Bill Hader Kills With More Than Just Kindness on His New HBO Show

If you best remember Bill Hader for the endearingly offbeat characters he played in his years on “Saturday Night Live” — the aging news reporter Herb Welch, the excitable Italian TV host Vinny Vedecci, the in-the-know clubgoer Stefon — maybe put that person out of your mind for just a moment.

For his latest act, he could have just created a TV show where he plays a series of characters with silly wigs and goofy accents. But, as Hader said with a laugh, “I guess I am a glutton for disappointing people.”

In his new HBO series, “Barry,” which makes its debut on March 25, Hader plays the title character: a hit man who, while pursuing a target in Los Angeles, falls in with a community theater class (and falls for a student played by Sarah Goldberg) and decides to stick around.

Hader, who created “Barry” with Alec Berg (“Seinfeld,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Silicon Valley”), is as surprised as anyone to find himself portraying a paid killer in this darkly comedic show. And he is delighted by the response from people who weren’t expecting him to take on the role.

Hader spoke about the therapeutic value of acting class and how he reconciled his distaste for guns and violence with the subject of the show. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

A: I have this development deal with HBO. I had to turn a script in, and I had no ideas. Alec Berg and I have the same agents, so they said, you should meet up with Alec. We chatted about one idea for about a month and a half. And then one day, we both realized that the idea sucked. (laughs)

A: Alec said, “Ugh, I hate the word hit man — the whole cool guy with two .45s in his hand, shooting in slow motion.” I was like, no, it’ll be more like a Travis Bickle character. The lonely guy who moonlights as a hit man, even though he knows it’s wrong. Him taking an acting class — I don’t know where that came from.

A: In my life, I’m probably that person. Acting classes are like group therapy. Actors are over-sharers. They will immediately tell a stranger the worst thing that ever happened to them. And if Barry did that, he would implicate himself, and they’d all have to be killed. It was this darkly funny conundrum.

A: I didn’t enjoy any of that. It’s funny because I grew up in Tulsa, where it’s like the minute you’re born, they plop a gun in your lap, before they even cut the umbilical cord. We were very conscious that we didn’t want the violence to be funny or cool. It should be shown for what it is, which is really ugly, so you would understand why he wouldn’t want to be in that world anymore. What complicates it is that he’s really good at it. So I had to learn how to quickly load machine guns and stuff. You can see, in the behind-the-scenes videos, I couldn’t do it.

A: In the pilot, he really has to yell at Sarah Goldberg. He did it a couple of times, and I said, “Henry, don’t worry about the words — just go at her.” And he pulled me aside and said, “Oh, I’m playing an (expletive). Aha. OK.” Henry’s the nicest person in the world. He studied at Yale and with Stella Adler, and he gave us a lot of insight into the hubris of those acting teachers.

A: The best part of it is seeing everybody. But the down side of it is, as a cast member, you know how much of the show is on the host’s shoulders. You’re in a meeting, like, “I don’t think you should do this with me.” When I was there, guys like Tom Hanks would come in and be like, “Where do you want me?” That’s a good lesson. Preplanning too much stuff never works. What’s exciting — and terrifying — is no matter what you do, it’s going to be what it’s going to be.