Benny Drama to Star in (and Write) Comedy Coming Out Story for Amazon
From TikTok to the big screen! Benny Drama — born Benito Skinner — is set to get his big break thanks to Overcompensating, a scripted Amazon comedy about a gay football player coming to terms with his sexuality. And Charli XCX is in charge of the film’s music, so it really can’t get gayer than that!
A24 is producing the project about an Idaho football player (fittingly) named Benny who’s struggling to accept his sexuality during college and, well, overcompensates for it, according to a description from The Hollywood Reporter. The project is set to follow Benny as he figures himself out and accepts himself for who he is. (Typical storyline for a coming out story, yeah?)
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Along with A24 being attached to the movie, Jonah Hill and his Strong Baby production companies are executive producing, as is Scott King, who will work as the showrunner as well. Charli XCX, who is also exec producing, previously lent her vocals for A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies‘ “Hot Girl.”
Skinner has amassed millions of Instagram and TikTok followers for his sketch comedy shorts on the app, where he takes on roles like Throat Rippin’ Annie, Kooper the Gen Z White House Intern, and parodies artists like Shawn Mendes, Lana Del Rey, and Kris Jenner.
“As someone who was called a faggot a lot in high school, I’m not trying to be a bully on the internet. I think at times I’m just poking at internet perception, like maybe the characters that we’ve created for ourselves,” he told Rolling Stone earlier this year about his celeb parodies. “I’m poking at the idea of Kris Jenner actually talking to the devil. That’s funny to me.”
He added, “I really hope that people can see it’s never coming from a mean place. And that’s why I don’t make anything on someone that I don’t respect. It would just be like, ‘Oh, this feels uncomfortable.’ That’s not fun to watch.”
Most recently, Skinner served as the moderator for a Q&A between Adele and her fans in Los Angeles. He also appeared in an episode of Search Party, Queer as Folk, and acted in Billy Eichner’s gay film Bros.
“It’s exciting for me to take a character outside of the internet,” he told Rolling Stone. “To be in something that is, from my point of view, a very long sketch.”
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