Mary Beth Barone doesn’t know any straight guys, but she does know some Joans. One of them being me, and the other being her favorite aunt. We’re off to a good start.
The hilarious comic and now-TV star in Amazon’s Overcompensating catches up with PAPER just after the show’s premiere in Los Angeles, from a big cozy hotel room overlooking the Hills. “Pretty much everyone I know has watched the whole show in one day — so it took seven years to make, and it takes four and a half hours to finish,” Barone says. “And that’s just showbiz. That’s Hollywood.”
Some other things that are very Hollywood? Starring in the internet’s latest obsession opposite her best friend and Ride podcast co-host, Overcompensating creator Benito Skinner, who originally met Barone while touring his stage show of the same name. Having opened for him on that tour, she thought at the time: “This man’s a genius.” From there, “our professional working relationship grew very organically, and that was around the same time he was working on the first version of the pilot for this, and he said, ‘I want you to play my sister.’” After reading the pilot, Barone thought “that the specificity of the characters, the collegiate lifestyle and all the different personality types there was, was such a rich world to be pulling from, and the tone was so unique.”
Back on the topic of Hollywood, Barone muses: “People in the industry, they say a lot of things, and [Benny] has so much integrity. He fought so hard for me to be able to play this role.” Even if she feels she “was along for the ride,” she told herself: “If I book this, that would obviously be one of the great joys of my life.”
Prior to her standup career, which has seen her appear on late night and her very own comedy special (out now), Barone was a “Catholic Republican” college student with “such a limited worldview.” She laughs, saying her “mind was completely blown in college.” And the experience of growing from her upbringing still resonates years later, on a TV show she also wrote for. “The universal theme of the show is this idea that love feels very conditional, and if you show people who you really are, they won’t love you anymore,” Barone says. “And that is something everyone in every phase of life has to confront, but especially in college, because you’re trying to feed into people’s idea of who you are, instead of what’s going to make you feel like the most complete version of yourself.”
Out of college, she found herself working an email job with a serious boyfriend, when at 25 she discovered comedy as an avenue for a more expansive self — a life, even, having never considered it an option. “I was watching a lot of Broad City at the time. I decided to just sign up for UCB. I signed up for classes, and I was just like, ‘Oh my god, why is this like the highlight of my week?’ Like, being in a room with 15 strangers and making shit up and having fun?’”
Well into the experience, Barone remembers “emailing one of my improv teachers, Aaron Jackson, with a list of questions. The last one was like, ‘Is it totally insane to try to pursue this as a career?’ And the answer is yes, it is, but I was just crazy enough to do it at that time in my life.”
For more from Mary Beth Barone, read our fabulously funny conversation below.
Also be sure to check out PAPER’s cover story on Overcompensating with Benito Skinner and interviews with Wally Baram and Rish Shah.
I feel like I’m collecting the cast of Overcompensating like the Infinity Stones. That’s something that straight guys say, right?
I don’t know any straight guys, but I think yes, from what I’ve seen online, that sounds about right, Joan. By the way, with respect to my other aunts, my favorite aunt’s name is Joan Sumner. So this feels crazy.
This is kismet. This is perfect. I thought that Joan was a bad name until Joan Rivers died, and then I was like, “Well, I guess I get to be the funniest Joan now.”
I wanted to get on here and just say thank you.
How are you feeling after the premiere?
It felt so surreal to finally be happening, and there were so many wonderful people there that were both involved in the show, and then friends that weren’t involved seeing it for the first time. So it was a really fun culmination of all the hard work. It’s been so funny because pretty much everyone I know has watched the whole show in one day — so it took seven years to make, and it takes four and a half hours to finish. And that’s just showbiz. That’s Hollywood.
You said in an interview recently that it’s been hard to stop and smell the roses, with all of this stuff happening, but it does feel like a very special time. Have you really taken it in now?
