She’s got the personality, the face and the whole of the internet at her feet. We’d probably love her even if she didn’t, but comedian Mary Beth Barone is also, quite simply, really freaking nice. Under a solar eclipse, she sits down with Wonderland to talk all things Galaxy Brain.
Mary Beth Barone has so much going on in her life right now that I feel flattered her publicist even bothers to let me know the comedy-writing-acting triple-threat is running ten minutes late for our call. It’s the end of summer, and on this side of the pond, a cosmic event is wreaking havoc on British common sense. A solar eclipse is taking place outside as we log on to Zoom, prompting city-wide hysteria in London over the sell-out of retina-safe special glasses.
“Last time there was an eclipse in New York, we also sold out of the glasses because there was so much press around it that people were stocking up. You couldn’t even order them online,” she tells me, speaking from her flat in the city. “I think my sister drove to Georgia to see it with her family, but I just didn’t have enough time to prep. I’m stacked schedule-wise after this, so I’ll just see pictures.”
The back-to-back diary is entirely justifiable. The past year has seen Barone’s career go into overdrive, following half a decade spent cutting her teeth in New York’s comedy underbelly. Much of that momentum has been fuelled by her role co-leading best friend Benito Skinner’s hit TV show Overcompensating, having wrapped filming on its second season this summer. The pair have long been creative partners, co-hosting everyone’s favourite pop culture podcast, Ride, and comedy nights, while also becoming familiar faces across social media, brand campaigns, fashion week FROWs and red carpets. To say they’re very present in each other’s lives is an understatement. In fact, she logs on straight from filming a podcast episode, her dog Pinky in presence, and I tell her I’m yet to catch up on today’s release, as the calendar reminds this Baronie (as fans are known) that it’s a Wednesday.
“Today’s a really good one,” she teases. “I feel like this season has been really fun, but we decided today we need to take two weeks off because we just are feeling really burnt out. We didn’t really take a break between filming Overcompensating [Season 2] and we started recording new episodes. To continue to put out our best work, we just need a little pause. We literally recorded on Monday and we both were in such a bad mood that we aren’t releasing that episode,” she laughs. “That’s only happened once and it was before we did video, so we were able to just rerecord a few of the parts and stitch it together. But now that it’s full video, we’re literally scrapping an episode.”
Nothing like having too little time to worry about wasting any of it. “We definitely learned that if we both are cranky and it’s raining, just don’t bother because we could have had dinner, you know,” she agrees.
While her first TV venture catapulted Barone into the spotlight, it’s another first that brings us together. We’re speaking on the heels of the press run for her debut Netflix comedy special, Galaxy Brain, which has also put her in the running for a Grammy in the Best Comedy Album category at the 2027 awards and is set to be released on vinyl on 23rd November. In the past few weeks, it’s also been announced that Hard Feelings, a rom-com series created by and starring Barone, has been picked up by Hulu and is expected to enter production soon. She’s also written and will star opposite Joe Alwyn in Still We Met, the directorial debut of Zackary Drucker, co-signed by Lena Dunham. And you thought your to-do list was long!
Galaxy Brain, though, is Barone’s ultimate body of work in stand-up, cementing her status as a defining comedic voice of her generation. Ever so dry, ever so well-spoken, she’s just as quick to call out morally bankrupt politicians and policies or gender inequality as she is to dissect the troubled ins and outs of dating a cis man — all while owning the narrative and getting ahead of the jokes about landing the special by sleeping with Netflix execs on multiple occasions.
“Making art is such a scary pursuit, especially when it’s something that feels so personal and it’s not a character,” she starts, reflecting on the days that now follow the special’s premiere. “It’s truly me and all of these ideas and thoughts that I have that I think are really funny and hopefully, you know, inspiring some conversations after watching it. And you just don’t know how things will be received.”
