. He's like, oh, you're a tough guy now. I love that because he's like, okay, okay, cutie. He's like, because Hank's trying to be tough there.

Yeah. He's trying to have a tough guy line, and Barry calls him on it. like you don't know the fuck you're doing like give me a fucking break you know I love that moment I love that scene that's Amy Gravett from HBO or executive that's her one of her favorite scenes of the season she's like I love that scene so much

I like it a lot too I think it is also a reminder I think of some of the origins of the story which is that like all of these incredibly violent people are just really wounded and insecure and really damaged and there's something super honest about that but also very funny about it. So I thought it was excellent. Yeah, they're not cool. They're not

badasses. They try to be badasses, but they're not. Yeah, they're not. I'm sure Barry feels like whatever Hank is saying doesn't really matter that much because he's about to sit down with the FBI officially and get witness protection. And he sits with Dan, is it Backendahl? Backendahl. Yeah. He was just a genius. Improv legend. I saw him

when I first moved to New York to do SNL. He was in a show with John Lutz. um before square and was unbelievable like just so funny one of the best improvisers I've ever seen yeah he's a legend um and his you know his setup is even a little bit

a little bit confusing the intent there you know he's implying that somehow you know Barry just because he's getting this deal may not be safe and it's a foreshadowing a little bit of what's about to come in about three seconds yeah yeah I think what he's saying is you know initially we have it that he was like, we've always been good and everything like that. And then you have Dan Beckett all there.

So I was like, Dan, just go. I'm like, I'm just going to stay out of his way. And he just started doing all those riffs like, have we had 100% success rate? I mean, I can't say we have. You know, you might. You may blush at the idea being referred to as an egg. An egg. Yeah, you may blush at the idea of you referred to as an egg and probably, you know,

we put a chip in you, you know, and like all this stuff. And again, we talked about that. We're like, oh, is this tipping what's about to happen or what's his intent? And I'm like, well, I don't know. If I was watching this, it's like, oh, this is what the scene's about. It's just like, oh, the scene is they're meeting with this guy and he's saying it might not work. Because if it comes in and he's like, everything's going great and here's how we're going to help you, then I know something else is about to happen. You know?

So I tried to shoot it in a way where when Barry's frowning, you could think he's frowning at Dan Beck and all like what he's saying so it like it's a bigger issue when you cut to Fred and Fred Armisen and he's scared shitless so you waited

you waited a long time to bring your friend Fred into this show yeah why was this is he Nestor he's Nestor yeah yeah because at the end he goes Chewy right yeah he's Nestor whereas

he you know I just didn't have a part for him that made sense, you know. I'd like to put everybody in, it's like last season, we didn't have a part, we had just had a part that made sense for Vanessa Bear. It was just like, oh, she'd be great in this, you know? And for this, it was just like, oh, man, yeah, Fred would be so, Fred looking scared right here would be so funny, you know. The genius of closing the loop on Los Amigos gadget,

the podcast in which a small gun that is smuggled into a prison explodes in his hand was also brilliant. Yeah, that was an early idea. I remember pitching that over Zoom. What was like, what if the guy has a pin gun and it blows his hand off? Yeah, and Fred loves monster movies like me, and so he was so excited. He was so excited. Oh, my God, they just did a cast in my hand.

I'm so excited, you know, he was so thrilled to get to do that where the hand blows up. He was just so happy. The sequence in general is really amazing and I imagine difficult to pull off the choreography with the gunfire from a ceiling, which is not, I mean, is that an angle you even are seeing gunfire coming from? And then how are you kind of cutting all that together?

Can you maybe talk about just kind of, you know, constructing that sequence? It wasn't actually that hard. I mean, it's not, it's, you know, I just took a lot of, I took photos and we photo boarded a bit, but, you know, you get there, you know, the hardest part actually, I think, was the shot of where the guy falls through the ceiling and timing. So that's two shots.

So we did me and then we cut and then just had the camera locked off and had the guy fall through the ceiling. So that's like two composite. That's a composite shot. But I think, you know, it's just having different sizes. And just again, it's just trying to figure out the geography of it, you know. And when that Dolly shot of him of Barry jumping out of the chair and then hitting the wall and then the guy's hitting is very important that you see that giant seal that's on the wall that's heavy fall off the wall because that's what he's going to use to shield himself. You know, it was all, it's all just geography stuff, you know. But I like that their plan was really dumb and that one guy would be, if like anything went wrong, the guy.

up in the ceiling was going to just start shooting people. And I just, it's just, it's just, you write those things and you think about it and then you go, what will be really surprising, you know? And then sometimes you try three different versions and they don't really work.

