Mary Beth Barone on her ‘Galaxy Brain’

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0:19From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

0:33I'm Elvis Mitchell, and from the Cannes Film Festival, welcome to The Treatment. And at that festival, I sat with someone who's associated with television, and of course, stand-up. Mary Beth Harrell may be known to you for her incredible turn as the conflicted character Grace on the prime video comedy series Overcompensating. Her newest project is on Netflix, her stand-up special, Galaxy Brain. First of all, I am such a huge fan of yours, as I was telling you. And there's this perception of you, people called your act deadpan, which I'd never thought. Because I told you I'd read about you before I saw you.

1:12And I said, well, that's not deadpan. Because you expect there to be no emotion or affect. And you have a great way of putting a spin on a line. I mean, one of my favorite lines in your special is that you have to anticipate discourse which made me laugh louder than anything. Yes, yes. I think, yeah, ever since I started stand-up, which was, I did my first open mic about 10 years ago. And it was like a two-minute open mic, all women. And I just remember immediately people started describing me as deadpan. And I guess I sort of knew what that was because people had described my dad that way as well, just conversationally.

1:48and so I was like oh I guess I'm deadpan and then when I watch it back I'm like I guess there is like a dry delivery to it but I think deadpan people and I do speak pretty monotone even just like conversationally in everyday life so I think I've just gotten it in my head that I'm deadpan but there is a lot of performance behind my jokes as well and I think especially doing them over and over and over again on tour you really find those moments so I'm curious to see it's such an astute observation. I'm curious to see if when people watch the special, they still think of me as sort of just like blank.

2:23I think they won't because first of all, there is a rhythm and when you build to sort of like the second act climax, there is a glee that you have. I don't know if it's just your relief to having got there, but it's also you can tell that we can hear your mastery because you make a joke about not liking wordplay, but you're so smart about your word usage and and there are so many callbacks by the that point not just she owns it and and you can see your your delight in that there is a lot of delay I think for some reason callbacks as a comedian is just like striking gold even though they aren't always the biggest laugh to me it's just like I I want that part there you know I want to bring the audience back to that moment before so it's kind of this interesting thing I found doing it like I said so many times it was like you find callbacks like the 50th time you do the set.

3:15It's a really interesting thing where your brain, you're speaking, but your brain is also anticipating what you're about to say and knowing what you've just said. So sometimes it can be a tongue twister and you mix up words, you put them out of order. It's like, it's a very interesting like mental experience. And then when you do the joke so many times, you go, oh my God, I just said gay club. And that relates to this that I said earlier, and then I can tie this back. So it's really rewarding to find those moments. And then at a certain point, you're like, okay, I can't do any more callbacks because then the material just sort of starts to fold in on itself.

3:48And you're like, limit. You have to kill your darlings, as they say, which is a tough part of the process. But you don't do it too often. It's not like you're ringing bells constantly because at a certain point that just you're doing the act for yourself. Right. But there's part of that too, for people who are watching at home, because when you see the stuff live, you almost don't hear the callbacks because you're lost in the moment of, and the audience is clearly really geeked to be there. And that's part of the fun of it too. I've never seen you do a piece like this that there's so much love for you in the room.

4:18And what did that feel like? I feel like we say surreal too much, but it really did feel surreal to have it look exactly the way I pictured it in my head at this beautiful venue in the heart of New York City. At the Skirball Center. At the Skirball Center, which we always say, I don't know who Skirball is, but I think of him as like a very wealthy clown or something. We had one in LA too, so. Okay, cool. So extremely wealthy clown. And it just felt like the culmination of so much hard work and there were so many people involved who all just, I think what I liked about the team that we put together was it felt like everyone had something to prove.

4:56And so I think those are the best collaborators because they really want to put in a lot of work for sometimes not a lot of money. so it felt like everyone felt very passionate about making the special that I saw in my head and to have people that were able to bring it to life and then the audience was I think the venue is about 700 seats and that being able to sell that out three times we did a dress rehearsal show and then two tapings it was yeah I don't get ecstatic very much I've been doing a lot of like introspection on like my range of emotion but that felt like something where it was like I'm really going to acknowledge this moment and just like take it all in so walking out and I get goosebumps so easily so when the crowd was screaming I it was like full body chills to see you taking pleasure in the act and you started this kind of an introduction that's a kind of a throwback to your character from overcompensate which I again maybe oh she's actually this is the way of letting people know that's not who you are yeah but it's also a great bit and the mysterious mirror part I don't want to give too much.

