While Benito Skinner toured a live show – coincidentally, called “overcompensively” – he received a fateful phone call from his agent. The agent said that the comic work of Skinner nowadays felt more and more episodic. What did he think about writing for television?
Skinner was a game and decided to use personal material for his new series with gay theme on Prime Video, “overcompensation”. Skinner, who is known on the internet for his comic sketches, is the writer, executive producer and star of the series. He heads like Benny, a former football player trying to find himself at a new university campus.
Skinner said he was struggling with his identity before he came out. He felt inspired to put his story in the world.
“I think many of my heroes in the Space were Waller-Bridge and Issa Rae,” he said. “And [I said] “Yes, I think I want to write my story.” I think I had already started the stand-up show. But when I put pen on paper, it immediately came out of me. ‘
He worked on the pilot in 2019. A24 and the production company Strong Baby came on board and a year later Amazon picked up the series. The show has since been developing.
In the series, Benny Carmen (Wally Baram), a fellow student he becomes friends after an uncomfortable attempt at sex. Carmen sees Benny for whom he is and wants him to abandon his attempts to perform.
In many ways Benny is based on Skinner’s own personality, but the character sometimes feels very different.
“I think Benny is so in his head and so tight, so stressed, and I think I was approached that way,” said Skinner. “I think there is a level of perfectionism that he has in mind because he feels that he should make up for this thing in him. I think he thinks it is so wrong and that he should be ashamed that he is gay.”
Benny tries to overcompensate through perfectionism, tries to be Valedictorian and achieve perfect figures.
‘[He’s] Doing what he has seen around him for so long, which tries to be so masculine and I think he is Broy possible, “said Skinner.” How deep can he make his voice? How wide can he make his shoulders? How thick can he make his neck? ‘
Skinner said he thinks many people can relate to feeling locked by masculinity.
“I think we are all indoctrinated with this idea of masculinity as the biggest thing in the world,” he said. “It is the most tempting, and I think that is part of all these characters in mind. Masculinity is safety. It’s applause. It’s all for these people at the university.”
Despite the comic and often raunchy hijacking that surrounds Benny – and an impressive range of Costars, including Connie Britton, Kyle Maclachan and Bowen Yang – the relationship he develops with Carmen is the soul of the show.
“It’s all,” said Skinner. “I think it is the first time that they are both really seen and seen for who they are, although they don’t see it themselves. I think the way Benny looks at Carmen in scenes … I always want to play it as if he is awe for her. She is so funny and so special, and she feels so special.
Although his sketches can rise quickly, the development of a TV program takes much longer. Skinner has enabled that time to really make a beat at every step and to think about what he wants to say and who these characters are.
“Fortunately I wore a lot of hats in my career at the start of it, and I thought of these things in total,” he said. “It’s not just when writing a sketch and thinking about the joke. It’s what it looks like? How is the background? How do I edit it?”
The hope of Skinner on the series is that people feel human empathy and see themselves on the screen – and perhaps not in the character they thought they would do that. His favorite reaction was then a viewer told him that they were not gay, but in the experience of trying to act and being loved.
“It is uniting in a certain way,” he said. “I think the show will hopefully even offer people a safe space, to be with a best friend on a bed and to laugh and cry, and to have some catharsis at the time in your life – or the time in which you are now.”
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