The long wait for Barry Season 3 is almost over!
While talking to Bill Hader for his voice work in The Addams Family 2, the director-writer-star-producer and co-creator of one of the best shows on any channel, Barry, told me they only have a month left of shooting on Season 3. What that means is Barry will most likely be coming back early next year on HBO. In addition, Hader said he’s directing five of the eight episodes of Season 3 (co-creator Alec Berg is helming the other three) and the season is hard to tease because so much stuff happens. But he did say:
“We had some people come in and shoot stuff who've been in the other seasons and I showed them a still from the first episode and they were shocked and they went, whoa, what? I was like, yeah. So that was a fun reaction. I'm interested to see what people think about it.”
As we previously reported, during the pandemic, Hader and his Barry collaborators wrote all of Season 4, even though HBO hasn’t yet renewed the series. Since they wrote the season before they had started shooting Season 3, this allowed them to tweak the scripts to make everything even better. Hader told me:
“We mapped out Season 4 and then went back and started laying stuff in Season 3 that could be in Season 4 and it was really helpful. It was kind of like a great way of, I mean Season 3, we end up kind of fully overhauling a lot of elements of it because we had written four. So it was good.”
You can watch what Bill Hader had to say about Barry Season 3 and 4 in the player above, or below is the transcript.
Finally, if you haven’t yet watched Barry, the hard to pin down series is about a hitman that wants to be an actor — but it’s so much more than that. As the series has progressed, Hader and the brilliant writing team have consistently defied expectations and pulled the rug out from under the audience too many times to count. Loaded with fantastic performances, extremely funny moments that can turn dark in a blink of an eye, and exceptional filmmaking, Barry has been nominated for and won so many awards. I cannot recommend this series enough.
COLLIDER: As you may or may not know, we're kind of fans of Barry at Collider. Kind of.
BILL HADER: Oh yeah, no, yeah, no, it's really nice.
I have to ask you, how has it been going filming season three? What can you tease people about it?
HADER: It's going really well. I mean, we have a month left of shooting. Everybody's been great. I don't know if I could tease really anything because so much stuff happens. We had some people come in and shoot stuff who've been in the other seasons and yesterday actually they came in and they have this kind of cameo part this season. And I showed them a still from the first episode and they were shocked and they went, whoa, what? I was like, yeah. So that was a fun reaction so I'm interested to see what people think about it.
How many episodes are you directing?
HADER: I'm directing five. I'm directing five of them and Alec Berg is directing three.
It's eight episodes for the season.
HADER: Yeah.
I know that you guys wrote all of season four during the pandemic. How did the writing of season four possibly impact season three in terms of needing to tweak this to make this all work?
HADER: 100%. Yeah. A hundred percent. That's what happened. We mapped out season four and then went back and started laying stuff in season three that could be in season four and it was really helpful. It was kind of like a great way of, I mean season three, we end up kind of fully overhauling a lot of elements of it because we had written four. So it was good.
I got to stop there. I'm just going to say, man, you know how excited we are for Barry and I wish you nothing but the best.
HADER: Good seeing you, man. And thank you guys for the great Barry love for the show over at Collider. It's in the edit room. It's me and Alec, Aida Rogers our producer, everybody will be like, you see what Collider said? So thank you guys.
The best part though is I'm glad we didn't jump on the bandwagon at like once it got successful, do you know what I mean?
HADER: You guys are into it like from the get go. So it was really nice.
