Interview: Benito Skinner on Putting Everything into ‘Overcompensating’

If you’ve been on the internet in the last ten years, you may have come across Benito Skinner. The comedian propelled to fame with his signature sketches and impressions. But his most recent project, the Prime Video comedy series Overcompensating, feels like “…a totally appropriate introduction” to the comedian “in every way.”

“I think it is so me,” Skinner says. Then, with a smirk, he adds, “And, yeah, I’m naked in it. I’m fully naked…. I kinda left it all out there. That’s what I thought the whole time. If this is all I get to make ever, let’s go for it.”

And go for it he does.

Overcompensating stars Skinner as a former high school jock and closeted freshman Benny navigating his freshman year at Yates University. The series, also created by Skinner, walks a tonal tightrope, wavering between heightened absurdism and heartfelt earnestness as Benny navigates coming out in the wild world of college.

“I think just allowing for college to feel like a fever dream and sexy and big and the stakes be so high, but then allowing for the really small moments in a dorm room that feel so intimate and sweet and honest,” Skinner explains when asked how he achieved that balance. “I think the show is so much of a come up and a come down which feels like going out in college…. I think college everything feels so hyper intense. You’re young and you just wanna be loved so much but then you’re drinking so much and you’re doing drugs and you’re horny. I think that was always our thing of like, college is a circus so allowing for a really devastating moment like the end of episode five to happen right after we’ve…made a joke about a girl spreading mono because she’s sick of everyone on campus…. We’re afforded the luxury of this setting being tonally bizarre in a fun way.”

The series feels like lightning in a bottle with this liminal space, providing Skinner and his talented ensemble to show off the full breadth of their capabilities as performers. They fluctuate between the most heightened comedic levels and the utter devastation of coming of age flawlessly, sometimes all within the same scene. Bottling that lightning wasn’t some overnight fluke, though.

“I think I wrote ninety drafts of [the pilot],” says Skinner. “It’s so tricky. I’m also such a perfectionist and I started to really feel so much for these characters. I think the biggest change is how much of an ensemble it became. It became so exciting for me, for my show runner Scott King, and I think for everybody involved this idea of overcompensating extending to everyone around us.”

By extending and exploring the central themes with the entire ensemble, Skinner surrounds Benny with some of the most memorable characters to grace TV screens in recent memory. One of those characters is Benny’s best friend Carmen, played by the revelatory Wally Baram. Carmen and Benny’s relationship is so nuanced and intricate, but filled with love.

When asked how the duo built that relationship, Skinner said, “[it’s] helpful to build it out when you really do love someone that much. I adore her and I think she’s brilliant. I named her after my godmother who passed away when I was in college…. I just felt like yeah, it was just this feeling of being protected and seen by someone and I think being like ‘Oh my god I just feel like for some reason I can’t do this bit that I’ve been doing in front of so many other people around you.’ And think I felt almost that way when I met Wally. We were doing interviews for the writers room and I had a zoom with her and I just completely fell in love with her…. That’s how I felt when I met my best friend in college.”

For as much as the show is about Benny’s coming out experience, the show also holds a lot of space for its female characters and all their complicated glory.

“I think also really trying to in any way pay homage to or try to capture just how lifesaving women have been to gay men….” Skinner says. “It’s just such a lifesaving friendship that I think maybe on TV has felt more slapstick and I’m like, no… I really don’t know if I’d be here without them. I’m not sure. And I think a lot of gay people feel that way…. What was so exciting to me and why I think the pilot changed so much is like you have this protector and they’re going through their own world of pain and they still manage to make you feel safe and seen. And I think we get to do that for them and I think that’s an exciting thing for the show that maybe in season two Benny gets to repay the favor.”

Benny’s internal struggle manifests in myriad ways throughout the season. He constantly tries to reckon with the opportunity to reintroduce himself to people who have no preconceived notion of him while sharing campus with his sister Grace (Mary Beth Barone) and her boyfriend Peter (Adam DiMarco). Overcompensating is not only a brilliant showcase for Skinner as a writer, but as an actor; he specifically shines most when playing with the subtleties of Benny’s existence and constantly switching his demeanor.

“[I]t was a lot about a stiffness and a restriction and that being a thing,” Skinner explains. “I worked with Nancy Banks, she’s a brilliant acting coach because I think I really wanted to surprise myself and challenge myself in this of not being like ‘Oh it’s me, I was there, I did it…’ and really thinking about it as a character…. But I did return to old videos of myself in the closet and what I sounded like…. I found at first watching the videos made me cringe so much but then by the end I just loved the control over it and the power and being able to laugh at it and maybe feel sorry that so many of us feel that way but…the hope that it naturally starts to dissipate.”

After spending twenty minutes with him, it’s unquestionable how (rightfully) proud Skinner is of the work he gave to this series both on and offscreen. “I think if all you saw was this show you know my comedy and you also know my heart. I think I put everything in this….”

On a larger level, Overcompensating feels like a perfect show for now. It’s a welcome reminder of how everyone is trying to figure it out without any access to a map in the most chaotic environment possible. At the end of the day, everyone just wants to feel like they belong and we can all go a little bit more out of our way to ensure that.

Skinner says, “I think wanted to make a show where you were kind of rooting for everyone because I hadn’t seen that in a long time. I felt like we have to start rooting for people again a little bit. It just felt like I wanna see the good in even a douchebag who’s cheating on his girlfriend. There’s something sad and pathetic about him because he’s still twenty-one-years old. There’s a reason why he’s doing that and I’m trying to find it and trying to like maybe not forgive him totally but maybe a little bit? That’s all apart of a thing that I think I’m interested in and this idea of performance. Just performing to be accepted and loved I think is something that is so universal.”

Thankfully, that reminder will continue as the series was picked up for a second season. Because of the the show’s reliance on music as part of the storytelling, we asked Skinner to break down season two in musical terms: “It kind of feels like bit like Little Secrets by Passion Pit, that’s definitely in there. Maybe a little Track 10 [by Charli XCX].”

You can check out all of Benito Skinner’s brilliant work on and offscreen in season one of Overcompensating. Season one is streaming in its entirety on Prime Video. Awards Radar’s Adam Patla sat down with Benito to discuss college as a circus, the lifesaving power of female friendships, and Lorde’s Ultrasound tour in the video below.