There’s a Mariah Carey canvas in my hands and Benito Skinner on Zoom, and somehow, this feels exactly right. My teenage self — the one who lip-synced “Fantasy” in a locked bedroom — would totally get it. And Skinner, who knows firsthand the life-saving power of a pop girlie, greets the moment with the enthusiasm it deserves when I hold up the massive artwork in front of the camera.
After all, his new Prime Video show “Overcompensating” — which he created, produced and stars in — opens with a young Benny watching Britney Spears’ “Lucky” video with a group of boys who don’t get it. For Benny, though, “Lucky” is an emotional lifeline — one that helps him survive the toxic pull of college bro culture. Honestly, the specificity hits almost too close to home for me.
Skinner — best known for his sharp, satirical characters on Instagram and TikTok — makes his biggest leap yet with “Overcompensating,” a tender, chaotic and deeply funny series that explores what happens when you bury your queerness under a mountain of Axe body spray and forced masc energy. The jokes are biting but what lingers most is the emotional honesty. And yes, I did cry.
During our chat, we talked about going back in time to confront your closeted self, masculinity as performance and which of his internet personas would absolutely terrorize a liberal arts campus if given the chance. (Spoiler: Hailee’s already there.) And before we said goodbye, Skinner brought it all back to where we started — with the elusive chanteuse herself.
“My love to Mariah Carey,” he said. “‘E=MC²’ was huge for me… Randomly, ‘Migrate.’ People don’t talk about ‘Migrate’ enough.”
“From the bar to the club, we migrate,” he added, quoting the song like a benediction.
Clearly I identified with little Benny right off the bat. How did it feel revisiting that part of yourself, those early formative obsessions as an adult with the freedom to fully own them now?
That’s exactly it. It was so much fun because I could own them and now laugh at them, and I think that’s how the cast felt. It’s like we all had enough distance from this time that nothing felt too terrifying, and if it did, it was over quickly. For me, it felt like I finally had so much power over it, whether that be my voice or my mannerisms, and being able to finally laugh at the sadness of it, and maybe obviously cringe.
But yeah, at first, it definitely felt strange being in the dorm room. I remember when I met with Daniel Longino, the director of the pilot. We talked about what the dorm room should look like, and I had this photo of my dorm room. And then in the end, we were just like, “We shouldn’t pull from any references. It should just be the dorm room,” and he said that. He was like, “No, we’re making that dorm room.” And Shane Fox, our production designer, did. And so I stepped into it on the first day of shooting and I was like, “What the fuck have I done?”
But then it was like, boom, my brain could click in and I was like, “Let’s make some people laugh and cry. Let’s fucking go.” I was like, “We’re telling this story. This is helping me as an actor to get right back into it.” So it was bizarre and I felt so grateful, and by the end, it felt very cathartic for me.
I didn’t expect to cry during this show. So for me, too, as a viewer, it felt cathartic.
Yeah. I think what happens in the fifth episode was really hard for me. I definitely got back into some of those feelings of putting your love in someone that can’t do anything with it, and it isn’t about actually wanting to be with that person. It’s just an addiction to masculinity and the safety that we all think it can bring because of all the things we’ve been taught for so long in the society we’re in. Trying to forgive myself for not coming out sooner — that’s something I’ve always made fun of myself for. It’s like, who was I kidding? God, I’ve missed out on my life. I went abroad to London and wasn’t out. It’s like, what? Could you imagine?
You’re not that old, Benito. You can still make up for lost time.
Yeah, I know. And I’ve made up quickly. How many wigs can one man put on? But I feel like I could forgive myself because I think it’s understanding there’s so many reasons. It’s giving yourself the grace of that experience. We all have our reasons for not feeling safe in scenarios or not feeling like we can be ourselves, and that extends to everyone.
The show arrives at a particularly charged moment, both politically and in the ongoing conversation about hypermasculinity — especially with the current climate in the White House. How does it feel for you to tackle hypermasculinity in this era?
I think I never planned for that. I thought maybe this would happen a little faster, but I feel so fortunate that the show could give anyone a break from the clown parade for even a minute, and to feel like there are people out there who are like you and rooting for you and protecting you and supporting you, and have experienced things that you’re feeling. I feel so fortunate that the show got made and that it’s coming out, and now.
And I just want two best friends to watch it in a bed on a laptop. Preferably a bigger laptop. I do think the show’s pretty! That would mean the world. But to give people that little bit of a break and a little space, and to be able to laugh and cry with your friends and just feel like there is some fucking human decency that exists on Earth, which I think is really hard to remember currently.
I feel so lucky that this is the show that we got to make and that these are the actors in it, and I hope everyone sees themselves on screen and is able to just feel a nice moment and feel human empathy. And it’s a very scary time, so I think being able to make comedy is such a privilege.
