Benito Skinner’s ‘Overcompensating’ tackles closeted identity

While Benito Skinner was touring a live show – coincidentally, called “Overcompensating”  – he got a fateful call from his agent. The agent mentioned that Skinner’s comedy work was feeling more and more episodic these days. What did he think about writing for television?

Skinner was game, and decided to use personal material for his new gay-themed series on Prime Video, “Overcompensating.” Skinner, who is known on the internet for his comedic sketches, is the writer, executive producer and star of the series. He headlines as Benny, a closeted former football player trying to find himself on a new college campus. 

Skinner said he struggled with his identity before he came out. He felt inspired to put his story out into the world.

“I think a lot of my heroes in the space were Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Issa Rae,” he said. “And [I said] ‘Yeah, I think I do want to write my story.’ I think I had already started doing that with the stand-up show. But when I put pen to paper, it kind of came out of me immediately.”

He worked on the pilot in 2019. A24 and the production company Strong Baby came aboard, and a year later Amazon scooped the series up. The show has been in development ever since.

In the series, Benny meets Carmen (Wally Baram), a fellow student who he befriends after an awkward attempt at sex. Carmen sees Benny for who he is, and wants him to abandon his attempts at performative masculinity. 

In many ways, Benny is based on Skinner’s own personality, but the character also feels very different at times.

“I think Benny is so in his head and is so tight, so stressed, and I think that’s how I approach playing him,” Skinner said. “I think there is a level of perfectionism that he has in his head because he feels like he has to make up for this thing inside him. I think he thinks it’s so wrong, and that he should have shame around that he’s gay.”

Benny is trying to overcompensate through perfectionism, trying to be valedictorian and get perfect grades.

“[He’s] doing what he’s seen around him for so long, which is trying to be as masculine and I think bro-y as possible,” Skinner said. “How deep can he make his voice? How broad can he make his shoulders? How thick can he make his neck?’

Skinner said he thinks a lot of people can relate to feeling trapped by masculinity.

“I think we’ve all been indoctrinated with this idea of masculinity as the greatest thing in the world,” he said. “It’s the most seductive thing, and I think that that is a part of all of these characters in the back of their minds. Masculinity is safety. It’s applause. It’s everything to these people in college.”

Despite the comedic and often raunchy hijinks that surround Benny – and an impressive array of costars, including Connie Britton, Kyle MacLachan, and Bowen Yang – the relationship he develops with Carmen proves to be the soul of the show.

“It’s everything,” Skinner said. “I think it’s the first time both of them are really seen and seen for who they are, even though they don’t see it themselves. I think that the way Benny looks at Carmen in scenes .. I always wanted to play it like he is in awe of her. She’s so funny and so brilliant, and so special, and she feels so special. Yet she’s received no applause and she’s so looked over.”

While his sketches can go up quickly, developing a TV show takes a much longer time. That time has allowed Skinner to really take a beat at each step along the way and think about what he wants to say and who these characters are.

“Fortunately I wore a lot of hats in my career at the beginning of it, and I was thinking about these things in totality,” he said. “It’s not just like writing a sketch and thinking of the joke. It’s what does it look like? What’s the background? How am I editing it?” 

Skinner’s hope for the series is that people feel human empathy and see themselves on screen – and maybe not in the character they thought they would.  His favorite response has been when a viewer told him they were not gay, but saw themselves in the experience of trying to perform and be loved.

“It’s unifying in a way,” he said. “I think that the show hopefully offers people even just a little bit of a safe space for a moment, to be on a bed with a best friend, and laugh and cry, and have some catharsis over that time in your life – or the time you’re in right now.” 

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