Though “Brat Summer” reigned supreme last year, we’re here to mark 2025 the year of “‘Overcompensating‘ Summer,” in homage to the latest project from creator, writer, and star Benito Skinner.
The A24– and Amazon/MGM-backed series is set to premiere on Prime Video on May 15. The series, inspired by viral star Skinner’s own university experience, follows a fictional version of Benny as he navigates his freshman year as a closeted jock. This funny and personal eight-episode series features cameos from the likes of Kyle MacLachlan, Connie Britton, Kaia Gerber, Owen Thiele, and Charli xcx, who also serves as the series’ executive music producer.
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“The initial idea [came from] the relationship I had with a woman in college,” Skinner told IndieWire of the show’s origins. “I went to school at Georgetown, and I was in the closet when I got there. I met this woman who I think really changed my life in a lot of ways, and she was the first person I came out to, so that was kind of like the original idea for the show. Then, I kept thinking about this idea of overcompensating and trying to be something that you think other people want you to be. I felt like college was the perfect setting, because that’s where I was doing so much overcompensating.”
Skinner wrote the pilot in 2019, and, shortly after, A24 and producer Jonah Hill’s Strong Baby got on board. “I pitched it in 2021 maybe, or 2020, and it went to Amazon, and then we were just trying to figure out the story that we wanted to tell and make it a little bit more of an ensemble,” he continued.
Skinner also got many of his close friends and collaborators to join. “Mary Beth [Barone] plays my sister in the show. I knew that I wanted us to have chemistry, but I also wanted to play with what our relationship was. We do our podcast together, ‘Ride,’ and obviously that’s about us being best friends, but in this, we are siblings who don’t get along. I feel like you’ll still feel the love between us, but it is just a whole different situation with us, because now we’re fighting on screen all the time.”
As for “The White Lotus” Season 2 breakout Adam DiMarco, who plays Benny’s sister’s boyfriend, “I was just such a huge fan of [him]. I think he’s so brilliant and he’s so funny in the show and I feel like people are really going to get to see that with this,” he said. As for Charli xcx, Skinner had previously asked her to do the music before even introducing himself. And for you “party 4 u” stans, buckle up.
“Charli came onto the show, I think, in 2020, and I had talked to her about doing the music for it. She had been a hero of mine for so long, and now I’m lucky to call her a friend,” he said. “She was really passionate about the show and saw what I wanted to do with it. She’s just an incredible collaborator and just obviously a genius. We’re very lucky. I feel like she was a part of the college experience for when I was in college and is a part of it [still] now for people. She makes the party songs, and she makes really emotional songs, so I feel like both of that is in the show.”
When crafting a story so close to his own, Skinner admitted that “at first, it was harder” to differentiate between the real Benny versus the fictional Benny, as well as the cast as a whole. “Some of my friends from college were like, ‘Who am I in the show?’ My family asked that, too,” he joked. “I just don’t think that it would be interesting to write a person that you already know. It’s so fun to then have an actor step in and then take it to an even better place.”
He added, “Initially, it felt so much like me, and now it does feel like a different character, kind of like a multiverse version of myself. That’s a Marvel reference! [Laughs] It’s like [my character] is me at times, but it’s been fun to find the things that are very different about us, and it allows me to play it without feeling too much of the emotional stuff. I think that that’s helpful for it to have that connection as far as performance, but the separation is necessary, and allows you to really not be limited in the writing of it.”
While yes, the arc of “Overcompensating” is a coming-out story, it’s also more universal than you might think. “I think just the feeling of really needing to do so much to be loved, I think that’s the show, honestly.”
“It’s a universal feeling,” Skinner said. “I’m gay, I’m coming out, but I think for so long I felt like I needed to do so much to make up for that. I just perceived it as something that was wrong within myself, and I feel like so many people feel that way for various reasons. The show is about people doing so much in order to be loved and be seen by people. I hope they see themselves in the show in many, if not all, of the characters.”
He added, “It’s such a fun, sexy, sad, and beautiful show. I also just want people to be horned-up, crying, and having the time of their lives. Let’s go! Welcome back to college! All the feelings, it’s very ‘melodrama’ in a lot of ways.” (He, of course, might be referring to Lorde’s 2017 album that is indeed about being “horned-up, crying, and having the time of [our] lives.”)
As part of IndieWire’s social-first “IndieWire Intern” series, we spoke to “Overcompensating” creator/writer/star Benito Skinner ahead of the show’s Prime Video premiere May 15. Watch the conversation in the video below.
