A true comedian! Bill Hader has learned to always find the funny when talking about coparenting his three daughters with ex-wife Maggie Carey.
“[Hannah] walks around like a princess,” he shared of his eldest during an episode of The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon in 2010. “And she will walk in, and I go, ‘Oh, hello, Hannah, how are you?’ And she’s like, ‘I’m going to make my breakfast.’ And then she walked into our pantry and saw we had no cereal, and I just hear her go: ‘F—k!’”
The Barry star has often opened up about his life as a girl dad — and accepting that he’ll always be in the majority when it comes to major decisions in the household.
“It’s my lot in life. I grew up with my two sisters and my mom, so it’s my lot in life to be surrounded by women,” the Barry star told People in December 2020. “I’ll say, ‘I’m doing this!’ And, to me, masculinity is like, ‘I am watching TCM right now!’ They’re like, ‘No, we’re watching Peppa Pig. And I go, ‘All right. Peppa Pig it is.’”
The Saturday Night Live alum met Carey in college and the pair went on to tie the knot in 2006. They welcomed daughters Hannah, Harper and Hayley in 2009, 2012 and 2014, respectively, and were married for over a decade before calling it quits for good in 2017.
While his marriage to the film director might not have worked out — the pair have remained “friends” since their split, Hader told Variety in 2019 — the comedian still hopes his kids will continue to pick up character traits from their mom instead of following in his footsteps.
“They are definitely taking after my wife, which is good. They’re just very smart and sweet and patient,” he joked to People at the time. “And I’m not sweet, and I’m not that smart, and I’m really impatient!”
Over the years, Hader’s biggest obstacle while parenting his three girls is finding the right balance between work and home life. He’s often gotten candid about the difficulties of having to be away for long periods of time as an actor and director. In 2015, he shared how he tries to stay in touch while he’s out of town on business.
“We make dates to read stories over Skype. We get two copies of books and I bring one and read to them. FaceTime’s a big thing,” he told Go Eerie in 2015. “My daughter was having a problem at school recently and I was FaceTiming with her. You’d rather just be there though. Any actor has to deal with it.”
In 2019, Hader revealed to Variety that he had only seen his children “a total of five days all summer” while filming season 2 of his hit HBO series.
“It was terrible. So, I’m going, ‘Next summer I’m taking off.’ And I’m going to spend every day with them,” he explained. “It’s this weird thing when you’re in this industry, you don’t have time to be with them, and it’s really, really difficult. I’m getting emotional right now talking about it.”
After the final season of Barry — for which he serves as creator, director and star — premiered in April 2023, Hader shared that a much-needed rest was next on the docket.
“My girlfriend [Ali Wong] and I were just figuring out that I haven’t had a vacation in 10 years. I went with her to San Francisco, but that doesn’t really count,” he told Collider. “So, I’m going to have a vacation. I need to go into sponge mode, where I’m watching stuff and reading.”
He added: “I think I just need a break.”
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Keep scrolling for all of Hader’s best fatherhood quotes:
