It began with a timid plea from Bill Hader. “I know there are bigger fish to fry right now in the world,” he told the IndieWire Honors ceremony earlier this month. “But in my little kingdom, if we could save FilmStruck, that would be really awesome.” FilmStuck, the lauded, one-of-a-kind streaming service from Turner…

Announced late last month, the upcoming November 26 death of film-streaming service FilmStruck continues to wreak havoc on the lives of movie nerds with disposable income everywhere, who had long heralded Turner Classic Movies’ entry into the streaming wars as one of the best libraries of online movies around. There…

“Starting…now!”

After Chris emphatically tells Barry that he wants to come clean to the cops about murdering a Bolivian gang member and he doesn’t care what happens to him as long as he has a clean conscience, you can actually see Barry make the decision. Bill Hader has given a great performance week after week in Barry, but all of…

Bill Hader’s darkly comic hitman series Barry just got picked up for a second season by HBO and is garnering fine reviews from pretty much everyone. (Including our own Vikram Murthi, who gave last week’s cliffhanger-ending episode a straight-up A.) Perhaps that’s why Hader is suddenly ubiquitous on late-night TV. Or…

When Barry chose not to kill Taylor after their stash house raid, and subsequently tried to fold him into Fuches’ operation instead, it was, to put it delicately, a bit of a risk. Even though Fuches is a sociopathic manipulator who has kept Barry under his sick influence for years now, his logic for why Taylor should…

When Lady Macbeth somnambulantly monologues about the imaginary bloodstains that cover her hands in Act V Scene 1 of Macbeth (“Out, damned spot! out, I say!”; “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?”; “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand”; yada, yada, yada…), her soul can no longer be saved.…

For the past three episodes, Barry has tried to run from his past, but, predictably, his past keeps catching up to him. He tried to wiggle his way out of killing Ryan Madison only to end up in a position where he kills a car full of Chechens. He tried to leave the hitman business behind only to be forced to kill Paco,…

We can’t help thinking that director Andy Muschietti must have felt a little star-deprived during the filming last year’s summer blockbuster It; outside of Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise—and Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard—the film’s cast was mostly made up of lesser-known performers, something of a necessity when casting…

Barry moves between many different modes—existential hitman profile, showbiz comedy, whimsical mafia farce, low-key cop procedural etc.—but they all serve as vehicles for Bill Hader to interrogate the idea of success. For Hader, success doesn’t beget happiness; if anything, it only emphasizes the hollow nature of the…

When Gene Cousineau informs his acting class about Ryan Madison’s gruesome death, they first mourn, and then they plan a show. After all, they’re actors, and their emotions are the paints in their toolbox, so their sadness must be put to good use. Sally informs everyone that the memorial will be held at Jake’s (her…

Bill Hader’s earning rave reviews for his new dark comedy Barry, which premiered last night on HBO. In a video interview with GQ, he runs down his journey to this point, detailing exactly how he made the transition from impersonator and sketch comic to respected dramatist capable of carrying his own starring vehicle.

In just about every professional field, passion exists in spades, but talent is hard to come by. Putting aside the vast number of people who never even receive an opportunity to discover their dreams, let alone realize them, that still leaves an enormous glut of people who reach for the moon and only hit the ceiling.…

On the surface, the premise of Bill Hader’s new dark comedy, Barry, seems like it could have been pieced together from audience suggestions he heard in his improv days at the Second City Hollywood. Occupation? Hitman. For location, how about an acting class in Los Angeles? And finally, a phrase to get the scene going?…

In his upcoming HBO series Barry, Bill Hader plays a hit man who gets bitten by the acting bug and decides he wants to break into the movie business despite never having acted before. Undoubtedly, the show will feature a number of awkward audition scenes, so, to give us a preview of what to expect, Bill Hader stopped…

Barry, the new HBO comedy from Bill Hader and Silicon Valley’s Alec Berg, stars Hader as the eponymous hitman who gives up a life of crime after he’s bit by the acting bug while tailing a target in Los Angeles. At the SXSW premiere of the show, we spoke with Hader and Berg about the genesis of the show, and the time…

Breaking once during a skit is fine. It’s a rare moment of relatability between performer and audience. Breaking multiple times during a skit, however, is decidedly less charming. It’s annoying and unprofessional and the reason we hated Jimmy Fallon before the whole Trump-toussle thing. That said, Bill Hader’s…

“I can only solve impossible crimes if I’m seducing an amazing woman. It’s my process.”

While Saturday Night Live all-star alum Bill Hader’s second hosting stint last night didn’t measure up to his first, at least he brought back everyone’s favorite questionably qualified city correspondent Stefon to Weekend Update. As ever, the garishly shirted, intensely edgy, disreputably knowledgeable Stefon took…

“Behind the scenes my ideas are much worse.”