If it weren’t forBreaking BadandBetter Call Saul, there may not have beenBarry. Wrapping up its run on HBO with its fourth and final season,Barryis a highly acclaimed drama series featuringBill Haderas a skilled hitman who finds a new love in acting. Hoping to put his dark past behind him to pursue his new passion, Hader’s Barry Berkman soon discovers it’s not quite so easy to walk away from that world.
The plot is virtually the opposite ofBreaking Bad, wherein Bryan Cranston plays a milquetoast chemistry teacher who “breaks bad,” turning to a life of crime and building a drug empire after he’s given a lung cancer diagnosis. Even so,Barrydrew a lot of comparisons toBreaking Bad, particularly with its first season. That could be because there was some inspiration fromBreaking Badthat went into the creation ofBarry, as Hader says in a new interview withTHR. The actor confirms he even apologized toBreaking Badcreator Vince Gilligan over the comparisons.
“Yeah, I saw [Gilligan] and the writers at a thing and said, ‘Man, I really feel like I owe you a check.’ (Laughs.) And especially for season one. There was a joke that people were calling itBreakingGoodand stuff like that. But it is true.”
Hader then described how he’d actually visited theBetter Call Saulwriters' room back whenBarrywas still in its very early stages. He’d done this as a big fan ofBreaking Bad, as he was hoping to learn from the best when it comes to how to develop a successful TV series. Hader also says he spent a lot of time hanging out with Gilligan personally.
“On a personal level, I visited theBetter Call Saulwriters’ room way early just to be like, ‘How do you guys do this?’ And so I just watched them hang out for a day. I also hung out with Vince off and on for a couple weeks, and we got along really well. I never watched a lot of television, but I did watchBreakingBadpretty religiously. I was just impressed because of the propulsive narrative of that story.”
Related:HBO’s Barry Stars on the Final Season: ‘We Knew We Were Going to Mourn It’
Barry Takes a Page from Breaking Bad
Hader clarifies thatBarryco-creator Alec Berg hadn’t seenBreaking Bad, though they acknowledged that there were some parallels between the two plots. As aBreaking Badfan, Hader was also “self-conscious” about some of the other similarities from the first season, though he also feels that the show had become different enough by season two.
“So, when I started making this show with Alec [Berg], he hadn’t seenBreaking Bad, but we talked about the idea of a guy between two worlds and that propulsive narrative thing. There were also shots of us in the desert, and that kind of topography was inBreakingBad. So, I was a little self-conscious about it, but I also think that as the show has progressed, it’s become its own thing. By the time we hit ‘Ronny/Lily’ in season two, it started to become its own weird thing.”
New episodes ofBarrydebut on Sundays at 10 p.m. on HBO and HBO Max.
