GOAT character actor Stephen Root discusses new season of ‘Barry,’ Ohio State Buckeyes

CLEVELAND, Ohio –Chameleonic actor Stephen Root has been a scene-stealer for decades.

Memorable sublime roles include portraying the red stapler-loving Milton (“Office Space”) and a blind radio station manager (“O Brother, Where Art Thou?”) to more recently being an abhorrent monster of a father (“Uncle Frank”) and a drunken Porter (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”).

Then there’s the fun HBO show “Barry,” which premieres its third season Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.

The dark comedy revolves around a beloved yet depressed hitman from Cleveland (Season 1 featured him wearing a vintage WMMS T-shirt), who despite wanting to start a new life as an aspiring Los Angeles actor can’t escape his criminal past.

Starring opposite Bill Hader, Root plays Monroe Fuches, who as a hit-job broker doesn’t want to see Barry leave the business.

We recently chatted with Root about being the GOAT character actor and why Milton would love his “Barry” character.

Stephen, congrats on “Barry,” which this season finds your character announcing he’s a huge fan of the Ohio State University Buckeyes.

I’ve always been into college football. I’m going to disappoint you because I am an SEC guy but Fuches has to be an Ohio State guy because that’s the (expletive), as they say. He would definitely be that guy who would never miss a game, as he says in episode 1. Now, my kid is an Ohio State fan, so we watch them together as well.

We know Barry is from Cleveland. Do you think Fuches is from Northeast Ohio?

I don’t think Fuches was from Cleveland but it’s certainly normal he’d end up someplace in mid-America where he could send people out to kill other people.

Have you ever been to the Rock Hall City?

I have been there. I used to do a lot of theater and we’d always go through Cleveland. I think the last time was in the late ‘80s when I did “Driving Ms. Daisy” with Julie Harris and Brock Peters. As for the Rock Hall, I was there once about five or six years ago.

As for your character Fuches and Barry, they seem to be two sides of the same coin. What’s the core of their relationship?

There’s a strange love-hate relationship except one of them is damaged from PTSD and the other doesn’t have the emotional security to go beyond that. I think they’re two bombs and one of them is going to explode. Also, Fuches is a revenge machine. He finds different ways in this season to extract that revenge. It’s pretty amazing that things get hearkened back to season 1. That’s really good writing to connect the dots.

Your extremely long IMDB page is impressively extensive and diverse. Considering all of the different film and guest television roles you were getting early on in your career, were you cognizant that becoming a character actor was a way to keep working?

Yeah, because you’re a gypsy as a character actor. You’re diving into different families very quickly. I think the reason that came a little easier to me was because my dad was in construction and traveled a lot. He’d take a year and a half and go to the next place and then the next place. That kind of prepared me to be kind of a gypsy and a character actor because you’re always doing that: You’re always jumping into different things, whether it’s film or TV.

In terms of character actors, you’re in many ways the GOAT. It’s only fitting during this season of “Barry” your character actually eats cereal with really fresh goat milk. Have you ever done that in real life?

I’ve never have, and I don’t think I would enjoy it. I’ll stick to my 2% Lactaid.

Finally, considering Milton’s proclivity for violence, what would he think of Fuches?

That’s a great question. I think Milton would love Fuches because he understands that by the end, “I’m going to be dangerous.” And Fuches already is. Milton would completely understand and be in the headspace of Fuches saying, “Yes, you should get what you want.”