Movie Sneaks:  Bill Hader shows a dark side in ‘The Skeleton Twins’

“The Skeleton Twins” stars “Saturday Night Live” alums Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, but it may not be what you think. Case in point, the film opens with Hader’s character attempting suicide.

Though there are light moments, the story’s deeper contours presented Hader with new territory as a performer.

“When I read ‘Skeleton Twins’ I thought, ‘This is a movie I would go see; I think it would be really cool if I did this kind of part,’” said Hader in West Los Angeles.

The film reunites the onetime sketch comedy actors as twins — the pair played husband and wife in “Adventureland.” Hader’s Milo has been struggling to make it in L.A., both as an actor and in his relationships. After his desperate attempt to end his life, he returns to his small upstate New York hometown to recover at the home of his estranged sister Maggie (Wiig), who is half-heartedly trying to hold together her marriage to the stable but unexciting Lance (Luke Wilson).

“The Skeleton Twins,” opening Sept. 12, is directed by Craig Johnson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mark Heyman. The film picked up the Waldo Salt screenwriting prize when it premiered this year at the Sundance Film Festival.

“I could always tell through Bill’s comedy that he was a phenomenal actor,” said Wiig. “I wasn’t surprised he did such a good job, but he did surprise me in that the way he found the character was just so real. He’s heartbreaking in this movie, and I’m so excited for people to see this side of him. When I saw the movie, even though I was there for a lot of what he did, he just kind of blew me away.”

Originally from Tulsa, Okla., Hader, 36, moved to Los Angeles in 1999 with dreams of becoming a filmmaker. After years of low-level production jobs that seemed to be leading nowhere, he started studying sketch comedy. With alarming speed he made his way onto “Saturday Night Live” and moved to New York City around 2005 for the show. After leaving the show in 2013, he and his wife, writer-director Maggie Carey — she directed him in “The To Do List” — moved to Los Angeles with their two young children.

After the Sundance premiere of “The Skeleton Twins,” audiences were mostly buzzing about the show-stopping scene in which Hader and Wiig lip-synch along to the dubious ‘80s Starship hit “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” the scene playing both as funny and as a surprising moment of emotional renewal.

Yet perhaps even more emblematic of the film overall and the startling nuance of Hader’s performance, which the industry trade journal Variety referred to as “beautifully modulated,” is a confrontation scene outside their house, in which Milo and Maggie say hurtful things they immediately regret.

Johnson purposely scheduled the scene so that it was the first thing they did that day and advised Hader and Wiig to stay separated until shooting. When Wiig comes outside to let Hader have it, it was the first time they had seen each other that day.

“She was angry at me, and she’s looking at me in a way she’s never looked at me before, like in life,” said Hader, noting that he was so startled by the effect of Wiig’s delivery that he didn’t say anything back, not forgetting his line but simply unable to respond.

“And that was how it felt in the moment, it was one of the things where you weren’t acting,” he said. “She said something so hurtful to me I could only wait for her to apologize. It’s a nice thing I’ve learned about acting. Me not saying something led to her saying something different. It’s like tennis.”

Adding to the intensity of shooting such dramatic scenes was that Hader was still on “Saturday Night Live” during the filming late in 2012, bouncing between the film set and the comedy show. On one Friday, he shot his suicide scene early in the day and then flew back to New York to rehearse a sketch as the former Kate Middleton’s royal gynecologist.

For now, Hader will continue to follow his own path. He will be seen in a supporting role in the upcoming drama “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby” and did voice-work for the animated film “Sausage Party.” He will soon begin shooting a TV spoof of documentaries, tentatively titled “American Documentary,” alongside fellow former “SNL” cast members Fred Armisen and Seth Meyers. He programs and hosts the show “Essentials Jr.” on the Turner Classic Movies channel. He also recently finished shooting “Trainwreck,” directed by Judd Apatow and written by and starring Amy Schumer.

“I’m the romantic lead in the movie,” Hader said of “Trainwreck,” a hint of disbelief in his voice. “It was difficult in a lot of ways I didn’t anticipate.”

Hader’s performance in “The Skeleton Twins” marks something of a new beginning for him while also part of a continuity that has often found him feeling like he’s stumbled into the next something.

“It was after three or four movies, after ‘Superbad,’ that my manager said, ‘Bill, you’re an actor,’” he recalled. “And it wasn’t until then that for me it all wasn’t a fluke.”

Does he finally feel like an actor?

“I do,” he said, “but it took a while.”