At an early screening of
Barry, the hit HBO show that casts Bill Hader as a hitman turned improv actor, a man in the audience raised his hand to offer some constructive feedback. He wasn't a fan of Sally Reed, one of Barry Berkman's classmates and his crush on the show. The man deemed her narcissistic and delusional. He said she wasn't "likeable."
Sarah Goldberg, who plays Sally on
Barry, was prepared to seethe in silence. But just then, a writer on the show stepped in. "Barry fucking kills people," Goldberg remembers she said. "He's a murderer, and you don't like Sally because she's self-involved."
The moment—so pointed and perfect Goldberg wishes she had it trapped in glass—is one that she's returned to over and over since
Barry premiered last month. It's the "perfect distillation," a simple back-and-forth that sums up just how hard it is to depict complicated, "flawed" women on screen. Even next to a homicidal loner, somehow it's Sally who looks bad.