Heartthrobs might find their DMs flooded with swooning over their looks after a new project drops, while authors can expect a flurry of character-related questions. But Barone’s inbox takes a more unorthodox turn. “Seeing how people are interacting with it in different ways is so fun. Someone made a Tik Tok cause they live near Jack the Chipper in London, and they were like, ‘if this gets X number of likes I’ll give you a tour of inside’ and people telling me, ‘My dishwasher dad came in the room while I was watching [the special] and he sat down and watched the whole thing and he thinks you’re so funny,” she reminisces on the joke’s feedback. “Or people DMing me about what they do when they want sex to be over instead of doggy style. It’s fun to watch it take on a life of its own.”
The special is, as she puts it, exactly what she wanted it to be. Neither Barone nor Netflix placed limits on the candour or tone of the jokes, and no one was hovering over her shoulder with notes on the stage design, her speaking pace and ASMR-worthy vocal fry, or that delightful custom Wiederhoeft lilac dress, which we later saw Benny wear in drag as Mary Beth for the project’s release party. “I was really given creative freedom to make the exact thing I wanted to make and all the collaborators we brought into the project were so on board,” she says.
“Everything from the aesthetic to the material felt like no one was trying to hold me back. And that’s such a luxury as a creative to be able to do that. And then it puts the pressure on because then, well, if it doesn’t work, you can’t blame network notes or this executive. I’m sort of burying my soul and if people don’t like it, it’s a reflection of me. So it’s scary, but I like when things feel high stakes. The special felt like I had something to prove as we were going into it. And I was just so happy to be able to make it the way I wanted to.”
Famously, laughter has long been a way of lightening the moral and political weight of the arts. But Barone isn’t remotely interested in shying away from pissing anyone off. JK Rowling, Republicans and a handful of exes all get their fair share of mentions in the hour-long special
Is it ever a worry, as one of the internet’s most established bisexual eligible bachelors, that such exposure could backfire and affect her own love life? “I’m sure there’s people that could be, in theory, great partners to me, who see that and then they run for the hills. But I think if you’re not comfortable with it, then we probably couldn’t date, because I do write about my life,” she says. “And I guess the way I justify it is thinking about singers will write an entire album about a person and make it so obvious. And I would say like, I could have been way more obvious about who some of those jokes were about as far as dating. And I did save them from that. But if anyone asked me on the street, I would say.” It sounds like what’s in order is, in fact, a few appreciation texts. “Yes, I should be getting thank you notes and flowers and I will say not a single one of them has reached out,” she agrees.
What she does care about, and does so beautifully, is standing her ground as a beacon for what the next generation of comedy voices represents. Is there any resentment towards an industry that, despite it being 2026, still has a long way to go before comedy becomes an egalitarian space? “Yes. Especially because the people that I really enjoy watching are women and queer people. Those are the people I want to hear from because we have the same references and experiences. So yeah, it’s definitely a bummer,” she starts.
“I feel like there was this huge explosion of women in comedy when I started in 2015, 2016, because [American Sitcom] Broad City was exploding and then Amy Schumer, Ali Wong… all these women that were dominating. And I do think, the past few years, we’ve just taken up a few steps back, which makes me sad,” she continues. “But that’s why I think making people laugh is important work in bringing joy, but I can also sort of justify it a little bit sometimes when it’s hard like, ‘well, hopefully I’m enabling women to feel funny and that their point of views and perspectives are valuable’.”
The good news is that she isn’t alone in riding the new wave. As someone who has a knack for making everyone around her giggle, I’m curious to hear which comedians are putting a smile on Barone’s face and shaping her idea of good comedy. “I’m lucky enough to call many of these people my friends, but I love female comedians,” she starts. “Sydnee Washington is a must see for me. Patti Harrison. Meg Stalter. Norri Reed is a wonderful LA based comedian. Marley Gotterer. It’s just so fun to be able to watch people that I know and be able to celebrate them because a lot of us started around the same time. Amy Miller’s also great. We have a pretty good scene in New York and London and Chicago and LA, but smaller cities should do it as well.” We’re taking notes.
Galaxy Brain is available now on Netflix and as an audio release on your favourite streaming platform.
Words – Sofia Ferreira
