The “Saturday Night Live” alum instantly impressed audiences with his directorial vision when he first took over behind the camera on “Barry.” Hader has been responsible for several of the show’s best episodes, including the show’s excellent pilot, the relentless one-off “ronny/lily,” and a high-octane episode of season 3 that featured a much-lauded motorcycle chase scene. All three episodes earned the filmmaker, who had never directed before “Barry,” Emmy nominations. Hader is set to helm all eight episodes of the show’s final season, and in his conversation with Deadline, he seemed hesitant to get ahead of himself. “I’ve done this before, where I’ve talked about things, and then once it gets out there, you’re almost really jinxing it,” he said of the projects he alluded to, “So, we’ll see.”
We’ll try not to jinx any of Hader’s projects, but it seems to me like, after his visionary work on “Barry” and his tremendous comedic record, the filmmaker should be given carte blanche on whatever he wants to try next. While all three projects are intriguing, a Hader-made horror film in particular seems like a no-brainer. The filmmaker has spoken about the similarities between horror and comedy before, telling /Film that “the biggest thing I think about in comedy and horror is at least for me, you’re thinking of the audience,” and urging people to watch more classic horror in particular. As he explained, “You’re trying to elicit something out of the audience, a scream or a laugh or both.”
Hader’s upcoming projects still seem to be in the early stages, with no release details available. New episodes of “Barry” air on HBO and stream on HBO Max on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.