5:58I'm trying to dance around. It's hard. Well, we will save some things for watching, but that's a reference to a queer cinematic masterpiece that I just felt like I wanted to be part of it. But I just thought that to do that, just to let people know how your world has changed, because that's an acknowledgement, too, that for so many people, you're that character. Yeah. And for me, I was shocked in the very first episode. Wait, she's not talking. Yeah, you have to, I guess, Grace has a rich inner life on overcompensating. When they first started the season, a lot of people were like, I actually hated your character.

6:33And I was like, thank you. I guess I did a good job conveying her as complex then, because then I think a lot of people were won over by her in the later episodes. And I'm so excited about season two, because it pays to have your best friend as the creator. He's just written me such a wonderful story arc, and I can't wait for people to see it. Actor, comic, Mary Beth Barone is my guest. and her Netflix comedy special is Galaxy Brain. It's the treatment. The thing he does for you too, I think, and we really get a chance to deal with that in the special, is he lets you play out your anxiety in really interesting ways.

7:09We get to see all that stuff that we didn't like about her. She's such a charismatic character and she's the person who's the most defined in the first episode. And she's a, I'm not saying a different person, but she's more open. and for me that's a real indication of your skills as an actor. Thank you. And I want to know where that came from because you could have overplayed the cruelty at the beginning and you could have overplayed the, I don't want to say vulnerability, but the sort of self-awareness that she takes on by the end and you didn't do that in either instance. The characters are so not us, but they have so many shades of who we really are as well, which I think it was nice to also be in the writer's room because I got to see how the character took shape And I had read so many versions of the pilot.

7:52It first started out as not really this big ensemble comedy. And I got to watch how it was shaped as like A24 came on board and then Amazon. And then in the writer's room, it continued to change. And Benny is so supportive. And he really wants to give us as actors opportunities to shine in every episode, which I think as a creator is very generous. I think season two was even more fun to write because we know the characters. and we can now just like play to everyone's strengths as performers. And also I think there's a lot of really surprising moments. And there was something I was going through last year that Benny had asked me, do you want to put this in the show?

8:29I find that like working through trauma in the art is really helpful, which as you can see from my special, like I totally agree. And so some of the themes we're navigating this season, I just think are going to make a lot of, especially young women in college feel represented. and that's kind of the fun part, as emotional as it can be sometimes. It's interesting, too, about the show because Grace really starts asking questions out loud by the end of the first season. And you can sort of see it's the dawning of recognition for her. And, again, you're not putting quotation marks on any of that stuff.

9:05You really like action. By the end of it, you're actually looking at his character in the face. Yeah. And the first two episodes, you're doing every robot looking at his body because you're so disgusted by the idea of him being in your fiefdom. Yeah. I wanted to ask you where that sort of comes from, allowing her to be scared. There was so much of it on the page. And then a lot of the things you're doing in performance, like I'm not even conscious of. Like an observation like that, which I was doing, but I wasn't even aware of. I think it's interesting to see how people can pick up on different things in the performance.

9:39A lot of people have told me since watching the show, They're like, your eyes are very expressive. There's a lot of sadness behind them. And I didn't know that. So it's cool to just learn that about myself. We should say who Benny is for those who don't know. Oh, yes, of course. Benito Skinner at Benny Drama 7. Queerest Folks Benny Drama, as we call him. He was in the Queerest Folks reboot. So he just likes to have that put in there, too. I'm sure he's thrilled that you keep calling that up for him. Showtime, too. Thank you. I think, you know what? with Grace, it's like, I think a lot of women at that age, if you look too closely, you're going to see how bad your situation is.

10:17And sometimes it's easier to just not really interrogate what's going on, like even the dynamic with her boyfriend. Or if she even looked at the dynamic with Benny a little bit closer, it's like the parents have really put them in this dynamic where they are not friends. They're not allies with each other. It's like they're against each other. More with Mary Beth Barone, who has Galaxy Brain, her Netflix comedy special from the Cannes Film Festival, after this. It's The Treatment.

11:03The series features unreleased footage and intimate interviews detailing the rise and fall of the media mogul. From Emmy-nominated director Alexandria Stapleton, critics call Sean Combs' The Reckoning engrossing, riveting, undeniably gripping, and incredibly compelling viewing. We're back from the Gone Film Festival with comedian Mary Beth Barone on her Netflix comedy special, Galaxy Brain. It's The Treatment. The special is, I don't want to say a peak, but you reach kind of this apotheosis as a stand-up where you, that you understand how you connect with audiences and that you really take some glee and sort of play when you step into character.

