Barry Season 4 Episode 6: The Jennifer Lawrence Cameo That Never Happened
Contains spoilers for "Barry" Season 4, Episode 6 — "the wizard"
"Barry" has always been known for taking some big swings. After all, this is a show about a hitman who tried to make it in Hollywood until his violent past caught up to him. Season 4 took perhaps the biggest swing of the show's run — jumping forward in time eight years when Barry (Bill Hader) and Sally (Sarah Goldberg) have run away from their old lives until their old acting teacher Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler) announces he plans on consulting on a movie about the real-life story of Barry and Sally. Incensed at the news, Barry sets out to kill Gene.
That's where Season 4, Episode 6, "the wizard," picks up, and while a good deal of time has passed, people still hold onto old wounds. And there was supposed to be another scene to show how Sally still holds onto the past. Bill Hader spoke with The Wrap about how there was an entire section where Sally would daydream about going back to Los Angeles to talk to her former friend Natalie (D'Arcy Carden). And during this sequence, she also would've met up with Jennifer Lawrence, playing herself, but it just didn't end up happening for good reason.
Jennifer Lawrence was supposed to be part of a bittersweet daydream on Barry
Those who have already tuned in to "Barry" Season 4, Episode 6 saw Sally take a dark path where she's left alone with her son with Barry. Unfortunately, the two just don't get along, and Sally ends up giving the kid vodka to tire him out. However, she was initially supposed to have more to do with a daydream of her envisioning a way to make it back into Hollywood's good graces, as Bill Hader told The Wrap, "Then she goes and it's like the 'Just Desserts' finale is #3 on some list and the Barry Berkman movie is #2, so it gives her this feeling of like, 'Oh maybe this is my comeback' kind of thing. You see her read it and you see all these people online and on social media saying who they think should play Sally, and then she looks at John and then you cut and they get on a plane and fly to LA."
Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Sally would've learned that Jennifer Lawrence was expected to play her in the Barry Berkman movie. She reconciles with Natalie but was also supposed to meet Lawrence in the flesh, who suggests that Sally should play herself in the film. Of course, at this point, it would've been revealed it was all a daydream. The only problem is that Hader felt they were retreading similar territory to what they were doing previously in the season. He went on to say, "My problem with that was it was similar to Cousineau's journey. So while we were in the prep for Episodes 1 and 2, Liz Sarnoff and Duffy Boudreau and I had a meeting of what is Sally's story in Episode 6? Because I start pulling the thread of, 'Isn't this in the same ballpark of what Cousineau is doing?' Is that really her thing, or is it about being safe?"
Suffice it to say, Sally gets plenty to do in "Barry" Season 4, Episode 6, to the point where the Jennifer Lawrence cameo would've probably felt like too much.