It comes in waves, because being in a big hotel room in LA with a balcony overlooking the Hills, it just feels really surreal, but it feels really correct and right and true. As someone that knows Benny, and as a fan of Benny’s work, I’m just so happy that more and more people are getting exposed to his genius. It’s been an emotional roller coaster this week. I had therapy this morning, and I said, “Let’s do therapy, then an interview.” I was crying, but it’s tears of joy too. It feels like this huge release in so many ways. And so I’m definitely taking moments to be like, “I’m in a cool outfit right now. My glam is perfect. And I get to go see people who love the show.”
Last night, Benny and I had a screening for Half Magic, which is the beauty brand that A24 started. And then we went to some Baroney watch parties in LA. The Baronies are people who listen to our podcast. We asked them to send their addresses where they were watching, so we surprised them in cop outfits. We’re just celebrating it in all the ways we know how, going from a premiere with hundreds of people to a watch party with seven fans who love us and love the show — trying to find ways to celebrate it that feel like they’re good for our souls, too, not just the glitz and the glamor.
When you have a friend like Benny, it just feels like you can do anything.
How did comedy find you? When were you like, Maybe I’m crazy enough to pursue this?
I was 25, and I was working an email job, and I had a serious boyfriend, and I was watching a lot of Broad City at the time. I decided to just sign up for UCB. And so I signed up for classes, and I was just like, “Oh my god, why is this like the highlight of my week?” Like, being in a room with 15 strangers and making shit up and having fun? And so I decided to do stand-up. I did an open mic a couple months into my improv education, and I just thought, You know what? If I bomb, I’ll never do it again. And I went to this all-women’s open mic, and we had two minutes to do our jokes, 160 seconds, and it went really well. And I was like, “Fuck. I think I want to do this.”
I remember emailing one of my improv teachers with a list of questions. The last one was like, “Is it totally insane to try to pursue this as a career?” And the answer is yes, it is, but I was just crazy enough to do it at that time in my life. I’m pretty risk averse. Physically, I break bones easily, so you’d never catch me skydiving. But when it comes to my life, I’m just like: “Well, I have to just do this and see what happens.” And then I’ve been lucky enough to meet so many amazingly talented people, Benny being one of them. As much as it’s been an honor to be a part of the projects, it’s been so fun to watch my friends succeed as well. So it’s an insane thing to do. I don’t recommend it. If there’s anything else you do that you like, don’t do stand up comedy, or do comedy, because it’s a lonely road.
You read the memoirs of comics of generations past, and they’re like, “I was working at the paper mill, thinking I needed to do something else.” In our generation, it’s the email mine. We were in the email mines.
It felt like the paper mill. It felt like the mines, at times. I was like, “Maybe I want more for my life.” But if you told me six months prior to doing that improv class that I would be here right now, it felt so far-fetched to me, and it still feels far-fetched sometimes. But it’s been so fun. Lots of highs and lows. Comedy is brutal. It’s just brutal. But then you have fun things, too, like this.
We’ve had a lot of comedy duos make really great art over the years, especially in television. When did you feel like you and Benny could do more together, beyond the stage or the podcast?
Benny and I met around the time that he was touring this live show called Overcompensating. I opened for him a few times, and I could not believe the scale of the show that he had put together completely on his own. It was stand up, singing, costumes, videos. It was just so vast. And I was like, “This man’s a genius.” Then our professional working relationship grew very organically. That was around the same time he was working on the first version of the pilot for this, and he said, “I want you to play my sister.” I remember reading the pilot, and I just thought that the specificity of the characters, the collegiate lifestyle and all the different personality types there was such a rich world to be pulling from, and the tone was so unique. It was so funny, but there was so much heart and honesty and truth to it.
People in the industry, they say a lot of things, and he has just so much integrity. He fought so hard for me to be able to play this role. He is the visionary. He knew exactly who he wanted for all the roles as soon as he met each person, each actor, each performer. I was along for the ride, and I was like, “If I book this, that would obviously be one of the great joys of my life.” I was just so honored that he trusted me with the role.
