Supplemental Post #4 - Josh Nallathambi

This past Sunday I watched the pilot for HBO’s new comedy, Barry. Created by SNL alum Bill Hader and Silicon Valley showrunner Alec Berg, the show is a slight departure from the two’s previous style of comedy. While the show still ultimately operates a comedy, it takes on much more nuanced jokes and an overall darker tone that we haven’t seen from the two’s usual bro-style comedy. For Hader, this appears to be his goal, using this opportunity to rewrite the image that he had originally set out on when first starting in Hollywood.

Hader did a podcast with Bill Simmons a couple of weeks ago at SXSW and talked on about how his career in comedy got started purely out of random chance. He was taking classes at Second City when Megan Mullally saw him in a show and told Lorne Michaels about him. Hader had never planned to be an actor, he had originally moved to Los Angeles to become a filmmaker. He described his tenure at SNL as constantly stressful and anxiety-ridden, not looking back on it as favorably as other cast members would have. It makes you think if Hader saw SNL as a good opportunity, but a sidetrack from what he originally had planned to do in the industry. He said that he had came to be a director and make films like Goodfellas, not be recognized for something like the character of Stefon.

It appears that Barry is the kind of project that Hader always wanted to do. Hader directs and co-writes the pilot and shows extreme skill, pacing the episode to and finding a clear tone, more akin to the Coen Brothers as opposed to something like the Farrelly Brothers.  As the show moves forward it will be interesting to see how Hader’s star image evolves, and if pending success will lead Hader to continue to stray into more dramatic work.

Here’s the link to the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=invjjI9e62o

Edit: I totally forgot to add the whole reason why I found this interesting. This whole contradiction got me thinking about star image and the concept of who defines it, the star or the audience. If the audience recieves Hader as a comedic star, known for his impressions, how long would it take them to change their view to the more creator, darker, image that Hader is trying to present now with Barry? If a star portrays themselves as one side but the audience chooses to claim them as another trope, what level of power does the star have?