From the moment he stepped into Gene Cousineau’s acting class for the first time, Bill Hader’s Barry Berkman looked up to Henry Winkler’s self-involved teacher as a kind of father figure—a man with a method, helping him get in touch with his emotions, or maybe just find a safer place to put them. But that dynamic was never quite reciprocated. Over Barry’s four seasons, our deeply damaged hitman turned performer steadily, somewhat inadvertently ruined his mentor’s life: killing Gene’s girlfriend, effectively ending his class, and eventually sending him into exile. Following an audacious time jump and another plot to frame Gene for the death of his lover, it’s no wonder that when put in the same room with Barry again, Gene decided to shoot his former student dead, then and there. 

In the scene, Barry only has time for two short words as he realizes what’s about to happen: “Oh, wow.” That’s more than Winkler could muster when Hader, who also cocreated the show and directed the final season, rather matter-of-factly pitched the idea to his costar. “I was speechless,” Winkler tells Vanity Fair. “I just made sounds.” Gene goes on to serve a lifetime prison sentence—not that we see this fate play out for ourselves. It’s revealed in the parodic film that fills Barry’s final scenes, recreating the events of Barry through a bizarro Hollywood lens. As to how Winkler is feeling about it all? We get into it. 

Vanity Fair: Barry is officially finished. How are you feeling?

Henry Winkler: I’m now just sad. We finished in early December; we had some re-shoots. We’ve had the premiere party. Then I don’t see anybody anymore. Sarah is in England. Stephen is off shooting something. Everybody is everywhere. And I am sad.

Let’s get into this finale. What was your initial reaction, particularly to Gene’s ending?

Oh my God. So, halfway through the season, Bill said, “I think we finally broke the eighth episode, the end. You want to know how it ends?” And I went, “Sure.” And he said, “You shoot me.” [Pause] I’m a pretty verbal guy. I was speechless. I just made sounds. I didn’t even know how to react to that. I shoot you. Wow. Okay, that’s—okay. I went and had a burrito. And then we got there and we did it.

What did you make of Gene killing him? How did you play it?

That was scary. The moment really started when I was lured into the hotel room at the end of [episode] seven, and then they’re blaming me for everything. How did that happen? Then I had nowhere to turn, and I think at that moment I went insane. I literally—the switch flipped and led me to the point of no return.

Compare that to season one. Is there some reflection for you in the performance and just in the experience of making the show, of what Gene has been through? Of how this relationship between him and Barry led to this incredibly violent end?

You think about that first year, the teaching and buffoonery and charlatan, and how that led to this ending of the entire show—I never in my wildest actor’s imagination would have come up to this, would have figured that this was going to happen, no matter what this man put me through.

What was it like to actually film it? How did you block it out with Bill? How many takes did you do? 

We did two takes. The first take I remember, I shot him in the shoulder. He sat down in the chair, he flopped down in the chair, and he said, “You don’t have to do this, Mr. Cousineau.” And I shot him twice. But then in the final, he just went, "Oh, wow." It was like he was in disbelief. You could hear a pin drop [on set]. Our armorer and our prop people were extraordinary in how careful they were when we handled a gun on that set. That was my experience. And it still was so scary to think of holding a gun on this human being—my character who hates this character who loves me, who looks at me as his father figure. It is so complicated that I had no idea what I was doing.

You’ve had quite a long, distinguished career. Have you ever had to do something like that before on camera?

Do you know? Not that I can think of. I’ve handled a gun before, when I did a show called Numb3rs. I had to go to a shooting range. I had an FBI tech telling me how to hold the gun. But I never was in a situation that was so fraught that I literally took a human being’s life.

Did the transformation that came with the time jump help you get into that space?

The physicality for Gene was a costume. We stopped filming Gene [for awhile]. I grew a beard. I took a picture of the beard every week. I sent it to [production manager] Aida Rodgers and Bill. They said, “Keep growing. Nope, keep growing.” And then finally, it was long enough, they called me and we started filming again. And I had been on a kibbutz where I was helping people build their homes. I was learning to be a better human being. The only thing is, what they didn’t show you was that the homes fell down.

The story of Gene Cousineau, right?

That is the story of Gene. But wow, I pounded those nails.

Where do you imagine we’ve left him?

Now he’s in prison, as the legend said. And my instinct is that, once he comes to some equilibrium, he has started the drama club in prison: “I’m going to be famous because I am the drama teacher and I’m going to put on a play and the prisoners are going to love it.”