It’s so interesting watching your working relationship also, because where he is so full of energy and exuberance, you have this signature dry and deadpan delivery style. Where does that attitude in your comedy come from?
I never knew I was deadpan or dry until I started doing stand-up, and everyone kept saying, “You’re so deadpan. I’ve never seen someone wearing a crop top delivering jokes like that.” And I was like, whatever! And then the more people I met, especially as you grow into your adulthood, late 20s, early 30s, people were like, “I was expecting you to be really mean, but you’re actually so sweet.”
There is just this dryness to how I say things. I’m very even-keeled. Being in front of people, you get a lot of direct feedback. And as much as in comedy you’re holding a mirror up to society, people are holding a mirror up to you. Maybe I seem a little bit cold. My therapist told me a few sessions ago that when I say things because I speak so flatly, it can sound bad. It can sound like I’m being negative when I’m not. Being a comedian, you have a lot of time in your head unpacking how you present yourself, but it is just who I am. I never made the choice to be a deadpan comedian. I love my comedic style, but having Benny there, we really balance each other out. And that’s what’s so great about our friendship, too, not even related to work. We really like to bring each other back down to earth in a beautiful way. I’m so grateful, because this industry can be so isolating and solitary, but when you have a friend like Benny, it just feels like you can do anything.
I was along for the ride, and I was like, ‘If I book this, that would obviously be one of the great joys of my life.’
Benny told me he didn’t feel any of it was real until you were in Toronto and showed up to set the first day with blonde hair. He was like, “Wait, we’re making a TV show. Mary Beth has gone blonde.”
He told me a few months before I even booked the role: “I want Grace to be blonde.” And I was like, “I’ve always wanted to be blonde, just to see what that lifestyle was like.” So I was really excited to do that. And again, it comes back to his vision, because when we did camera tests, I had a side part, and he goes, “Nope. Grace has a center part. We’re doing the center part for Grace.” Down to the most minute details, he just knows exactly what he wants.
It felt like summer camp sometimes, because it was like, “Wait, I’m on set with my best friend. We’re playing pretend, and we get to play siblings and be mean to each other in a scene, and then we’re just hanging out in his trailer after.” I felt very spoiled, too, because I loved the material, and I loved the show. Talking about it in the press has been the easiest thing in the world, because I’m like, “Well, I’m a fan. I love it, and I love Benny.”
What happened to you specifically when you went blonde? Did you suddenly feel there was a whole world out there, or more inside the character?
Getting a dog and going blonde changed my relationship to the service industry. People just automatically are nicer to you for some reason if you have either thing. So baristas have been a lot nicer to me, which has been cool. And I’m going back to being a brunette in a few weeks, so I can kiss that goodbye. But I did feel like there was a difference. This sounds like I’m bragging, but it’s not really a brag…
Please brag!
I got asked out on a lot more dates by strangers. Being a blonde stand-up — I talk about this a lot in my new hour — is totally different. There’s something about being a brunette. People just assume a level of intelligence. Then being blonde, I found that delivering some of the jokes I have which are very dark, people didn’t know what to do. So I address it early in my new hour about being blonde and how that changes people’s perception. But it’s been a fun little era for me, and who knows? Maybe I’ll go back to blonde someday.
Benny also brought up the scene where you do karaoke in episode seven. He says that he gave you some pretty specific instructions beforehand, trying to psyche you into that scene. What was that scene like for you?
I was completely terrified. I have said it before. I’ll say it again. I’m not a good singer. I know I’m not a good singer, and so I knew I wasn’t going to show up that day and randomly have an amazing voice. So the idea of singing in front of strangers was terrifying to me. But again, Benny challenges me creatively, and he knew that I could do it. If I have Benny’s faith in me, I just need to physically be there, and the rest will pour out of me.
