'But this duality of love and hate of this industry and this craft exists in me all the time. He was playing a suicidal alcoholic stuck in a time loop and it was difficult going back to the condo where he was staying on 14th Street away from the communities he knew when he lived in the city as a Juilliard student right out of high school. He'd been drinking, and decided to stop right after production, inspired by the fact that series creator and star Natasha Lyonne and a number of other members of the crew had embraced sobriety. Shooting the first batch of episodes in 2018 was 'traumatic,' he says. Fuck, it's so weird.'Īfter the first season wrapped, he was definitely considering doing something else. 'It was the most complicated and destructive thing I've ever gotten myself into and the best gift that I've ever given. We've just finished a photoshoot at Thrillist's offices, where he posed gamely and ate halal, the food he requested when I offered to bring him his favorite in the city.
'I truly believed that I love and hate acting, all the same time at every moment of my life,' Barnett tells me the morning before he'll be celebrated for his work as Alan Zaveri at the Season 2 premiere. Shortly before he started work on the second season of Russian Doll, Charlie Barnett was thinking about quitting acting.
