Written by Trinity Ray, Emma Morris and Camryn Carmichael. Photography courtesy of Amazon Prime Video.
“Trying to find yourself is both very funny and sad. We didn’t want to shy away from that.” Comedian Benito Skinner, who you may know from his Kourtney Kardashian drag looks, has just released a new TV show, “Overcompensating.” As a triple force, Skinner worked with A24 and Amazon Prime as the creator, writer and executive producer, so that this show could be what it is: hilarious, relatable and inspirational.
“Overcompensating” is a dramatized retelling of Skinner’s journey through college as a closeted gay man. Social pressure and imposter syndrome force Skinner’s character, Benny, to act like the straight guy everyone assumes he is. Becoming quick friends with fellow freshman Carmen (Wally Baram), whose mission is to fit in at all costs, will send them on a deeply personal and emotional rollercoaster. This is the story of how we all overcompensate while coming to terms with who we really are.
District was given the opportunity to attend the “Overcompensating” college press roundtable with Benito Skinner. This hilariously awkward and witty series has much to be unpacked. Here are the big insider moments to prepare you to make your way out of the closet with Benny.
If the title “Overcompensating” needs an origin story, you should know a previous title was “All the Good Ones are Gay,” but Skinner didn’t think anyone would watch so he changed it. “I think that speaks to the whole show,” he says. “Overcompensating” was also the name of a comedy tour that Skinner had done years prior.
We’ve seen the show, and funny people know funny. Using his roots as a comedian, Skinner says that the jokes were always planned out. “When I used to write sketches I would always write those things out, so I thought they were supposed to be in-script, to almost my detriment.” Skinner spoke on the moments where things would happen on set that he forgot he wrote in the script, and it was almost like a hidden candid moment of joy. “I feel so lucky and felt really championed by A24, Amazon and my show runner, Scott King, with these jokes. We would have so much fun in a background joke that it can almost feel forward at a certain point.”
Through all the laughter, Skinner still has a story to tell. Being able to strike a balance between comedy and crisis is a difficult task, but he accomplished it with grace. “I never shied away from when it needed to go emotional. I tried to tell it as true to my experience as possible, where if at a party it was really fun and then it became not fun very quickly…” Skinner believes that comedy and crisis can, and do, coexist. “Everyone is living in their own worlds. While someone is out dancing, someone else is getting their heart broken in the bathroom.”
The show is an ensemble comedy first and it is supposed to feel wild and chaotic. “The whole show can feel sad and funny at the same time: me practicing ‘straight’ lines in the mirror can feel really funny and absurd. But also, I did that, and it’s really sad. We never wanted to shy away from that in the show, because trying to find yourself is both really funny in retrospect and really sad at times.”
Through all of the scripted jokes, there still has to be a talented cast who can pull them off. Comedians and all, the casting was indeed intentional. “Some are like my best friends and some I’m just huge fans of,” Skinner says. “I wanted everyone to be funny. All the lead females are stand-up comedians too. They can stand on screen alone and that can tell a whole story, and it was so inspiring to me and so inspiring to write for.”
“Overcompensating” wasn’t just a show for all of the unseen and unheard college students out there. It was for Benny and Benito Skinner too. So now you can go watch the series on Amazon Prime and walk the halls of memory lane with him. And yes, Skinner says the Axe body spray scene was intentional, “on the fifth spray I knew you’d start to smell it.”
Trinity is a Writing major with a minor in Chinese Language and Cultural Studies. She spends her time outside of District doing the same thing she does while being a copy editor — reading, writing, and editing. While journalism is her thing at District, her specialty is writing romance, fantasy, and stories about children. Aside from being an English nerd, Trinity enjoys being a nerd for video games, anime, and a collector of all things cute.