And then you hit on one that you're like, oh, this is fun. Yeah, and it's funny. Them arguing is really funny. I like also the mirroring of, you know, the mention of Rip Torn's prop gun,

um, with, with, with Harmison's character's gun and the idea of like, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how intentional that was, but this world of, like, play that comes into things. Yeah, I love, yeah, the way Charles Parnell says that, you know, do you own a gun, Mr. Kousson? Yeah.

It probably fires real bullets. Yeah, that's Duffy Boudre line. Well, if it's rip torn, and fires real bullets. That's good. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, ask your doctor about Zep, Tersepatite, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate

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Can you talk about, like, navigating genes story here? idea of someone who's desperate for attention but needs to keep his mouth shut and how to control him? Yeah, I mean, you see people like that a lot, especially in L.A. and Hollywood, you know, or it's like, Gene Sting is this, if he just, all he has to do is keep his mouth shut. That's all he has to do, and instead he does a one-man show. That was one of my favorite. I love the scene with him and Fred Milliman. and Charles Parnell is so funny, you know.

And we had to cut a line, but there's a moment where Charles Parnell, where they're freaking out in Charles Parnell said, let's not all start acting like little babies. And I had to cut it because just rhythm-wise, it wasn't working. But when he said that, I would start laughing so hard. And then the scene with, yeah, I think, you know, I think he's just trying to put toothpaste back in the tube, you know.

him. And then, you know, he gets what he deserves. Like his nightmare is what happens, which is Jim Moss finds out about it. Yeah. But I really enjoyed in this episode coming up with and shooting more visual kind of, like, when they're in the car and he's, and he tells Fred Melamette and, you know, cutting outside of it and watching the car. veer over and run into it. And that's way down on our stunt coordinator driving the car. Well, the episode

doesn't feature as many of the kind of like psychological visions that we talked about last week, but it there is that moment where Fred Melamed and Henry's characters break into Lon's house. The camera does something unusual

there where it sort of tracks its way through the house a little bit and kind of pans around, but characters are not in the frame. And it felt like the most disorienting thing in the episode. Yeah, it was nice. I like that scene where it's kind of you're following them and then the pot goes through the window and then that motivates the camera to kind of go around the room

and we're like a little bit ahead of them. And I like using the shadow of the guy coming through. You know, it's all emotional-wise going, what the hell are you guys doing? If you're following them, you're with them, and you're kind of going, all right, we're doing this together. But if you are kind of ahead of them, to me at least, it just feels a little bit more judgmental and a little bit more confused and not wanting to be in there. It's similar to kind of we did that Ronnie Lilly where they're fighting and the camera kind of they go, the camera slowly catches up to them.

This is almost a reverse of it where the camera is kind of like slowly ahead of them. but um but it's still really funny i love when uh fred melamad goes in and destroys that room and then comes out and goes that's a kitchen and then and then he's he's convinced that everything is in the monitor so he throws the monitor in a pool and and uh i like the way for uh uh henry said lawn's wife in the house always made me laugh that was really fun jim whitman our or Dolly grip deserves a lot of credit for that. Because that's all, he's just controlling the, usually for those guys, they're doing it so you're following people.

But it's like, oh, no, I'm in the driver's seat of this. You know, so they have to kind of rearrange their thinking. Yeah, it's like a ghost POV shot or something. It's like there's some sort of like object in the room. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah. You know, I want to talk about Sally, but before we do,

just Patrick Fishler speaking German. at the end of the sequence after Jim captures him and I guess tortures him and teaches him German? What happened there? Yeah, I don't know what he did. He just scrambled his brain. But I like that Patrick had this idea that his character should have Skittles

and then because he becomes German, he then has the gummy bears. I didn't put that together. Yeah. So because he's German, he has gummy bears. Are gummy bears German? Well, that kind of gummy bear, yeah, is German. I see.

like, Gour, Gumi bear. So that was in the edit, Ali Greer would constantly go, Gummy Bear, you know. But, uh, no, man. Yeah, Patrick Fisler is just like one of the greatest actors ever. He can do anything. He improvised one of my favorite lines of the, the, the, this episode where,

when he's talking to me and I say, Jin Kousno told you that. He improvised, it took three hours. But yes. He's very smart. And just so imaginative and he has so many ideas. And he went and learned German for that one little part. I was going to ask if you wrote that because he spoke German or if it was in the script.

I wrote it. I wrote that before he was cast. And he just was like, cool, I'll learn German. And then, but I just like the idea that Jim Moss is, who knows what the hell he's doing in his garage, but he's, it's not what you think he's doing. Yeah, some sort of torture tactics, psychological torture. Yeah, it should be less. Like, he's wearing different clothes.

