At its prickly core, HBO Max’s Hacks is about the layered relationship between veteran comedienne Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Gen-Z comedy writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder). They spar, they shout. Deborah doesn’t understand Ava’s desire to overhaul her Las Vegas residency and Ava lacks appreciation for her boss’s decades of comedic, if dated, contributions.
Things couldn’t be more different between the stars offscreen, as Einbinder tells Katey Rich on this week’s Little Gold Men podcast. But while the newcomer doesn’t share Ava’s views, she does understand the character’s disdain for “old-school” comedy that often skews towards toxic masculinity. “I believe that her rejection of, or judgment of certain old-school things is tied so directly to her politics as a person,” Einbinder explains. “So she goes like, ‘What the fuck is this? Like, you’re degrading yourself.’ It’s almost in that Hannah Gadsby school of Nanette where they’re like, ‘’I’m not going to be the butt of the joke anymore.’”
While speaking about all things Hacks, Einbinder shared how she’s navigating her burgeoning standup career with the show’s first season and the surprising films she’s watched to prepare for emotional scenes.
This week’s Little Gold Men podcast includes a breakdown of Marlon Brando’s On the Waterfront featuring Katey, Richard Lawson, Joanna Robinson, and guest Anthony Breznican. The episode then welcomes David Canfield to discuss Awards Insider, Vanity Fair’s new home base for all things Emmys and Oscars. There’s also discourse about the new Fast and Furious movie, as well as more Golden Globes scandals, and an interview with Ted Lasso star Brett Goldstein.
Listen to the episode above, and find Little Gold Men on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you get your podcasts. You can also sign up to receive texts from us, and text us back, via Subtext—we’d love to hear from you.
Read a partial transcript of the Hannah Einbinder interview below.
At the end of [the final] episode, Ava kind of has the breakdown moment with Deborah finally, crying about her father’s death. You’ve been acting and playing this character for a long time, but being relatively new to acting, is crying on screen something that felt weird for you? Was that different from the other acting challenges? Because it’s such a vulnerable moment for anybody, I think, even when you’re in character.
Yes, and luckily I have a ton of experience crying in public. So thanking my lack of serotonin for that, shouts out to the lack of serotonin. But I mean, there were several scenes where I cried throughout the show and each time I kind of feel like I am a part of the MacGyver school of acting where I’m like, “Alright, I gotta cry and all I have is floss and peanut butter,” you know, where I’m just like, “I don’t know what to do.” The first time I did it, before I had to go to set, I actually watched the scene of Matthew McConaughey in the movie Interstellar where Murph [the character’s daughter] is signing off. She’s mad at him. And he’s, you know, obviously like fucking sobbing. I just kind of tapped into his energy.
Then for one I watched (laughs) the end credits of Schindler’s List. Yeah, that always gets me. I mean that movie, like, obviously tears me apart. So I just was like, “Yeah, this is gonna obviously trigger me.” Then I started to do it like a real ass actor, you know. I started to be like, “Okay, I’m actually so present and in the scene that I don’t feel weird about this. I don’t feel embarrassed to cry in front of people. Now I am present and in it, and I am being moved to tears by the words. And, you know, that I am hearing from this person sitting across from me, especially in that moment with Jean, she says to Ava that she is good. There is a certain amount of Ava and Deborah present in the room, but it’s also me and Jean and I allowed that moment to sink in and hit me cause I’m so self-conscious. I allowed myself to take in the possibility that was Jean talking to me and that made me cry.
Is being present when you’re not learning how to act, but doing this for the first time and being visible for the first time, is that the challenge when you’re going from being a performer to being in a character in a show in this way?
For sure, for sure. Especially with my brain, I am someone who is a million places at once. It’s very hard for me to be present. I just have such bad ADD and ADHD that my mind is so scattered. I’m analyzing everything that I say in real time, there’s a separate loop going all the time. So to turn that off and be there, it was such a gift in my life. It was such a gift for me, someone who doesn’t really experience that. I can’t really meditate at this point in my life. I’m still working on trying to get that on lock, but this feels like the closest I’ve come, honestly.
How do you teach the rest of us who aren’t actors, but just need to learn how to shut our brains off? It would be helpful, honestly.
I wish I knew, cause this is the only time I’ve ever…I miss it for that reason. It’s really an escape from yourself, which I’m always like, “Please.”
You guys went through a bunch of this season airing without knowing if a second season was going to come. The news broke to the rest of us like a week ago. I’m curious, how did that come to you? What were you feeling waiting on tenterhooks to know if a second season was happening?
It was so funny. Jen [Statsky, Hacks co-creator] emailed the cast and she did one of those psych out openings where she was like, “Hey guys, the studio just let us know that a bunch of stuff was stolen from set. So if one of you could come forward, we don’t want to make this a bigger deal than it actually is. Just kidding. We got a second season.” (laughs) So she emailed us all and we, you know, jumped for joy. Our group chat of me,Poppy [Liu], Mark [Indelicato], Carl [Clemons-Hopkins], Megan [Stalter], Johnny [Sibilly] was just going crazy. We were so excited and we all went out to dinner and celebrated. It was beautiful.
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