-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy Award-winning
writer, actor, and director who you know from his work on
"Saturday Night Live," "Documentary Now!",
and HBO's "Barry."
Please welcome back to the show
our very good friend Bill Hader.
Hi, buddy. -Hey, buddy. How's it going?
-Good. You know, I think of you every day.
Viewers of our show will know I have, of course,
my little Stefon nesting doll.
Did you know you've been joined by Andy Samberg
as a mummy whose doink fell off?
[ Both laugh ]
-My doink fell off?
-Yeah, Samberg played a mummy whose doink fell off,
and at the end of it -- at the end of it,
I told him, "That went great,"
and he said, "Oh, do I get to be on the desk then?"
-He's always gunning for my spot, man.
-Yeah, he wants your spot.
I think that you probably get asked this all the time --
I know I do -- how do you think Stefon would be doing
during a pandemic?
It strikes me that a lot of what he does
would probably be shut down right now.
-I don't know if he would notice.
[ Laughter ]
I think he would kind of go for a while and not really notice
and then --
-That's true.
And I guess this -- He does --
This is like a natural mask, right?
-Yeah, it was a mask, yeah. It was kind of a mask.
And he would -- I think he was probably, you know,
patient zero on some level.
And he's probably had it a couple times, and now he's fine.
-Yeah. I mean, it does seem like --
Yeah, he probably went to a club at some point
that was called Wet Market.
[ Both laugh ]
-Yeah.
-I do feel like a lot of the clubs that he went to
in New York City might not be following, like,
de Blasio's rules.
Like, it feels like they were already pretty underground.
-They were all pretty underground,
if they, in fact, exist, you know?
-Right. Are you saying, this whole time,
Stefon might have been projecting a version of himself
that wasn't entirely true?
-That's a thing I always laughed about, because, you know,
when I would laugh doing that,
so much of it was just how bad at his job he is,
you know, that he's lying.
And I always felt that you were very --
You knew he was lying,
but you were being very patient with him.
-Well, I remember Neal Brennan, our friend Neal Brennan,
pointing out that he liked to think of the producer backstage
with Stefon right before he went on "Weekend Update"
being like, "Okay, and just a reminder, Stefon.
We really want St. Patrick's Day tips,
if you could just keep it themed to that,"
and Stefon just, like, promising this would be the time
that he would actually --
-Not listening to him at all.
He thinks -- He's like,
"The giant frog with the headphone backstage told me.
-Did you -- I know you had to put a pause on
Season 3 of "Barry," which I'm heartbroken by
because I'm so excited to see it.
Where are you in production now?
-We were in -- Like right when the lockdown happened in March,
we were a week away from shooting.
So the last time I was in a room with a lot of people
was the table read for episodes 1 and 2 of Season 3,
and we were ready to go.
And then it all got shut down.
So, we actually wrote --
Season 3 is completely written, ready to go.
And then, during this time,
we actually went and wrote Season 4.
So we have both of those kind of done.
So we're just waiting until we can start shooting again.
-That's really exciting.
I imagine -- I mean, there was such a wonderful cliffhanger
at the end of Season 2, but did you worry that you had,
to some degree, written yourself into a corner
that you had to find a way out of?
-That's kind of what we do at the end of every season.
You know, at the end of Season 1,
we had written ourselves this kind of cliffhanger,
and then -- Yeah, and then you do it again.
And then, you know, Alec Berg and I,
who I created the show with --
We were just talking about this last night,
where it's a bit like having a reoccurring character
on "Saturday Night Live,"
like we were just talking about Stefon.
You kind of do the first time you go out --
it's like the first season, where you're like,
"Oh, that was fun.
It seems like they liked it," you know?
And then, the second time, you have a little pressure.
You get recognition.
And then, by third time you're doing it, you're --
The more I did Stefon or the more we did Californians
or whatever, you always --
You know, it got just more tense, you know?
More pressure on you to, like, do new moves or whatever.
And on "Barry," I can't just rely on
John Mulaney to make me laugh.
So -- my lines, you know?
So, yeah, you know, it was -- It is very, very hard.
And, yeah, we ended on a cliffhanger in the last year.
And, yeah, first day back in the writers' room,
it was like, you know, everyone going, "So, what happens?"
And we were like, "I have no idea.
Really, really screwed ourselves here."
And we're still saying it.
Like, yeah, we're still trying to figure it out.
-I can't wait.
Obviously, I'm very eager for you guys
to get back to work on that.
And I have more to talk to you about.
We'll be right back with more Bill Hader.