[This story contains major spoilers from the series finale of Barry, “Wow.”]
In the end, it wasn’t the Chechen mob or the FBI who finally took down the outlaw assassin Barry Berkman; it was (second spoiler warning!) Henry Winkler’s Gene M. Cousineau.
Of course, Cousineau thought he had already done this when he set up Barry’s arrest in the season three finale, but NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) and Cristobal’s (Michael Irby) failed assassination attempt gave Barry the opportunity to escape prison and live on the lam for eight years with Sally (Sarah Goldberg) and their eventual son, John. Cousineau also believed he’d finally taken care of his Barry Berkman problem in the final season’s fourth episode when he fired his Rip Torn-gifted “prop gun” at whom he assumed was a vengeful Barry, but instead, he shot his son, Leo (Andrew Leeds), who was delivering takeout from Gene’s beloved Coral Tree Cafe to his secluded Big Bear cabin.
But in the Bill Hader-helmed series finale, there were no more mistakes and half measures, as Gene grabbed his Rip Torn gun again and used it to kill Barry point blank, without hesitating or saying a single word.
“So, [Bill] told me [the ending in the middle of the season], and while I’m a pretty verbal fellow, I was speechless. I went, ‘I what!?’ So, I stammered and stuttered a little bit, and then I just walked away and got some avocado toast,” Winkler tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Ultimately, Gene had nothing left to lose. He had already incriminated himself in Detective Janice Moss’ (Paula Newsome) murder by not disclosing the quarter of a million dollars’ worth of Chechen drug money that Barry gifted him in season three, and even his son used this omission to conclude that his father was a criminal mastermind who purposefully shot him. However, according to Winkler, it wasn’t his biological son’s added condemnation in the LA Times that sent Gene over the edge; it was inheriting the nefarious legacy of his surrogate son, Barry, that drove Gene to pull the trigger.
“It was because Gene was being blamed for what he knew Barry did,” Winkler says. “Gene seemed to be in one of those rooms where the walls were all closing in toward the center, and so he was being crushed by this evidence. Remember, Barry was the son that Gene wanted, not the kid who was actually Gene’s son.”
Below, during a recent spoiler conversation with THR, Winkler also explains Gene’s headspace as the camera pulled away from the wrongfully disgraced acting teacher and his lifeless protégé, Barry, for the final time. Then he reflects on the HBO series’ invaluable writing in the wake of the current WGA strike.
Well, let’s not bury the lede. When you opened up your script for the series finale of Barry and you read that Cousineau was the one to end Barry Berkman’s life, how did you react to such a shocking turn of events?
Well, you have to understand, we did not see the script. It was sent to us only a few weeks ago. So, when I shot it, I had not read the script beforehand.
How come?
During the middle of the season, Bill [Hader] said to me, “We finally broke [episode] eight. You wanna know how it ends?” And I said, “Sure,” not thinking that it was going to go anywhere close to where it went. So, he told me, and while I’m a pretty verbal fellow, I was speechless. I went, “I what!?” So, I stammered and stuttered a little bit, and then I just walked away and got some avocado toast.
So, prior to pulling the trigger, Gene was wallowing in self-pity, having incriminated himself in Janice’s (Paula Newsome) murder after not disclosing the $250,000 that Barry gave him in season three.
Well, it’s not just self-pity. In the seventh episode of this season, Gene is confronted by all of this evidence that points to him, and he literally doesn’t see a way out. He even said to his son, “You have to help me here.” And Leo [Andrews Leeds] said, “Well, you never really gave me a great explanation about anything, let alone the money.” So I think that Gene went insane at that moment. Gene had come as far as he could go in trying to keep it all together, having just come back from building homes for other people on a kibbutz [in Israel]. Most of those homes fell down; Gene wasn’t very good at it. (Laughs.) But I think he went insane. So, it was not necessarily out of self-pity; it was just a void in his brain.
Henry Winkler in the Barry series finale, “Wow.”
Photograph by Courtesy of HBO
He was also looking at damaging news articles, specifically one from the L.A. Times, where Leo reiterates his belief that Gene shot him because he figured out that he paid for his house with Chechen drug money. Was losing his son in that way the tipping point to him killing Barry?
I don’t think so. I think it was because Gene was being blamed for what he knew Barry did. Gene seemed to be in one of those rooms where the walls were all closing in toward the center, and so he was being crushed by this evidence. Remember, Barry was the son that Gene wanted, not the kid who was actually Gene’s son. Gene had this push-pull relationship with Leo all his life, but Leo always seemed to take Gene back. And this time, when Gene came back from the kibbutz, he walked into Leo’s house and he didn’t say, “You have to leave. We’re done.” He said, “OK, come in.” But now he is saying, “Oh, you never really told me the truth and I can’t help you.” So, Gene is completely shackled by this situation that he thought he could control.
From squeezing the trigger to then sitting on the couch as the camera pulled away from Gene and a lifeless Barry, how would you describe your interactions with Bill on the day?
