It can be a theme central to the HBO sequence, Barry, whose fourth and closing season premieres on Sunday, because the present’s titular hit man seeks to persuade himself and others that he’s in the end a great individual.

And whereas Bill Hader, the co-creator and star of Barry, is reluctant to promote the affect that Dostoevsky and different Russian authors have had on his Emmy-winning sequence, he disclosed that this type of exploration of morality performed a big position in his inventive course of when he got down to make the present.

“I’m always like, ‘Yeah, I don’t watch a lot of TV.’ But I leave out that part, that I was reading big Russian books,” Hader laughed.

At the suggestion of his good friend, creator George Saunders, Hader took an curiosity in Russian literature and immersed himself in novels like Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and War and Peace.

One side of those tales which Hader sought to carry to Barry was their contentment in probing philosophical questions on human nature, violence and revenge with out essentially anticipating to search out solutions.

Barry is billed as a comedy, although its darkish content material can preclude some from with the ability to get pleasure from its humor. It follows a Marine veteran-turned-hit man (Hader) who tries repeatedly however fails to denounce his occupation after he takes an curiosity in performing.

If the premise sounds absurd, that’s as a result of it’s.

“It’s a bad, bad logline,” stated Stephen Root, who performs Fuches, Barry’s handler and previous household good friend.

But lots of the present’s stars, together with seasoned actors like Henry Winkler, sang the praises of Barry for its originality.

Although restricted to 30-minute episodes, Barry isn’t afraid to punch above its weight class, with clear inspiration from lauded cinema and status tv like The Sopranos and Twin Peaks.

Hader, described by his co-stars as a “total cinephile,” relied closely on his in depth information of movie when contemplating how the sequence would grapple with weighty questions like whether or not people are intrinsically violent.

“It’s always been really interesting to me, actually, is inherent violence within people,” Hader stated, citing movies which have performed a task in his meditation on the topic, together with A Clockwork Orange, Goodfellas and Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line.

Throughout the present, Barry struggles to interrupt out of a ceaseless cycle of carnage, whereas sustaining again and again that he’s not outlined by his previous.

By the top of the third season, Barry’s actions have — both instantly or not directly — pushed practically each character to the precipice of violence. While these round him ceaselessly describe Barry as “a violent guy,” they themselves are virtually at all times prepared to drag the set off when the chance for revenge presents itself.

But though Hader needed to keep away from facile portrayals of characters who’re purely good or purely evil, he additionally hopes it’s obvious that Barry will not be somebody he needs audiences to root for.

“It was weird how people did have sympathy for him. I think the thing was just trying to make him human,” Hader stated. “But what I always never want to lose focus of is that, you know, he murders people.”

The closing season additional explores the implications of its characters’ descent into crime and punishment, although the road between fantasy and actuality is more and more blurry, prompting the viewer to marvel how a lot, if any, of season 4 is supposed to be understood as “real.”

Barry typically alludes to its self-awareness in its portrayals of each Hollywood tropes and homicide. The horror that Barry’s former performing trainer (Winkler) expresses in season 4 on the considered “glorifying a psychopath” seems like a type of nod to the present’s humanization of a killer.

Barring its bleak subject material, Barry may be very a lot a comedy whose tendency to get darkish is ameliorated by humor, although these moments of respite change into more and more uncommon and more and more absurd because the present progresses.

But Winkler stated that didn’t cease their “fearless leader” from often breaking out of character and into laughter all through the making of the present.

“You’d see his shoulders bounce up and down because he’s laughing. You have to remind him, ‘You’re in the scene, Bill,’” he stated.