Actress Kathrine Barnes Talks About Vernal & Sere Theatre And New Role In ‘Average Joe’

She’s about to star in a new TV show!

From Peacock’s ‘Queer As Folk’ to Hulu’s ‘Candy’, Kathrine Barnes is quickly making her name known in the entertainment industry. She is set to start in the upcoming BET+ series ‘Average Joe’.

We had the amazing honor of talking with Kathrine about Dame Maggie Smith, Christoph Schrewe, and more!

What inspired you to start your career as an actress?

K: “Probably seeing & memorizing Marisa Tomei’s deer monologue in My Cousin Vinny at an impressionable age. But honestly, it feels like a hundred different things collided to make my career a foregone conclusion. I don’t come from a showbiz family, but my parents are both huge movie buffs, and my mom loves the theatre and ballet and live music, so she started taking me to plays and put me in dance lessons about as soon as I could walk. I did my first school play when I was 9 or 10, fell in love with musicals, began obsessively devouring movies as a teenager, and I’ve been pretty much one-track minded ever since.”

What was your favorite part about starring in “AVERAGE JOE”?

K: “I loved this job so there are a dozen different answers to this question, but I think it’d have to be what a fantastic learning opportunity it was. Some of my favorite days were the ones where I got to train in languages and accents and stunts for hours on end. And it was also the first time I got to spend enough time on a set that I was able to learn from unbearably talented actors who have been working at this level for years and years; how they are between takes, what different kinds of prep can look like, what the table
reads are like, how they handle conflict, how they approach scripts. It was a fascinating crash course.”

Do you feel you relate to your character ‘Arina’ at all?

K: “Absolutely. She’s fiercely protective, she’d do anything for the people she loves, and she’s got this interesting combination of being instinctual and being cerebral that, for better or (often) worse, I can very much relate to. I think there’s a lot of overlap. Really, the biggest ways in which we differ are that I don’t do assassinations, I’ll never speak as many languages as she does, and I mean this with every fiber of my being: I have neither the ambition nor the ability to be an elementary school teacher. I think people doing that job should make a million dollars a year. One of my best friends teaches first graders and I think kids are great but I’d rather face off with the Russian mob.”

If you could describe “AVERAGE JOE” in three words, what would they be?

K: “Dynamic, unsettling, surprising.”

Can you share any behind-the-scenes stories from the set?

K: “There are too many and nearly all of them contain spoilers. But one of my favorite stories to tell is how I walked onto set to do the very first shot of the very first scene on my very first day of work, and we were doing a precarious stunt right off the bat. Christoph Schrewe was directing that block of episodes and so I was introduced to him, we did a walkthrough, and we shot a take. And then Christoph said we were moving on, which really surprised me. Just like, bam, off to the races, we’re doing it. The day continued sort of like that and I was thrilled to be along for the ride in a way that made me excited but also a little flabbergasted, so at one point I was talking to Christoph and said something like “wow, so one take, huh?” And this man looked me dead in the eye with a giant grin on his face and said in his magnificent German accent: “Kathrine, what is there to be afraid of?” Like damn sir, give me an existential crisis with my lunch break.
He was right though. Letting go and trusting the pros, including yourself, is always at least worth trying.”

Who would be your dream actress to collaborate with?

K: “This answer changes every 15 minutes, but right now, I think I would just about die if I got to work with Dame Maggie Smith.”

Can you tell us more about Vernal & Sere Theatre?

K: “She’s my deranged baby. My 4 co-founders and I were basically strangers when we started the company in 2016; all we really knew about each other was that we all felt like there weren’t really any opportunities to do experimental, form-driven, highly physical, ensemble-based work in our community. 7 years later, we’re on our 10 the production, we have a thriving education wing, 2 of my partners are about to get
married, and I have to say – the work is outstanding. And divisive. And WEIRD. If you are open to incredibly weird theatre that you’ll still be thinking about years later, come see one of our shows.”

Where can we follow your amazing journey?

K: “I finally started using Instagram this year so I could pop up every now and then to be an absolute troll to my dearest friends, but I do keep that updated with work news. I don’t know, we have the internet, just look me up by my name and I’m sure you’ll find something (as long as you don’t put an “e” in the middle of “Kathrine”).”

Make sure to watch Kathrine in ‘Average Joe’, available on BET+ on June 26th!

Trina Hannah- Entertainment Editor/Graphic Designer– Trina is currently studying Graphic Design at Siena Heights University, she is into all things digital media such as video editing, photography and more! She loves getting to express herself through her work and hopes that it can make people smile as well as inspire them to be creative.