49 Fun Facts About Barry

Barry Berkman became a hitman after coming home from military service in which country?

Afghanistan left Barry feeling placeless, and a family friend with connections, Monroe Fuches, steered the skills he brought home into contract killing.

In season one, Barry's breakthrough on stage is a single line in a scene from which Shakespeare play?

Macbeth gives Barry six words, 'My lord, the queen is dead'; everything he has been bottling up pours into them, and Sally admits her own performance worked only because of his cue.

Which city is Barry from?

Cleveland is where Barry is based when the series begins; his handler Fuches sends him to Los Angeles for a single job, hoping a change of scenery will lift his gloom.

In which branch of the military did Barry serve?

U.S. Marines service follows him to Los Angeles: a fellow ex-Marine muscles in on his work in season one, and he ends up killing Chris, an innocent Marine friend who tagged along.

Who plays Barry's eccentric acting coach?

Henry Winkler still had to audition: the creators asked HBO whether they could get him and were told he was already coming in to read. The part won him an Emmy in 2018.

Who plays Barry's handler and old family friend Monroe Fuches?

Stephen Root's Fuches recruited Barry into contract killing after his discharge and fights to keep him in the trade; the part brought Root an Emmy nomination in 2019.

Who plays struggling actress Sally Reed in Barry?

Sarah Goldberg trained for the stage, so the writers gave Sally a three-minute monologue in season two to be shot in one unbroken take; she rehearsed it like music, and it aired uncut.

Which actor plays Hank, Goran's relentlessly upbeat right-hand man in Barry?

Anthony Carrigan earned three Emmy nominations for the role; he has alopecia, and he has used the attention to press Hollywood for wider acceptance of visible differences.

Hank and Goran Pazar run the Los Angeles branch of a mafia from where?

Chechnya's man in Los Angeles is Goran Pazar, who hires Barry to kill his wife's lover; that single job is what brings Barry to the city in the first place.

What stage name does Barry Berkman adopt for his acting career?

Barry Block is suggested over drinks by the very man he was sent to kill; the name later rouses a detective's suspicion when she learns his real surname is Berkman.

Which two-word phrase does Barry repeat whenever he vows that his killing days are over?

Starting now is the promise that closes season one, moments after he has killed again; it became his slogan, a vow he never keeps, and gave the season three finale its title.

Where is Barry's Sally Reed from?

Joplin, Missouri gives its name to the semi-autobiographical streaming series Sally finally gets to make in season three, built on her own first marriage.

In Barry, the courteous drug lord Cristobal Sifuentes leads a gang from which country?

Bolivia's Cristobal is an oddly gentle mob leader: his real ambition is to unite all of Los Angeles's criminal gangs for what he believes is a greater good.

NoHo Hank was originally scripted to die in which episode of Barry?

The pilot was meant to be the cheerful gangster's only episode, but the actor's verve and improvising won the creators over, and he stayed for all four seasons.

What is the day job of Ryan Madison, the aspiring actor Barry is first sent to Los Angeles to kill?

Personal trainer Ryan has been sleeping with a mob boss's wife; Barry tails him into an acting class, and it is Ryan who drags him on stage for the first time.

In the pilot of Barry, Ryan drags Barry into acting out a scene from which film?

True Romance was taken from life: the creators watched that same showdown scene performed in a real acting class while researching the show, and found it every bit as surreal.

How does Barry answer a waitress in the pilot who says she is an actor?

So am I is the pilot's final line: hiding from the police in a diner, Barry answers a waitress who is learning lines for an audition and names the thing he has decided to become.

In hiding eight years after leaving Los Angeles, Barry lives under which first name?

Clark and Emily are the names Barry and Sally take in their remote new home, where their homeschooled son John has no idea who his parents really are.

Barry was loosely inspired by Bill Hader's struggle with performance anxiety during his years on which show?

Saturday Night Live gave Hader eight years of fame and severe performance anxiety; Barry grew from asking what happens when the thing you are good at is no longer the thing you want to do.

In season three, Barry and Gene land parts in which fictional TV drama?

Laws of Humanity is a cheesy but widely watched courtroom show; when the two finally film their scene together, Gene lashes out at Barry and storms off the set.

Critics and the writers of Barry both likened the episode ronny/lily to which episode of The Sopranos?

Pine Barrens sends Paulie and Christopher into the woods after a man who refuses to die; one reviewer cast Barry and Fuches as their hapless stand-ins.

In Barry, what does Sally blame when her autobiographical series is cancelled within a day of its launch?

The algorithm decided the show was missing the streamer's target audience, so the platform pulled it after only twelve hours at the top of its homepage.

In the season three finale of Barry, which animal mauls Hank's fellow prisoners in the next cell?

A panther is loosed on the captives while a shackled Hank listens through the wall; he slips his cuffs, grabs a guard's rifle and shoots it before it can break through to him.

In the Barry episode ronny/lily, what does a panicked Fuches end up glued to?

The steering wheel traps him because he has been closing Barry's stab wound with superglue; Bill Hader said the writers wanted a reason he could not fight off the attack that follows.

In Barry's season three finale, Sally beats an attacking biker to death with what?