It was business as usual. I made a tea, and then I got into Gene’s space. In my real life, I have often said that when I was younger and I had arguments at home, my brain would go from pink to murky gray. So, I would listen to opera to bring me back to equilibrium, to get back to the pink. And so I think that Gene’s brain was in that murky gray. He had just given over to the universe. He had no more cards to play, no more Gene tricks to play. He was a cooked fish with a fork in it, and the universe swallowed him into the void.
He used the Rip Torn-gifted prop gun to kill Barry, and considering the two of you worked together on Crazy Joe and The Larry Sanders Show, did that prop gun ever blur the lines between fiction and reality for you?
I’ve never thought of that. I only laughed at the Rip Torn I knew. The Rip Torn I knew was this extraordinary actor who literally told me, “The CIA made me hold my hands out, and then they put bowls of water in each hand to see how long I could keep them up. And then they hit me with a two-by-four.” [Winkler impersonated Torn.] So, what do you do with that? I was like, “Hey, you want a coffee? Let’s get a salad, Rip.” [Laughs.] But he was a lovely fellow.
The series ends with Barry’s now-teenage son, John (Jaeden Martell), watching the Barry Berkman movie, The Mask Collector, and it depicts Gene as the ultimate villain and Barry as the heroic victim. Does it break your heart to know that Gene basically inherited the legacy that belonged to Barry?
Absolutely. The man was a fake from the minute Gene met him. He just didn’t allow himself to see it. So, it is heartbreaking. Gene put everything he had into this guy, every good bit of teaching. He helped him. He took him in as a son. Now, of course, Gene was also completely misplaced. When he did that one-man show for Lon O’Neil [Patrick Fischler] from Vanity Fair, Gene thought that he was the one in control, but he was merely a dangling puppet. He was being kicked around like a soccer ball in the middle of a Premier League match in Europe.
Last month, you mentioned to me that you shot a scene by yourself that you believed was the last piece of filming done for Barry. And upon wrapping, you said that Bill hugged you and thanked you for being such a great collaborator. What scene did that end up being?
It was the scene [in episode four] where Gene shot through the door at the intruder. He thought it was Barry, but it turned out to be his son. So, we were up there in the cold at Gene’s cabin in Big Bear, and we got out just in time before the snow shut everything down. But that was the scene. The crew was waiting for me outside the door, and while I certainly know that Bill must have said something to each actor as they finished their work on this wonderful series, it was still very potent for me to hear him say that.
Now that the Big Bear episode (“It Takes a Psycho”) has aired, have you planned a trip to the Coral Tree Cafe just to discover what Gene’s son nearly died for?
(Laughs.) It’s down the street from where I live, so that was so funny. I went there once maybe 20 years ago, but I’ve never actually been there again. It seems like a very salad-y place, and salad is the last thing I order when it comes to lunch. I’m a good eater, but a bolognese trumps a salad.
In light of what’s happening in our industry right now, can you think of an example from Barry where great writing made all the difference in your performance or understanding of Gene?
I feel very strongly about this. The writing is the beginning and the end. If you do not have the writing, nobody has a place to hang their hat. The director can’t direct, the actors can’t act, the designers can’t design, the camera person doesn’t know what to shoot. And from 2016 to 2023, Barry’s writing has been extraordinary from soup to nuts. [Writer’s Note: Barry’s pilot was shot in 2016.] And when you think there might be a problem and you say, “I think there might be a problem,” it’s like the writing mends itself. It just bubbles up and closes over the problem, and that’s because of Bill, Alec [Berg], Liz Sarnoff, Duffy [Boudreau] and all of the writers. And that is the truth.
Coming from the East where the writer is king, you cannot change a word of a Broadway playwright unless you get permission, but here, the writer is the first to be dismissed. And it’s not to cast an aspersion, but how do you not see the writer’s importance to the fabric of what we’re doing? You have to make entertainment from your tummy. You have to make it from your instinct. You cannot make it from a balance sheet or your head. It doesn’t work. We’re all the same, and if you are authentic, somebody is going to say, “Oh my God, I know that. I lived that. That person is my Uncle Howard!”
Sally (Sarah Goldberg) taught Gene’s method earlier in the season, and her students accused her of being abusive. Did you consider Gene’s technique abusive?
No, I did not. I thought Gene was doing a top-notch job, especially if his students paid on time and in cash. (Laughs.) Gene didn’t give a shit about being abusive. He knew a little, and he stretched that a little. It was like having very little butter and trying to cover your bread from edge to edge.
You compared Gene to an addict previously, so were you disappointed that he relapsed as quickly as he did upon hearing that Daniel Day-Lewis and Mark Wahlberg were potentially going to star in what would become The Mask Collector? Those eight years in Israel didn’t seem to make a dent in his insatiable need for the spotlight.
Oh my God, wasn’t that funny? I was disappointed, but not enough to stop. After those phone calls with Nate Corddry’s agent character and then Sally, I hope I made it clear that Gene knows he should not do this, but he’s got to anyway. The opportunity for Gene to be around stars again and maybe be a star again is far greater than the good.
Henry Winkler, bravo and congrats on a job well done.
Thank you. I have to tell you that I am just now very sad that Barry is over. It’s hitting me now because this show and these people were a gift from the heavens.
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Barry is now available on HBO and Max. This interview was edited for length and clarity.