You might be inadvertently pitching a spin-off here, Henry. 

You know what I’ve learned in my career? You can’t go home again. I don’t know that there is a spinoff if I’m not surrounded by the people that I so enjoyed being with making this show. You would have to start all over again seeing if you had chemistry, and if he was not one-note and it was weird enough and funny enough.

You mentioned at the beginning of this feeling quite sad, but it also sounds like there’s a kind of willingness to say goodbye to the character, which can be difficult.

You know what? There is. I didn’t think of it, but there is. it is not necessarily brought on by wanting to have the willingness, but Bill and Alec were just amazing bosses. There was a policy from the very beginning, a no-asshole policy. Not in the crew. Not in the cast. And if somebody was upsetting the apple cart in any way, you didn’t see them again. They were gone. Alec moved on. He has a new deal. He’s going to create a new show. Bill is going to go on and direct wonderful things. 

To watch him grow from the first season—he directed two and then other people directed the others—[where] Bill decided, “This is my season. I’m going to do this”: He [directed] all eight, and to watch him was an amazement. He directed with such economy, with such clarity that sometimes he went, “Okay, that’s it,” and you would be gone at 2:00. Who ever heard of that—that you’re home at 2:00? He was open. He said once, “You know what? We’re going to shoot this scene with you, Henry, on your back—the entire scene on your back. I think it’s going to be very cool.” Then he saw the dailies, he said, “Whoop, I made a mistake. I want to see your face,” and we went back and reshot the scene on my face. It doesn’t happen often.

Your last scene with him, it’s a great example of his feel for both really intense drama and a kind of absurdist comedy. I laughed when he said, “Oh, wow.” Were you surprised by the humor in that moment?

I swear to God, I’m not being glib, I’m always surprised. I rehearse the scene, I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing, I have a great strong take on it, I’m going to bring it to work. Then Bill gets a hold of it. And you had no idea: “I had no idea that was there. Okay. I don’t see it now, but I’m with you.”

Was it weird to watch that movie within a show that ends the series? To see the events of the show play out again, but twisted?

It was a brilliant piece of imagination. And yet I think that Gene, if he had ever seen that movie—because now he’s never going to see it, but if he did—he would [say], “That’s just not true. That really pisses me off. It was not my fault. I hate the way I’m portrayed in that.” He would go on a campaign and do every podcast he could to set the record straight. That’s what I think.

What kind of actor do you imagine is playing him in this movie? What level? What brand?

You would have to have a pretty terrific actor to play Gene, because you have to make being an asshole palpable. It was only in the middle of the first year, as I was playing Gene, I went to Alec and Bill and I said, “Oh, he’s an asshole.” I had no idea. I just thought he was a bad teacher. Every once in a while he would show some tinge of humanity. It’s really hard to play bored without being boring. It’s really hard to be bad and good at it.

So how did you figure that out over the seasons?

Well, I didn’t have to worry, because I was just playing this human being who I was convinced was a gift to the universe. That’s how I figured out that eventually he will calm down. Eventually he will accept his fate and look around and go, “I will be an auteur in prison. I will walk the line in Folsom.”

This has been a pretty amazing role for you. I see your Emmy right there in your Zoom window, which is nice to see.

You know what? I like seeing it too. There are actors who say, “Well, it means nothing. I have it in the bathroom.” I actually think those people are full of it. I think so. “I use it as a doorstop.” I don’t believe that! If I could, I would wear it as a necklace.

That would require some real ingenuity.

And neck muscle. A lot of neck muscle.

Given the scope of the role and what it asked of you, does it change the way you think of yourself as an actor, what you’re capable of?

Do you know what, David? That is true. I could not have done this just a few years ago. I don’t know that I could have done it much before it came into my life. When I did The Fonz, I would talk from my mind about who I wanted to be as an actor, not always being able to achieve it. There was always a distance, always a schism. And as I worked through my career, the good and the bad, the up and the down, the journey and age and just what you learn from living, I was able to calm down. I’m starting to be the actor that I thought of being at 27. 

I am so grateful that I was invited to be able to be part of this. Then you think, “Am I ever going to do anything that will be as meaningful or as powerful again?” But I thought that when I was The Fonz. When that was over, I thought, “Am I ever going to get anything this fun?” You don’t know where the universe will take you. The possibility is that, yes, there’s something waiting.

This interview has been edited and condensed.