SPOILER ALERT: This article includes spoilers about “Overcompensating,” now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

When making his first series, “Overcompensating,” Benito Skinner wanted to channel the spirit of all his favorite movies and TV shows growing up: “Freaks and Geeks,” “American Pie,” “Clueless,” “Mean Girls” and even “The Real World.”

“All of these things helped me create this nostalgic world of Americana college hell,” Skinner tells Variety of the eight-episode series, which follows Benny (Skinner), a former high school jock who starts to explore coming out of the closet when he goes to university. As evidenced by the main character’s name, “Overcompensating” is somewhat autobiographical.

“The inspiration was definitely my life,” Skinner says, noting that the series started off as a live show in 2019. “It’s stories of me being in and out of the closet and my experience doing so much to be loved and accepted.”

Joining Skinner in the series is Wally Baram, who plays his closest confidante Carmen; Mary Beth Barone as Grace, his emo-turned-preppy sister; and Adam DiMarco as Peter, Grace’s frat bro boyfriend. Despite the heavy topics “Overcompensating” deals with, the show is full of laughs, sex, partying and love triangles — and ends on a total cliffhanger.

Below, Skinner, Baram, Barone and DiMarco talk more about working on the show, their favorite on-set memories and hopes for Season 2.

Baram: I started as a writer on the show. I heard that it had these themes that felt so similar to the things that I talk about in my stand-up and my writing. There was this character that felt so similar to me — this girl with curly, fizzy hair from New Jersey who was just trying so hard socially and just wants to be loved so bad and doesn’t know how to do that, so she keeps reaching out romantically with sex. And [Benito and I] met, and I felt like I was able to give you a lot of stories of the ways in which I related to the character.

Barone: Benny and I met when he was doing his live show, and he had me open for him a few times. I was completely blown away by how dynamic it was. Then he told me he was writing a pilot about being closeted in college and Grace was always a character in it. And he said from very early on, I really want you to play my sister. I figured at some point it just wouldn’t be possible, like Amazon would want a name or they would have to cast someone else, and he really fought for me to be in the show. I was also in the writer’s room, so I just grew to love Grace and really all the characters and how complex they are.

DiMarco: I just got an audition. I found out later that [Benito] was thinking of me for the role specifically. But I loved the script, I thought it was super funny. At first I didn’t know if I could play a character like Peter, just because I hadn’t really done that before, but I really wanted to. But I just had to kind of fight through some self doubt. I think I cried at one point, like on FaceTime with my friend running lines and I was like, “I don’t know if I can do this.” I did a scene with Benny where we’re working out in the gym and then I ended up rapping Big Sean and Drake’s “All Me” at him for maybe a minute and a half to two minutes at the end of the audition. And he just had to kind of sit there and bob his head along to it. And that was very fun, just trying to figure out different ways to make him feel uncomfortable. I was cringing during the audition, like as soon as they said “cut” I would cringe and just be like, “I’m so sorry.”

Skinner: I think I had been with the script so long, I just told myself, “Once you get on set allow yourself to be surprised and go with it.” I helped pick this cast of people that I respect and trust too much and I wanted to watch them take the characters and run. It’s like, OK, this is kind of what’s in my head, but now let’s do it and see how it feels.

Baram: Your first time making a show, you’re so precious on trying to figure out what the show is and you can’t afford a slight misstep or stray from your vision. So I was really impressed by how [Benito] would trust everyone on set to bring their own creative vision and their little part of the show and I really appreciated where [he] let me bring some Wallyisms.

Barone: Benny created such a great and supportive environment where, if we got a few takes of as written, we could always improvise and that allowed us to just get really comfortable in the costumes and situations and characters. With us playing siblings, I think just because we do have so much history in our friendship and we spend so much time together, we can kind of lock into any dynamic. We’ll be acting like siblings sometimes, we’ll be acting like a gay guy and a bi girl sometimes and then we’ll just go like overtly sexual randomly. And it’s just all part of the dynamic.

Skinner: [The bathroom scene during the Charli XCX concert in Episode 4] is the hardest I have ever laughed in my life. Shayne Fox, our brilliant production designer, she built a fake bathroom in the bottom of the auditorium where we were shooting the concert. And she made it disgusting, like a college. Wally was in the one next to me and I would hear Scott King, our showrunner, watching the monitors, and it was the loudest cackle I’ve ever heard from him ever.

Baram: That cackle is one of my greatest achievements. It’s in my heart, it’s in my head.

Barone: Not only were we filming on a college campus and in actual frat houses, but almost all of us lived in the same building so it felt like we were in the dorms together. We actually didn’t party that much throughout the shoot because we had to do all the fake partying, but I was the self-elected social chair so I was starting the group chats, I was starting the shared photo albums, I held a college rager at my little apartment and we had red solo cups and we all just got wasted and played drinking games and it felt like we could really settle in. Finding that comfortability with each other, especially when you’re doing things like sex scenes or vulnerability or crying in a scene, it’s just so important to build that dynamic.

DiMarco: When I got to set to shoot that workout scene from the audition, I was like, OK great, so I’m just going to be rapping the Big Sean “All Me” verse from my audition. And then Benny and Scott were like, “We might not have the budget for that song, so can you just freestyle?” I was like, “No, I don’t think I can, but I guess I’ll try to write something quickly.” And then we also got a version of me rapping “The Motto” by Drake. So we had three versions. And then my shitty rap that I wrote maybe five minutes before the scene started, in a panic. I’m like, I am not Eminem on a bus right now, I’m just in a makeup tent struggling to even write words that rhyme. But of course that’s the version that made it into the show.

Skinner: I really hope we do. I am ready to go. I think I know what I want to do and there’s so much more we wanna say. There will be backslide, and that’s what that finale is. This journey of becoming yourself and overcompensating, it’s a rollercoaster and at times I think college can be so selfish and you can be like, it’s every man for himself. It’s drugs and alcohol and feelings and we didn’t want to stray from that, and we want to continue it.

Barone: Benny’s given me a bit of a sneak peek of what he sees for the characters if we are lucky enough to get a Season 2, but I think Grace just exploring more of that leadership role in her life and not trying to conform to what other people expect of her. I do hope that Benny and Grace are able to finally be honest with each other about who they are and how they make each other feel and how their parents make them feel about each other. I think we can have a really beautiful friendship there that could blossom in adulthood. But it’s important for Grace to understand why Benny leans into being the golden boy so much and why he feels like his parents’ validation is such a driving force, and it’s because he’s hiding such a huge part of his identity. So I think by stripping that back they can truly grow close, because when someone doesn’t feel like they can reveal that to you, obviously you don’t really know them at all. So that’s going to be, I think, a breakthrough moment for their relationship.

DiMarco: I know what Benny has planned for Season 2 if we get one, and it’s insane, it’s so good. I wish I could tell you. I don’t really know what to say other than it’s just more unhinged and more insane than this season.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.