Note: The following contains spoilers for “Barry” Season 4, Episode 4.
“Barry” viewers witnessed one of the HBO series’ most emotional moments in Sunday’s episode, as the relationship between Noho Hank (Anthony Carrigan) and Cristobal (Michael Irby) came to a tragic end. And while Hank’s decision to allow Cristobal to be murdered may come as a shock to some, Carrigan spoke to TheWrap about where his character’s headspace was at during that pivotal moment.
In the fourth episode of the final season, Hank has been re-approached by the Chechens after trying to start his own criminal empire with Cristobal. Under threat of the Chechens, Hank eliminates the combined gang that he and Cristobal had put together, much to Cristobal’s chagrin. Later that night, upset over Hank’s decision, Cristobal tries to break up with him. While Hank cautions Cristobal that he can’t leave him, insinuating he’ll be killed by the Chechens because he knows too much, Cristobal calls his bluff. Cristobal is then killed by the Chechens, and we watch as Hank has an emotional breakdown inside the house and then literally swallows his emotions to toughen up. Cristobal is dead.
“It’s a long scene and it’s a very difficult one, and a really heartbreaking one,” Carrigan told TheWrap of filming the sequence. “So there’s obviously an intensity and an emotion there that like is tough to drum up, but at the same time, when you kind of understand what’s happening, and you understand the circumstances of it all, I think it makes sense in a certain way.”
Carrigan said he hopes viewers will understand the position Hank was put in, but also the trajectory of his character over the course of the season.
“I hope that audience members will be understanding that all these things were tracking. Cristobal had this idea of wanting everyone in this crime world to get along, and everyone to just have this peaceful, happy family. And then here come the Chechens being like, ‘No, we’re going to kill you all. That doesn’t work. We’re gonna take over.’ So Hank was left with a really tough decision. Do I continue with this kind of vulnerable way of doing things, or do I harden up and choose him and Cristobal over this dream that they both had?’ I think ultimately that hardening was ultimately the wrong choice, so it’s really tragic in a certain way. But I think it’s also very beautiful and very compelling storytelling.”
The fight between Hank and Cristobal and then Cristobal’s subsequent death makes up a long, complicated sequence that required a range of emotions from both performers. Carrigan says that the scene opened up even further as they began talking it out with showrunner and director Bill Hader.
“We rehearsed it quite a bit, and to be honest, it, it began to really kind of take shape in an interesting way that was surprising to us. Sometimes things are written in such a way and the writing is really beautiful, but then you say it out loud and you’re like, ‘Well, what’s this really about? This is an argument between two lovers. Where’s the love and where’s the misunderstanding? And how are they missing each other?’ I think they both need to have very strong points of view that they’re coming at it from, so once we kind of looked at it from there, it became a really simple but interesting scene.”
Indeed, Hader told TheWrap that as originally written, the camera was supposed to stay on Cristobal as we saw him get killed. But when Carrigan walked Hader through the emotions Hank would be feeling once Cristobal walked out the door, Hader rewrote the scene to show Hank’s point of view.
Hader, who directed all the episodes in Season 4, admitted there was some pushback in the writers room on the decision to have Cristobal die, but felt it was necessary for Hank’s evolution as he tries to act like a real crime boss and suffers the consequences.
“Hank caused all this. He thought he could figure it out and he couldn’t and then he tried to take it back and he couldn’t and he has to live with this decision and it’s going to haunt him forever,” Hader said.
