Jordin Althaus/HBO(NEW YORK) — On Sunday night, HBO’s new hit dark comedy Barry closes the book on its first season. The show stars co-creator and former SNL cast member Bill Hader as the title character, a hitman who catches the acting bug.
The show, which also stars Henry Winkler, Sarah Goldberg, and Stephen Root, has already been renewed for a sophomore go ’round.
Henry Winkler plays Barry’s drama teacher, who is oblivious to his client’s day job. In fact, he’s oblivious to most things — except money, Winkler tells us. “The teacher that I play really, really cares about his students — ability to pay cash and on time,” he jokes.
Winkler says the teacher he plays is an amalgam of many acting coaches he’s known — or heard about — in all of his years in the business. He mentions one in particular — without naming him or her: “You know, there are teachers out there — your students…they are working so hard to try to audition to being a waiter or being a salesperson…And then this teacher forced them to buy his paintings, with money they didn’t have! You know? Then you take that to the nth degree and you just you know dribble it out, and all of a sudden you’ve got Jean Cousineau.”
The Happy Days and Arrested Development veteran says of Hader, “He is funny before the camera rolls, while the camera’s rolling, after the camera rolls. He is innately funny and he is innately generous. I ad-lib and…sometimes he says, ‘Could I just hear it the way I wrote it once just to see if it works?’ I go: ‘Bill! You have no idea how hard I’m trying to get all those words out!'”
Barry airs Sunday at 10:30 p.m. Eastern on HBO.
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