A baseball bat does it, out of sight and out of earshot behind soundproof glass; the man had been choking her, as her abusive ex-husband once did.

In Barry, which martial art's awards does Barry notice in Ronny Proxin's house?

Taekwondo trophies fill a whole room, a warning Barry reads too late: he has come only to scare Ronny out of town, and a surprise kick starts one of the show's longest fights.

Who co-created Barry with Bill Hader?

Alec Berg came from Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Silicon Valley; Hader, holding a development deal with HBO, approached him to help build a series, and they ran it together.

Where does the final sequence of Barry's season one finale take place?

Gene's lake house hosts a couples' weekend that turns fatal: Detective Moss works out who Barry really is, and he kills her in the dark rather than lose his new life.

At the end of season one, Sally persuades Barry to act with her in which play?

The Front Page, the newsroom comedy behind the film His Girl Friday, hands Barry a lighter register to play in just as he had made up his mind to quit acting.

Who plays Detective Janice Moss in Barry?

Paula Newsome's detective closes in on Barry all through season one while dating his acting teacher, and her killing hangs over the rest of the series.

In the Barry episode 710N, Barry flees the gang chasing him on what?

A stolen motorbike carries him onto Interstate 710 North, the freeway that gives the episode its title; it went on to earn Emmy nominations for directing and writing.

Which sketch-comedy veteran plays streaming executive Morgan Dawn-Cherry in Barry?

Vanessa Bayer plays the pitch meeting almost entirely in grunts, squeals and facial contortions, as the streamer offers Sally a writers' room job on someone else's show.

At the end of the Barry episode 710N, Sharon poisons Barry at her home with which food?

A beignet knocks him out at the table of Sharon, widow of the friend he killed in season one; Fuches had got to her first and told her who was responsible.

Who plays Jim Moss, the Vietnam veteran father of Detective Moss, in Barry?

Robert Wisdom's Jim Moss, a specialist in psychological warfare, closes the trap that ends season three: Barry is arrested by a SWAT team in Moss's own living room.

Barry's series finale aired on HBO on the same night as the finale of which other series?

Succession ended first that night and Barry's last episode followed straight after; four years earlier Barry had drawn its biggest audience by following the final Game of Thrones.

Who shoots Barry dead in the series finale of Barry?

Gene Cousineau, publicly blamed for a murder that was Barry's, bursts in and fires at the very moment Barry has agreed to turn himself in and clear his old teacher's name.

What are Barry's last words?

An earlier take had him say "You don't have to do this, Mr. Cousineau".

What is the title of the in-universe biopic about Barry that John watches in the finale?

The Mask Collector turns the story inside out: its Barry is a wronged war hero and a victim, and the crimes viewers watched him commit for four seasons are pinned on someone else.

In Barry's final flash-forward, Sally is a teacher directing her students in which play?

Our Town earns her applause and flowers as a high school drama teacher; she turns down a colleague's offer of coffee and drives home alone, content with a far smaller stage.

Which star of It plays the teenage John in Barry's final flash-forward?

Jaeden Martell, like Bill Hader a veteran of the It films, plays the grown boy who finally sits down to watch the movie Hollywood made about his father.

In the Barry finale, Hank dies grasping the hand of a statue of whom?

Cristobal, the love of Hank's life and the price of his rise to the top, stands cast in gold at his headquarters; the dying Hank takes the statue's hand when the shooting stops.

Which retail chain employs Barry as a sales assistant in season two?

Lululemon is where Hank, disguised in a wig, turns up in the season two premiere to talk Barry into another killing; Barry, set on going straight, sends him away.

In Barry, a revolver said to be a gift from which real actor is the show's recurring Chekhov's gun?

Rip Torn's supposed gift arrives as a gag in season two; the pistol keeps turning up after that and is fired for the last time in the final episode.

Which Oscar-winning director cameos in Barry as a handler who supplies assassins to Hank?

Guillermo del Toro plays a fixer known as Toro, whose two best killers also host a gadget-review podcast; the hit, he assures Hank, will not disturb their Thursday recording.

Bill Hader won Emmys for Barry in 2018 and 2019 in which category?

Lead actor was the only prize he converted: over the show's run he was also nominated for directing it, writing it and producing it, without a single further win.

Barry won Emmys in 2022 and 2023 in which craft category?

Stunt coordination went both times to Wade Allen, who had also handed Bill Hader the idea for a whole episode by mentioning a gifted performer he knew.

In Barry, which superhero blockbuster makes a star of Sally's acting student Kristen?

Mega Girls is directed, within the show, by Sian Heder playing herself: the Oscar winner behind CODA is plainly embarrassed to be making a film about costumed heroines.

In the final season of Barry, Hank and his partner plan to corner the market by smuggling in which material?

Sand, of the kind builders need, is running short; the pair hear about the shortage from their landlady and decide their smuggling contacts could make them almost legitimate.

In Barry, which nickname does Hank invent when he tells police that Fuches is a legendary assassin?

The Raven begins as Hank's lie to steer detectives away from Barry, but Fuches likes the sound of it so much that he takes the name for himself once he is behind bars.