11:45Yeah, I really do. I think, and when I first started stand-up, you know how long it's going to take to reach these, like, milestones that you want to get, and it feels really daunting. It feels like it does really take 10 years to become like an accomplished stand up and you really can't cut corners. Now there's ways to achieve success and build an audience online, which I think is great. It's making comedy more democratic. But to really like master the craft, it just takes time and you can't rush it. And I think something that I really felt in doing this was that I had mastered the material. And then it was really just about, like, doing it a lot of times so that once I got to the taping, I could just drop in and find new moments, too.

12:28Like, I wrote one joke on the day of the taping. It was the last joke I wrote. And I was like, I want to do this. And I didn't know if it was going to work or not. But now it's, like, one of my favorite jokes. The things I got the most pleasure from are things I can say that don't give anything away. Like, there are going to be some tough concepts. Yeah, that was a risky one. I thought Netflix actually might make me cut that because of legal reasons, but they actually didn't. So I can't wait for y 'all to find out what that one is. But there are a few, I'm not going to do any more because I could do this all night, all these terrific sort of placeholders because they're almost like act breaks when you do these things.

13:01Yeah, I also found even just in watching it so many times in the edit, I realized sometimes the punchline is actually in the middle of the joke and then I just have more to say after. so I think people maybe aren't used to like oh there's this big laugh here and then I'm still making points but it's not necessarily the laugh line and just getting comfortable with that as like a viewer of my own work like I just do things a little bit differently. But that's something you've done in your act before you like throw off these lines that are apparent straight lines but they make me laugh harder than anything.

13:35Well sometimes you find that just from doing it where I go oh I didn't even think that part was funny but then I'm I am actually informed that I'm not smart because I didn't even know that that, you know what I mean? It's like, oh, I didn't even know that was the funny part, but we'll keep it. But I think what it is, and I think you've got an instinct for this of knowing when the act demands a piece of common sense. Yeah. And that's just... Thank you for saying that. Because it is a thing, oh, this is the thing that isn't a thought balloon over your head, but you need to say it. Right. Because I think as the stand-up, the fun is watching you get more comfortable doing that kind of thing.

14:08Yeah. And not trying, realizing that there can be laughs where they're not where you don't expect them right and living with that yeah and just being comfortable with putting out even including jokes that like don't get the biggest laugh but they make a point that I want to make I think that can be challenging in the edit because you're like oh does that throw off the rhythm or is that gonna is the momentum not there but the special is is it just as much for me as like a complete piece as it is for the audience and I hope people like it. I mean, my goal with this was to sort of take really complex issues and look at them in the dumbest way possible.

14:43And then just really like figure out what I want to say about each thing. Because if you look at each joke, and I didn't realize this at first, but it, it, they're pretty dumb approaches to things. See, you say dumb, I've, especially in the context of the act, I would say like thoughtless because there's, you know what I mean? Because somebody's like, I'm just going to say this thing. Yeah. Because then what you fall with is, so it's not dumb, it's just, oh, this is just the first thing that came into my head, so I'm just going to say this. Yeah, and then that sets up something that hopefully is like a more complex take.

15:17No, I mean, that's why I think that it's so apropos to say tough concepts here because apparently it's like one thing, but each line sort of builds on it and builds on it. And your comfort now in really taking your time with that? I mean, because then when I heard deadpan. You were a little fast to be deadpan before, so I didn't know where that came from. But I thought it's the thing we were talking about where it still happens that women stand-ups have to be sort of categorized as you're this or you're this or you're this. Yeah. I'm curious to see what people get angry about. I have a list in my notes app of people that are going to be mad at me when the special comes out just to anticipate.

15:56Did you take up all the memory making that list? Because they're going to be mad about a lot of things. It's really, really long. I can't publish it. I hit the character limit. But we've gotten to witness female comedians being torn down for decades. Like, look at Lucille Ball. You look at Kathy Griffin. You look at even Tiffany Haddish, Amy Schumer. And if it's my time, then that means I've truly made it. Actor, comic, Mary Beth Barone is my guest. And her Netflix comedy special is Galaxy Brain. It's the treatment. My interest in you has always been this affinity for saying this thing that apparently is not supposed to be funny, but it's really funny, especially in the act, and it's so hard to not give jokes away.

