Anthony Carrigan Celebrates NoHo Hank's Revelation In Barry Season 3 - Exclusive
This article contains spoilers for "Barry" Season 3, Episode 1, "forgiving jeff."
NoHo Hank's sexuality has long been a subject of speculation for fans of "Barry." The Chechen mobster's flamboyant personality and flirtatious interactions with both the hitman Barry Berkman and the Bolivian crime lord Cristobal have led many viewers to consider Hank a queer-coded character. As of the show's third season, it turns out these fan theories were correct: Hank's queerness is now officially canonical rather than merely coding or subtext.
In the "Barry" Season 3 premiere, "forgiving jeff," six months have passed since the events of the Season 2 finale, wherein Hank and Cristobal's rival gangs emotionally reconciled their feud. Hank and Cristobal are now boyfriends, enjoying what appears to be some sort of domestic bliss (though who knows how long that will last in their violent professions). Looper had the chance to speak with actor Anthony Carrigan, who plays Hank on the show, to discuss how this reveal naturally evolves from how the character has been developed throughout the course of the series and how it contributes the character's endearing complexity.
Exploring Hank's life 'behind closed doors'
Carrigan described NoHo Hank's coming out as "a very natural next step in terms of the development of this character and the evolution of who Hank is." He enjoyed getting the chance to explore his character's personal life more, saying, "As an actor, it's always really wonderful when you get to see who this person is behind closed doors, see who they are in their personal life, in a more intimate setting. I wanted to do it justice and be respectful of who this character is and honor that aspect of the story."
Hank is, from a certain perspective, a villain, but he's a character viewers genuinely love for his kind, upbeat personality. There's a long history of villains in fiction being either subtly or explicitly hinted at as queer as a means of portraying them as the devious "other," but Hank and Cristobal's romance serves the opposite purpose: it humanizes these "bad guys" rather than others them. Carrigan says what's great about Hank is that "you can't quite pin him down. Ironically, he is the sweetest of all of the characters in 'Barry' and he's the one who's the Chechen mob boss. It really subverts your whole concept of what a villain is and whether or not to root for him."
New episodes of "Barry" Season 3 air Sunday nights at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.