In the current age of all the content all the time, it can be incredibly difficult for any television show to break through the noise, let alone a good one. When the new half-hour HBO comedy series Barry debuted last year, there was considerable interest given the premise (what if a hitman decided he wanted to become an actor?) and the talent involved (Bill Hader serves as co-creator, co-showrunner, writer, director, and star). The show premiered to extremely positive reviews and a solid response from viewers, but a curious thing happened in the months following: people kept finding the show. Good word-of-mouth continued to draw people to the series, to the point that by the time Hader and Henry Winkler picked up Emmy Awards for their work in front of the camera in September, Barry was something of a fan-favorite contender.

So it’s with a tremendous amount of anticipation that Season 2 arrives. Hader shot the eight-episode second season directly after finishing shooting his onscreen role in the upcoming horror sequel It: Chapter Two, which proved to be an exhausting experience—but you wouldn’t know it by watching the first few episodes. Indeed, Barry returns even more surefooted than its first season, with a confident command of tone that swings wildly from laugh-out-loud comedy to truly emotionally devastating drama without ever feeling off balance. You can read Allison's full rave review right here.

Season 2 is darker to be sure, but not in a way that’s trying to push the envelope or evoke a shocked response. There’s no increase in gore or violence, but instead a deeper dive into the emotions of the characters, and the way we lie to ourselves about who we are and whether we are, at heart, a “good” person. It’s also still a show in which Hader’s Barry tries on a “British” accent while working his day job at Lululemon to hilarious results, so fear not, the comedy is still incredibly strong.

In anticipation of the Barry Season 2 premiere on HBO on March 31st, I recently got the chance to speak with Hader about the new season. He discussed the process of navigating the show’s tricky tone, why Season 2 is more emotionally driven than Season 1, and how they approached Hank’s (Anthony Carrigan) story arc this year. We also dove a bit deeper into the production aspects of the series, as Hader discussed what he aimed to improve and change about his approach to directing and whether he ever aims to direct a feature film. We also dove into the specifics of the premiere episode, but you’ll have to wait until Sunday night to read that spoiler-filled portion of the conversation.

Check out the interview below, and check back on Collider after the premiere on Sunday night for a specific breakdown of how Hader and the show’s writers approached the first episode back. And click here to read Allison’s rave review of Season 2. 

I’ve seen the first three three episodes, which are great, and I kept remembering that when I spoke to you last year, you told me that you were early in work on season two and that it was pretty dark. And now I'd say that was an understatement.

BILL HADER: (Laughs hard)

And here's where I put “Bill Hader laughs maniacally.”

HADER: (Continues laughing) Well, it gets worse.

It’s really dark! I mean, not in any like physical way. It's not like gory, but just emotionally you guys go to these really dark places. Tonally, what's it like for you as a producer, writer, director and actor on the show? How do you navigate the tone and make sure that it's diverse but also consistent?

HADER: Well, I mean you just kind of follow the story and we just kind of go each step of the way of saying, “What would Barry do here? What would Sally do here? What would Cousineau do? What would Fuches do?” And you just try to be as truthful and honest as you can. Then what tends to happen is that Alec and I would have a draft that I would say is more dramatic, because we're just trying to have the story make sense. Then we'll kind of go back and in each draft I think a little bit more comedy will kind of seep in. Then what tends to happen is we get on set and then we'll try and add more comedy, and then we get in the edit and we end up cutting back on the comedy. So it's just a balancing act. It’s all kind of instinctual and we're feeling it as we move across. It's never like, “Well let's try this and try this.” You know?

For sure. It works really well. Just looking at it from a viewer perspective, I just don't understand how you do it because it all works somehow, but it’s so diverse.

HADER: Well, so much of it is you do something in Episode 2, you find out a thing in Episode 3 and then you go, “Oh, you know, we can probably set that up earlier, if we had this funny thing.” This just happened, where we're cutting Episode 6 right now, and we were like, “Oh wow, if we do this thing in Episode 4, it affects this thing in Episode 6.”

Yeah, there is a commitment to the bit, which I really appreciate. I mean, I think it's in the first episode of Season 2 where Jermaine is like coming out of the bathroom and you're like, “Oh yeah he has IBS”

HADER: Yeah, he has IBS now.

The jokes just continue.

HADER: Yeah. Sometimes that's the actor too, by the way. Sometimes that's not us and the actor will say, like Daryl, "Well you know I have IBS, so maybe I'm coming out of the bathroom” and we go, "Oh, that's great."

That was funny. I know you had finished Season 1 before it ever aired, and I was kind of curious, coming into Season 2, now you had reactions to it, people had seen it, people had asked you about it. Did any of those reactions impact how you approached Season 2?

HADER: Not really, no. I mean I don't really read too much stuff. I don't know if Alec does either. I just tend to focus on the story and focus on what we think should happen and talk about it with Alec and not make it a bigger conversation now. I mean it seems like people enjoy it. It's like everything. Some people like it and some people don't. You can't really control it once it's out there. So it's super weird hearing you and some of these other reporters say, “When I saw the first three episodes…” and I'm like, oh, it's so weird cause they've been just in this little petri dish in our little lab here (laughs).

I’m interested in the construction of Season 2. I mean, Season 1 very much had a very strong narrative arc that followed through. In the pilot, Barry murders Ryan and everything kind of snowballs after that. That's kind of the central plot hook. When you guys were constructing Season 2 and thinking about ideas, were you looking for another similar kind of narrative backbone that would go throughout the entire season?