He's all dirty. Jim Moss is, like, cleaning out the back of a trunk when Kusno comes to his house. Like, who knows what happened. But whatever it was, it's not what I would think it is. That's really great. Let's talk about Sally. You know, her arc is, it feels like a little bit in this episode, reckoning with where she comes from

and then projecting what's been done to her onto a whole group of other people. She's working for Gene's acting school. She's taking on these students. It's leading to this relationship that she's building with this aspiring actress Kristen. But, you know, writing it, it feels like Sally is constantly being confronted

by her past and having to, I don't know, almost like exercise it in public this season. Can you tell me about that? Well, the first scene I wrote for season four, the first thing I sat down and wrote is that scene where she, you know, yells at the Kristen actress. That was the first thing I ever wrote for season four.

And it didn't really change that much. I mean, I think I cut it down a lot and we cut it down in the editing. There was more kind of just tried to hone it a bit. but it was just it really was helpful for me to write that scene to kind of know where Sally was at and go okay well it'd be interesting to recreate the scene from the pilot where Kusano did this to her and then let's see her do it to someone else and just see how you know why is she doing it but it's also interesting to see how much the culture has changed because when Kusinau did it to her the culture was like wow that was really amazing you know that

they went there and how rough you know he was so brutal to her but he got to this amazing place and now it's you know that was abusive you know and we had those talks in the writers room and it was split it was really interesting some writers being like no that's great you need to go there and other writers saying no that's stupid you know i don't get that at all i wanted to ask you specifically about that because the the and that's where i want you to go we all have to be the ugliest version of ourselves. Now, obviously, that's like a theme of the show itself. But for you personally, like, we don't talk about your acting that much in these conversations, but like, what do you do? You have to be a really terrifying, intense character. You know, I'm, I've never, I've talked

to actors who do a lot of research and stuff like that. I don't really do, I just do it, you know, it's like the more I think about it, the more I get in my head and the more I'm, you know, it's like Duffy said with that scene with me hitting myself in the mirror in episode one. I'm seeing a lot of acting, you know? And it's like, the less you think about it and the more you just kind of do it, something happens. I can't really describe it. It's the same way as writing.

I have no idea. I can talk about this stuff, but I don't know what the wedding party transition in episode two really means, but it just feels like, oh, it should be something like this. And I was lucky enough to be at a network where they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, do it. You know, because I think a lot of people might have these feelings. And I've been with actors and I've worked on things where you, you have these moments and they get cut out, you know, or you get noted of like, what the fuck's this wedding party made?

You know what I mean? And so a lot of that is just being just lucky, you know, and having to choose who you work with really carefully, you know, because I think we've all had moments where the way our performances are cut is so important. When you have someone like Sarah Goldberg, you're cutting it to kind of stay out of her way and see what she's doing because what she's doing is really interesting. Or Anthony and Michael Irby and, you know, these other people that have had these kind of more

intense scenes. You just try to stay out of their way, you know? But you want to show it. You want to show the work, you know? there's a lot of people, I know that there's a lot of shows that, like, for instance, that scene where she dresses the woman, the down, that would have been on angles and really cutty, and you would have been cutting to the girl and cutting the audience and then cutting back to Sally, and then she's at a different size, and then, you know, and it is all kinetic because the editor

is feeling like, I'm going to, my cutting is going to bring the emotion into this. scene and it has to be the actors and hopefully the writing and in the edit it should be like get out of the way you know that's my feeling sarah's had a number of sequences throughout the series where the camera is tight on her face and she has to give a kind of real angry monologue or speech yeah you got to be writing with her yeah i i do like to do that because one i think she's a very interesting face. Very beautiful face, but she has a very interesting, like, intensity in her eyes that I find really interesting. And, but I also feel that she, like, I just remember telling her, I'm like, when you're getting angry with her, you get to this mark. And then when you get to your

final line, or is it because they all just wanted to fuck you, I needed to get closer. And she, like, oh, God, and that was one of the hardest shots we did all season. to keep her into focus. That was an incredibly, we do all these weird things, you know, one of the hardest shots we had to do was just when Sarah stepped forward

because she is at a 10, emotional-wise, and you would do it, and the focus would just, you know, Peter, our amazing, the AC would just, his focus puller,

he's just going, ah, God damn it, you know, it was just so, it was really a tough one for him. So, we got it, but man, we got it. We all cheered to that.

That was a really tough one. And Ellie, and who plays Kristen is great, too, in that scene. She's just getting totally berated, you know. She's really great. And it feels like that scene in particular, it's kind of like the death of Sally's youth, you know, like her ingenue era is over,

and now she is fully in this kind of middle stage of her life. Yeah, she's a teacher. And it's like Kuson said last season, you know, last episode. you know, when you're back is against wall and everybody's against you, all you have to do love to teach. But teaching is a very virtuous thing and it's a really beautiful thing. So, but the question is like, why is she doing this, you know? And maybe it started out as a good thing, but then she sees this girl being charming and it drives her nuts, you know?

