Trivia / Barry

• Career Resurrection: Henry Winkler has been a steadily working actor since the 1970s, but playing Gene Cousineau was his most critically acclaimed role in decades and earned him his first Primetime Emmy nomination as a series regular since Happy Days, and he won his first (long overdue) Primetime Emmy for the first season.
• Cast the Expert: Bill Hader was introduced to the child martial artist Jessie Giacomazzi in case he needed a kid to do any kind of fighting scene. Hader went on to write the Lily character specifically for her.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Paul McCrane and Patrick Fischler both auditioned for Fuches before Stephen Root, and apparently gave such good reads that casting director Sherry Thomas would ask Hader each season if there were any parts for them. Both eventually had minor/supporting credits in Season 4: McCrane as an agent that almost takes a similar role to Monroe by offering to manage Sally as well as her acting student, and Fischler as a Vanity Fair reporter that tries to get information on the Ross murder.
• The Danza:
  • Chris Lucado, played by Chris Marquette.
  • Guillermo del Toro plays a crime boss named Toro in "you're charming."
• Dark Horse Victory: Bill Hader’s Primetime Emmy win for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for the first season came as a surprise to many. While he had some people predicting him, most believed that Donald Glover would win for Atlanta given just how high Glover and his show’s profile were that year. Glover himself seemed to think so as well, given he (or somebody else) was in the audience dressed as Atlanta’s infamous Teddy Perkins. When Hader worked his way up to the stage, he briefly stopped to hug Teddy Perkins, and after the category was read, Glover appeared where Perkins previously sat.
• Directed by Cast Member: Bill Hader directed 18 of the 32 episodes, including the entirely of the fourth season.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Bill Hader exercised extensively in order to develop the body of an ex-military hitman-although, as he admitted in this interview with Conan O'Brien, no one noticed the difference.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Sarah Goldberg (Sally) is from Vancouver, BC, Canada.
  • There's not a single Chechen in the Chechen mob.
    • Akhmal is played by Turhan Caylak, a Turkish American.
    • Vacha and Ruslan are played by Mark Ivanir, a Ukrainian-Israeli known for his fluency in multiple languages.
    • Mayrbek is played by Russian-American Nikita Bogolyubov.
    • French-British JB Blanc as Batir.
    • Anthony Carrigan is American, and has no knowledge of Russian to boot.
    • Michael Ironside, a Canadian of Scots-Irish descent, as Mafiya boss Andrei.
  • Patricia Fa'asua, a Native Hawaiian, plays Esther, the Burmese mob boss.
  • Michael Irby, an American of half Black and half Mexican descent, plays Cristobal, the Bolivian mob boss.
• Reality Subtext:
  • Bill Hader's much-lauded run on Saturday Night Live was a time of deep anxiety for him, with Hader getting frequent panic attacks and migraines from the stress. He used the idea of being gifted with a talent that causes you endless grief to create Barry's motivation.
  • Much like Sally, Sarah Goldberg was a struggling actress with a background in community theatre.
• Star-Making Role: For both Sarah Goldberg and Anthony Carrigan.
• Throw It In!: "My men suck balls." / "If I suck balls, then you are king of Suck Balls Mountain!" was the result of an improvisation by Anthony Carrigan. (The script called for Hank to say "shit" rather than "suck balls.")
• Underage Casting: Robert Wisdom (Jim Moss) is only eight years older than Paula Newsome, who plays his daughter, Janice.
• What Could Have Been:
  • NoHo Hank was intended to die in the first episode, but Anthony Carrigan's performance ended up endearing the character to the staff, resulting in him not only living past the episode, but being the Sole Survivor of the Chechen mob by the end of the season, and only dying in the very final episode.
  • Ronny from the episode "ronny/lily" was written as a short, fat, unassuming-looking guy in order to make the reveal of his mastery of Taekwando more of a gag. In a case of Real Life Writes the Plot, all of the Taekwando stuntmen that auditioned for the part were tall and in peak shape, forcing the joke to be dropped. In fact, Daniel Bernhardt, the actor eventually cast as Ronny, was chosen specifically because the show's female staff found him to be incredibly handsome.
  • Originally, the last scene of the Season 3 finale would have been Barry being taken into a police car while the entire neighborhood watched his arrest. However, upon seeing the location of the house where they were going to shoot, Bill Hader realized that it would be much more impactful if the final scene was situated inside the house, with the camera showing through the window Jim Moss alone after the arrest of his daughter's killer.
• Word of Saint Paul: Sarah Goldberg mentioned, in interviews after the season 4 finale, her discussions with Hader that Sally probably did see Cousineau announced to end up in prison. The two possibilities they discussed was Sally tried to speak up in defense against Barry, but was dismissed, or was terrified that John would be orphaned if her murder came to light and chose to hide. Goldberg stated that the first one was she would like to believe, but admitted the second one was equally plausible.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Bill Hader has admitted that he and the writing staff mostly play it by ear when writing each episode, and don't structure the seasons very concretely in advance. This changed with the show's hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Hader and the writers using the time to plot out both the third and fourth season in advance.
• Written-In Infirmity: Actress Jessy Hodges (Lindsay) was pregnant with her and Beck Bennett's child during production on Season 3. Rather than try to hide it, Lindsay is visibly pregnant throughout the entire season. Mildly subverted in that the pregnancy is never acknowledged in dialogue, partly because it doesn't affect the plot in any way.

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