HADER: No. It kind of just started happening that way. It does have a plot to it, but it's almost more emotionally driven and it's kind of this notion of fighting your nature. There is a moment in the season where Barry asks Mr. Cousineau “Am I a bad person?” He says “No, I just think you're just deeply human”. And I feel like that's the kind of thesis statement of the season in a way with every character.

I mean there is a plot element that follows through the episodes I've seen, but it does seem like maybe this season is a little more thematically driven and kind of digging deeper into the characters.

HADER: Yeah. More about the way we kind of lie to ourselves, about our past and having to accept ourselves. It was interesting to not just make that Barry's problem, but it kind of just organically started to be everyone's problem.

I also wanted to ask about Hank, who was kind of a fan favorite in Season 1. I think Anthony Carrigan's performance is really terrific and he's even better in these Season 2 episodes, because he kind of gets to step up to the forefront. Where did you guys want to take Hank this season?

HADER: He teamed up with the Bolivians and Cristobal. I just thought it was funny that he tries to be—what if Hank tries to be hard this season, you know? So, you just try to keep it that simple. He wants to be hard.

That’s fair. Season 1 I felt was exceptionally well-directed. Season 2, it's the same thing and I was curious how you went about selecting your directors this year?

HADER: I mean you just meet people and they kind of jive with what you're trying to do and they kind of have a good take on it and you're like, “Oh, let's have them.” It's hard because they're kind of always extensions of Alec and I in a way. I mean they bring their talent to it, don't get me wrong, but it's such a weird position. It's such a hard position being the director who's brought in. Having not directed the pilot, it's kind of like you're throwing a party at someone's house that you've never been at. Like you've been invited to someone's house and they're like, “Okay, cool. So you're in charge of the party and you don't know any of the guests. You don't know anything, you don't know what they like to eat or what kind of music they're into and you're in charge.” So it's a hard job and they’re just great. Liza Johnson directed Episode 4 and Minkie Spiro just did an amazing job on Episode 3.

I know you're back behind the camera this season as well. I believe towards the end of the season.

HADER: I directed episode five and episode eight. I directed the last one.

Okay, cool. Well, and since Season 1 was kind of your first time directing anything, coming back was there anything you wanted to do differently from the last time or anything you maybe learned from Season 1?

HADER: Yeah, it was kind of like just being a little bit more confident with the camera movement and camera placement, and trying to find camera movement that was emotional. Trying to find an emotional frame and asking, “What is the scene about? Whose point of view is it from?” And letting things just kind of play in one single static shot sometimes, if that felt right.

Because the show is so kind of crazy—the schedule is so crazy and we don't have a lot of time—I do photoboard a lot of stuff, just so we all know what we're doing and it helps my first AD Gavin, who's amazing. Gavin Kleintop, he's really the MVP on set. He and I kind of go through it all and work really hard at planning this so it just kinda runs well. So you're trying to do these kind of ambitious shots with not a lot of time, and so the only way to do that is to be really planned. I would love to get to a place where I'm able to do that a bit more instinctively.

And also you know, I think I understood lighting a bit better this season than in the first season. Now that we're kind of in the color correction phase, it's nice to kind of look at stuff and you find little moments where you go, “I think it's a little too hot back there. Is there a way we can cool that off?” Or, “Can we put more green into this?” It's just stuff that I'm learning from the DP Paula Huidobro and the people who color the show. It's the same thing for sound too, you know, it's like we're in the sound mix right now and especially Episode 5, sound plays a massively important part of that episode. So it’s all trying to use all these things in order to tell the story. 

I would say that the filmmaker—and this is going to sound super pretentious—but the guy that I was watching was Andrzej Wajda, like Ashes and Diamonds, A Generation and Kanal. I was watching those and I just really dug them and it was like cinematic and it was emotional and the framing was very specific, but it still felt all very motivated. So it was just always trying to keep things motivated. Utilizing the location the best you can, you know?

Yeah yeah. It would be hard for you as the showrunner and the star and everything to direct all episodes of the season, but has the experience kind of made you interested in directing a feature at some point?

HADER: Oh yeah, yeah.

That would be great.

HADER: Like Minkie directs three and she did amazing job, but there'll be a shot that when I'm writing it, I have it like so clearly in my head that I have to be like, “Hey Minkie, is it okay if we get this shot?”

If I remember correctly, from a production standpoint, Season 2 was pretty much back to back filming with It: Chapter Two. What was that process like, jumping right from this giant horror movie into the show?

HADER: Exhausting.

Yeah?

HADER: It really kicked my ass. I'm looking forward to having a break. I was just figuring it out, I haven't had actual like proper time off—if you don't count three weeks in February of 2018, I haven't had a break in three years.

That's insane.

HADER:I need one.

Well, to that end, have you had any discussions about how long you'd like to see the show go? Is there kind of an ideal number of seasons or have you guys discussed an end point?

HADER: Not really. It's kind of like how everything goes, I think it just kind of happens organically. A lot of times what happens is we’ll write it one way and then we’ll go, “You know what, this whole storyline could be a whole season. So let’s just let this be the season instead of trying to shoehorn in this other idea.” Maybe that idea will be next season.

Barry Season 2 premieres on HBO on March 31st at 10pm ET/PT.