He was off screen telling me to swing the mic around like it’s a penis. Once he unlocked that in me, I started to go crazy too. I was pouring a bowl of pretzels in my mouth and spitting them out and throwing my shirt. It was very hot in there, throwing my very sweaty turtleneck at the crowd. But there was actually a little mishap on set that day, because they got the wrong karaoke track, so the screaming was not included. I’m saying the opening lines, and it’s supposed to start the screaming. And I have to go: “Stop, this isn’t right. It’s not the right track.”
Having Benny there was a huge part of why I was able to do it, because we’re codependent. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on that scene, and I know that it’s just Benny’s genius. He knew that scene would be so impactful.
The show deals with this theme of overcompensating and each character working through that in their own way. In your comedy special, you talk about growing up Catholic, being bisexual and coming out later in life. Did you bring any of that experience to the character or the writing of this show at all?
100 percent. As a college student, I had such a limited worldview, and I had so many expectations for what college would be. I showed up at school a Catholic Republican, and my mind was completely blown. I was exposed to all these new people and new ideas. The classes, as much as they were boring at times, really radicalized me. So I loved tapping back into that idea: You’re 17 or 18, and you’re on your own for the first time, and you think you have everything figured out, but you really don’t know anything. And that was fun, to mine that for comedy, but also for the more heartfelt moments of the show. In college, I thought I was going to be a virgin ‘til I got married. Looking back on that, it’s so crazy. Those kids, they just think that they know everything.
The universal theme of the show is this idea that love feels very conditional, and if you show people who you really are, they won’t love you anymore. And that is something everyone in every phase of life, has to confront, but especially in college, because you’re trying to feed into people’s idea of who you are, instead of what’s going to make you feel like the most complete version of yourself. So I love that I got to explore that through Grace, because that was a huge part of my college experience as well.
You were talking earlier about doing more intimate screenings with fans of you and Benny specifically. We live in this age where, for all the bad things that social media can bring into our lives, younger comics and creators also get to have more intimate relationships with the people that support their work. Would you say that sort of intimacy with the people that have supported you feels special or unique to this current moment, and what do you get out of it creatively?
Our relationship with our fans feels very special to us, and we always want to honor them. We take their feedback really seriously, and especially at this time now, to have so many people that are invested in the show has felt so beautiful and a privilege to us. They’ve been listening to the podcast — whenever they entered the cinematic universe, we have had the podcast for a couple of years now — and it truly is so many women and gay men and members of the LGBTQ community. They are so underserved when it comes to entertainment, and we want to put forth the best content for them. We edit the podcast really meticulously, and we have that communication with them through social media. Then to be able to show up at their apartments last night, we’re so happy to meet them. It feels like this really beautiful community that we’ve created, and I feel incredibly lucky that we have anybody that is invested in what we do next.
For it to be such a supportive group of people, it really does reflect the tone of the podcast, because it’s so celebratory and positive. We didn’t want to have a podcast that was like shitting on people or pop culture or media, because we just like to talk about things that we love. And so the people that come to Ride Live, come to our stand up shows, watch the show, they are just so full of love and positive energy. I’m just extremely grateful. We love to show up for the Baronies in any way that we can. And we want them to know too that we wouldn’t be where we are without them. We will never turn our back on that community. I just love them. It’s crazy. I just love these fuckers.
Photography: Kenyon Anderson
Styling: Marissa Pelly
Makeup (Benito): Rommy Najor
Makeup (Mary Beth and Wally): Mollie Gloss
Hair (Benito): Akihisa Yamaguchi
Hair (Mary Beth and Wally): Sergio Estrada
Grooming (Rish): Kennedy Trisler
Set design: Liz Mydlowski
Photo assistant: Sahara Bibi Ndiaye
Digitech: Bob Wagoner
Styling assistant: Jordan Kennedy
Production assistant: Kaiya Lang
Editor-in-chief: Justin Moran
Managing editor: Matthew Wille
Executive creative producer: Angelina Cantú
Story: Joan Summers
Cover design: Jewel Baek
Publisher: Brian Calle