Bill Hader

About

Bill Hader is an American comedian, actor, director and writer born on June 7th, 1978, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is best known as a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 2005 to 2013, as an actor in films including Superbad and Pineapple Express, as well as a writer, director and actor on his 2018 HBO series Barry.

Career

Bill Hader began his career as a production assistant (PA), moving out to Los Angeles in 1999. Originally intending to work as a director and filmmaker, he was a PA on a variety of projects but failed to find success. In 2003, Hader began taking classes with the Second City improv troupe in Los Angeles, eventually creating his own improv comedy group with Nick Offerman and others. Megan Mullaly noticed him performing improv and suggested he audition for SNL, which he did.

Hader was a Saturday Night Live cast member from 2005 to 2013, specializing in impressions and playing a variety of well-received characters, such as Stefon in "Weekend Update" sketches. While at SNL, Hader branched out into film, working with independent and established directors on projects both comedic and dramatic.^[2]

In 2018, Hader co-created Barry, his HBO comedy about a contract killer aspiring to be an actor, which became a critically acclaimed series that won him two Emmys for his acting and several nominations for his writing and directing. The third season of the show earned particular praise online in mid-2022, especially for the darker and more dramatic turns that the plot and style took under Hader's direction.^[3] For example, a tweet posted by the fan account @haderfilm on the day of Barry's third season finale praised Hader's work and earned 18,600 likes over the course of the next few days (seen below).

Online History

Bill Hader is purposefully not active on any social media,^[4] apart from an essentially professional Instagram account that was started in October 2018.^[5] He has, however, been featured in several memes, many of them centered on his offstage personality and mannerisms.

Related Memes

Bill Hader Running from Pennywise

Bill Hader Running from Pennywise refers to a viral photograph of actors Bill Hader and Bill Skarsgård on the set of It: Chapter 2. In the photograph, Skarsgård, who appears in his Pennywise the clown costume, scares Hader after the two share a conversation. The photograph was discussed on a late night show appearance and became a popular object-labeling meme on Twitter in 2019. This meme, posted by Twitter^[6] user @DukeTheHalls on September 7th, 2019, received over 134,000 likes.^[9]

Bill Hader Dancing to Anything

Bill Hader Dancing to Anything refers to a clip of actor Bill Hader dancing in a box from a 2015 Saturday Night Live sketch that Twitter users set to various other songs in September of 2019. In the sketch, Hader plays a cyborg dancer named Alan that dances to a low-key groove for “casual entertainment.” Meme-makers on Twitter edited the footage with new songs, making Hader-as-Alan dance to a variety of tracks. This tweet, by @helladaniela, was posted on October 5th, 2019, and earned over 700 likes.^[7]

Bill Hader Texts

Amid enthusiastic response to the final episodes of the third season of Barry in 2022, screenshots of texts purportedly written by Hader were spread and shared for their eccentric and ungrammatical tone. This collection of Hader texts was posted to Twitter by @aldersonberkman on June 14th, 2022, and earned almost 40,000 likes in two days.^[8]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References