Comedy has long been a tool for survival and protest in the queer community. How do you see “Overcompensating” continuing that legacy?
Oh, I think by being as honest as possible through it. I feel lucky that everyone let me do some of these things in the show and that I could say, “I want to be in a harness on a couch with Matt [Rogers] and Bowen [Yang], and that’s it.” And everyone’s like, “Fabulous.” But allowing that, I feel so fortunate. It was just like, how true can we get? OK, I licked a condom, let’s lick a condom. Let’s go to what desire is for queer people. Let’s show a girl who gets it wrong and is doing the best she can, but she Googled “gay” one time and this is what came up, so she’s doing the best she can.
It happens.
Hey, it happens, and not that I don’t love “Drag Race” or “Brokeback Mountain,” but OK, girl, there’s more here that we could find. But yeah, I think it’s having all of those conversations and not shying away from any of it, and opening a show on Amazon with a kid realizing he’s sexually attracted to a man for the first time, not that he understands that in that moment, but opening with that and being allowed to open with that feels like a protest of sorts. Also the scenes that I got to write where it’s just all these straight guys in a room, showing how uncomfortable those rooms feel and how it’s one performance on top of another. But it also being disgusting and allowing for that, and poking at it and poking at how much of all of this is a performance, and masculinity is such a performance at its core.
If you could drop one of your TikTok characters into the “Overcompensating” universe, who would cause the most chaos?
Oh my god, I kind of did! So Hailee was one of my first characters. I had her as this girl who went abroad, and then I think she was the Gemini in my astrology. So I already dropped her in, and oh my god, she is the nucleus. She’s a bat out of hell. I think that’s the most fun almost Easter egg for anyone who’s been with me since then, which would be crazy, but I feel like, yeah, getting to develop that character and then write her into a script and then now have an actor like Holmes take on that part and just fucking go absolutely bat shit with it, that’s the dream. So it happened, but maybe Deliverance Richards if I had to. I think she’s doing something on campus. I don’t know what, but we’ll figure it out. She’s teaching a class, she’s doing a TEDx talk or something. I don’t even know. I don’t know what my girl’s doing.
When you think about your younger closeted self watching this show, what’s the scene or moment you hope he would hold onto?
I love the scene between Benny and Carmen in the fifth episode at the end: allowing yourself to really show yourself fully to someone. I also really love the scene between Benny and his mom, Kathryn, played by the living icon Connie Britton. I wrote that with Scott King and that was such an emotional scene because both of them trying to allow the other to say what needs to be said, but they’re just both not quite ready to fully say it out loud. That is what I would love people to take [away], that you can take your time on any aspect of this journey in your life and allow people to surprise you at times. God, I feel like it’s really hard to pick one because I think I made so much of it for… I made it for gay people, and I hope that they feel that and see it.
What was it about the scene with Connie as your mom that resonated with your younger self?
That scene was pretty easy to act in because I’m still reminding myself of that now. That is something that I feel all of us who aren’t just straight, white dudes feel, which is never being enough and that we have to do so much. And if we’re not perfect, people won’t love us or accept us, or we won’t be allowed in spaces or given respect or we’ll be in danger.
What queer creators or stories have shaped your sense of humor and your voice as a performer?
It’s funny, I feel like I never sought any queer stories when I was a kid. I kept turning away. If anything started to feel like me, I would maybe look for a second then turn away. I remember Rupert Everett in “My Best Friend’s Wedding” was one of the first times I was like, “I kind of act like that.” And my family was all like, “He feels like Benny,” and I’m like, “Shut the fuck up.” But I remember when he’s singing “Say a Little Prayer” at a brunch, I was like, “That’s me.” And that moment where he ends up with Julia Roberts feels so explosive to me, that a huge Hollywood movie, this mega star like Julia Roberts, she just ends up with her gay best friend. That’s why that movie’s perfect.
But I feel so lucky to be a comedian during this time because when I was coming up, even in New York, I felt so supported by Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang too, and that’s why I loved having them in the show. They brought me on “Las Culturistas” when I had only been making videos for a bit, and they were so supportive and it felt like this kind of celebration of all of these queer voices that were entering the space. During that time, I was doing a lot of standup, so I got to see some of these people that now I’m seeing shine, and it’s really so exciting.
Obviously, John Early and Kate Berlant. I think the “Paris” sketch will stand as one of the great sketches of our time. And Cole Escola has always been a hero of mine. Seeing them get flowers and just own New York City, and I need them to win a Tony. I just think that “Oh, Mary!” is the most brilliant piece of work from the most genius, brilliant, kind, unbelievable person. So I feel fortunate that, honestly, all my heroes, I get to be around them and experience their work right now. As sad as it was that I didn’t feel like I really had that as a kid, I feel lucky to be in a scene with my heroes in the show.