16:38You can say what the concept is. We can tease that. Your screenplay. Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, I'm excited. Hopefully that gets picked up. I would love to make that movie. I think you should. Have you actually thought about it? Because it's not only a great concept, the world's best title. I know. Yeah. I do really love all my jokes. I feel like it's hard to say that because you don't want to sound cocky. There's a time I felt like you weren't so in love with your jokes. Yeah. I think I go through phases with them. And there were some jokes that I thought we would cut from the special that I ended up then continuing to try to finesse and put tags on and change the punchline and figure out.

17:16The joke about the phones on college campuses, the emergency phones, I had a different second part to that for most of tour. And it just wasn't working. and it felt like it was the audience, I did this act out and it was just too much of a thinker. So I ended up changing it and landing on something that I was really happy with. I had a section about the Me Too movement that I just didn't feel like I had enough time to really nail and it was hard to cut that because I have so much to say about the Me Too movement, but I'm going to save it for the next one. One thing I do want to talk about here, which is I think maybe one of the most winning parts of the special and it's something I mentioned to you because I didn't know you were still doing it.

17:54you do audience participation. That's all I'm saying. First of all, it's about your patience. And it's also, whenever comics do that kind of audience participation, it's often to upstage the person talking. And I've never seen you do that, like, ever. No, I don't think you're creating a safe space for the audience to participate if you're then just going to, like, roast them, essentially. I don't think that's fun to watch. I think it makes everyone in the room feel a little bit weird, too. And I knew I had quite a bit to do after that section. And so I actually, I thought it was a little bit risky to do at the taping because I had done it on tour.

18:30And sometimes it's amazing and it brings the whole room together. And you now have this common enemy that's not in the room, which will make sense when you see it. But I was like, I just think it's too risky to potentially stop the momentum dead in its tracks three quarters of the way through the show. And I was like perfectly fine to cut it. And then one of the producers who's a straight guy, he's like a dad. I never would have thought he would go to bat for this bit about like women having ex-best friends. But he was like, I feel really strongly that we should keep this part. I think it was a risk.

19:01In the first show, the story wasn't as like, it didn't have a great flow to it. And then even in the edit, we were like, maybe we'll edit it out because it was pretty long. But we ended up being able to trim it in a way that I think is still very engaging and gets the point across. But that one was more risky to me because I'm like, I'm going to be so nervous about the show in general. I don't know if I'm going to be quick enough with my responses. I don't know if this is going to be that fun to watch. But the audience was so on board. So that made it feel good. I say to us through that there's some real autobiography.

19:30You actually mentioned your dog's name on stage. Oh, she's not making up a dog. That's really her dog. I don't make stuff up that much. Usually if it's made up, it's like super outlandish or something. But she actually did take a s*** in the automated revolving door at JFK, which you'll learn all about that. That's something that really traumatized me. She was none the wiser. She had no idea. I'm so glad I got to talk about that. It was one of those things because I was raised Catholic, so I have this guilt that's in my bones. And so when it happened, I just thought, I guess I have to tell every single person I've ever met that my dog did this.

20:06and then people that I don't even know in the audience. I ended up writing a bit about it. And I felt weird. I'm like, am I embarrassing her? But she's a dog. Actually, this begs a question for me, just as a last question. Just to move away from Pinky a little bit, I'm sorry. But you come out and talk about not being blonde, which you are on the show. Yes. And are you going to be blonde for the next season, or do you want to give that away? I'm not, all I'll say is I'm not blonde right now. and we're in the middle of filming, so you never know, you never know what people can do with hair and movie magic.

20:42But needless to say, I was not upset about keeping my natural hair color because as fun as it was to, like, be given the benefit of the doubt and be treated well in society as a blonde person, it's just not who I am in my heart. Well, I just want to close by saying I'm a big fan. I couldn't be happier to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure. Cues spilt all over me

21:11Lovers spit left on repeat Actor-comedian Mary Beth Brown attended her first con film festival this year, where I joined her to talk about her stand-up, her prime video series Overcompensating, and her Netflix comedy special Galaxy Brain. Comedians Who Also Act At the archive kcrw.com slash thetreatment At kcrw.com slash thetreat you'll find our ongoing series with creators on moments of inspiration and this week is comedian and actor Gerard Carmichael who completed a classic TV show binge about a beloved figure with bigger-than-life appetites and conflicts No conflicts here. Our show is produced and edited by Rebecca Mooney and mixed by Katie Gilchrist.

22:08To better days, everyone. I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's The Treatment.

22:32And I've never felt more alone It feels so scary getting home

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