And I think one of the funniest moments of the whole season is when she dresses her down and completely destroys her. and it says don't think say the line. She says the line, which is pretty obvious. Like, you know, with Norma Desmond, Sally comparisons is pretty obvious. But she says the line. And then Sarah's turn and that's really funny where she's like, so as you've just seen, what's your name again? Oh, that, what you've just seen is the backbone of this class.

And I purposely shot it where you can see Kristen crying in the background. And she's saying that just completely destroyed this girl. And it was really funny. Did you pick up the wide shot at the end? Did you see what's in the wide shot? No, what was in the wide shot? She looks at the class and they're all looking at her angry. Yeah.

Oh, you should go back and look at it. Okay. You got an Easter egg in there for me? Easter egg in there and go back and look at it. One of the things I like about it, too. Well, speaking of Easter eggs, I think just getting quick line readings, from Steel Magnolias, from Fight Club, from Rudy. Like, that felt like a direct callback to the legendary Glenn, Gary Glenn Ross sequence.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. These actors don't understand the material at all, which is so funny. And it's all from movies. Right. Yeah. But the way that that sequence ends is that, you know, Kristen, who has been publicly embarrassed and berated and who identifies and says, you're clearly unhinged, which I thought was so funny.

but she needs her. She identifies that she needs someone to help them do that. And that was why I asked you, like, kind of where do you fall in terms of how do we coax greatness out of people sometimes? It's a messy, it's a sticky subject. Yeah, it's a messy thing.

I don't, I don't know if I agree with, you know, you would hear the thing about people slapping people right before they shoot and things like that. That's just like abusive or purposely playing mind games. Or I am one, I used to think the whole idea of like Stanley Kubrick

making Shelley DeVolve do like 150 takes of something, so he would mentally break her down. When you're in your 20s, that sounds like really amazing and romantic. And then you do it and you're like, there's zero reason to ever do that to someone that's all about the director's ego, you know? And that's awful to do to someone. So it's varying degrees, but to me,

I always leave it to the actor. And if I feel like it's not there, the simple thing is to say, like, I don't think we have it, you know? And it's like, I think we need to, to how can I help you get to the place I need you at, you know. But most of the actors, a lot of that is this in casting. You can sense people who will go there for you.

Or they go there in a way that you are anticipating. And sometimes it's like a lateral move. We're like, oh, this is kind of what I want, but it's going over there. That's interesting. Well, let's follow that. So it's, I'm not a real control freak about that because that happens a lot of times, too, where someone will play a thing so strong. And in my head, it was written to be not as strong.

And I'll try to get them back to that. And then I go, oh, what they were actually doing was better. You know, you get in the edit. And that happens sometimes. We're the first take. So I don't circle or anything like that. I kind of go, oh, that didn't work. Let's try this.

And you get in the edit and be like, wait a minute, that was great. Why did I not like that? You know what I mean? So sometimes you need the objectivity to, the gateway. And I remember even in that scene feeling like, oh, okay, that takes, Sarah, maybe you've gone too strong, but that's good. We can dial her back a bit.

And she's someone you're collaborating with. It's not like me, you know, it's like, maybe I do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, try that. Oh, yeah, try this. Like, we're both kind of talking it through. But the ones where she really went for it are the ones we use because it was just palpable. You know, you sense her insecurity. and frustration, you know.

I really liked what you've done with her character so far this season. It's probably a good place to wrap up. You know, things end with, you know, the juice is loose. You know, Barry is, Barry is, he's escaped in some fashion. That's Barry Burden. That's Richard Reilly. When I first moved to L.A. In 1999, I have a friend named Jake Reilly, who I went to school with in Arizona at Scottsdale Community College.

and we kind of all moved out in the summer of 1999 and he said, oh, my uncle is an actor. He was in casino and office space. And my recollection is we went to Bob's Burgers and Toluca Lake with him. And he was so nice and just like, yeah, you know, get a job as a PA or you do this. And he was just giving us advice,

giving me especially advice, like, how do I get into the movie business? He was so sweet. So when this idea of the warden came up, I said, oh, can I repay him by casting him as the warden? And then he and Stephen Rout, you know, have known each other for 40 years or something. Not only were they in office space together, they were in the Michael Douglas movie Black Rain together, which I used to watch on television all the time. And I took a picture of it and sent it to them.

I go, you guys remember this? And so I got to your stories about making Black Rain with Ridley Scott. I mean, he really is one of the, one of the legendary that guy's of the last four decades in Hollywood. I mean, he's been in everything. Everything, but just a lovely, lovely human being and just a wonderful, yeah, you just, tell me where you want, yeah, what you want me to do, where we go. But just watching him and Stephen chat in between takes was, like, I just, they're two of my favorite actors. It was really cool. It's a great episode, Bill.

Thanks for breaking this one down. We have a lot to break down for episode four, so please stay tuned for that. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode, and we'll see you next week.