Meet Wally Baram, who plays Carmen Neil in Overcompensating: she was too short to be a cowgirl so tried stand-up and read books by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler – now she’s in the Charli XCX-produced show

Wally Baram never intended to become an actress. The comic and screenwriter – best known for her work on the TV shows Shrinking, What We Do in the Shadows and Betty – had her heart set on becoming a cowgirl as a child. She even took equestrian classes as a teenager, but as luck would have it, her 155cm (5ft 1in) stature prevented her from taking her dreams further. “My feet don’t even curve around a horse,” the 27-year-old said in an interview this month in Vanity Fair. “The horse looks like it’s wearing me as a hat.” Baram turned to comedy in her gap year before university, before dropping out to pursue stand-up and writing full time. When she was hired as a screenwriter on Amazon Prime’s new TV dramedy co-produced by Charli XCX, Overcompensating, she had no idea she would be making her acting debut on the show. View this post on Instagram A post shared by wally baram (@wallybaram) The campus comedy revolves around the show’s creator, Benito Skinner’s character Benny, a closeted college freshman, who tries to date Carmen, played by Baram, to keep his sexuality hidden. “I related to her so much that when I had my meeting with Benny over writing, he was like, ‘You are kind of this girl,’” Baram said in an interview this month in Marie Claire. “When Benny told me, ‘I want it to be you,’ my mind was tremendously blown. Even now, I’m still like, What the heck?” So what do we know about Wally Baram and her apparent overnight success as an actress? She’s Mexican-Syrian Baram grew up in a Mexican-Syrian household in the US state of New Jersey. In a chat with co-star Kyle MacLachlan for Interview magazine, she revealed that growing up, her parents had wanted her to go into politics. She briefly pursued stand-up comedy Starring on Overcompensating may have been Baram’s first experience in front of the camera, but it’s certainly not her first time performing for an audience. After her dreams of becoming a cowgirl faded, Baram took a gap year to try her luck at stand-up comedy. She read books by well-established names including Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Mindy Kaling, before moving to New York to enrol at Barnard College. After a year, she dropped out and headed back to LA to pursue comedy full time, per Vanity Fair. The actress worked her way up in Hollywood, booking comedy festival Just for Laughs and even performing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, before becoming a screenwriter and now an actress. She shares similarities with her Overcompensating character View this post on Instagram A post shared by wally baram (@wallybaram) Baram has shared what she has in common with her Overcompensating character Carmen. “I read the character’s description, and it just felt like me,” she told Vanity Fair. “This curly-, frizzy-haired girl from New Jersey who’s awkward and can’t seem to do the same social sparring that people do to establish themselves in a community. She wants to be a part of something so badly. So much of my life was overcompensating romantically – not even successfully. I just wanted to be loved.” Who is Wally Baram dating? While Baram hasn’t shared many details about her love life, in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, she shared that she was in a heated argument with her boyfriend when she got the call offering her the role of Carmen in Overcompensating. “I hung up and went right back into the fight,” she told the outlet. Judging by her Instagram, Baram is dating fellow comedian Mark Little. This Valentine’s Day, Little shared an image of Baram holding a fish on Instagram with the caption, “Happy Valentine’s Day to this good and wonderful creature. Friend to dogs and camels alike. Enemy to fish.”

Meet Wally Baram, who plays Carmen Neil in Overcompensating: she was too short to be a cowgirl so tried stand-up and read books by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler – now she’s in the Charli XCX-produced show

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Baram dropped out of university to pursue comedy full time, but when she joined Overcompensating as a writer, she didn’t expect to end up on screen …

Baram dropped out of university to pursue comedy full time, but when she joined Overcompensating as a writer, she didn’t expect to end up on screen …