'Hacks' Creators on Their Wild Ride: 'Every Season is a Miracle'
'Hacks' Creators on Their Wild Ride: 'Every Season is a Miracle'Heart surgery to strikes: Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello share how they pulled off their latest run and the state of TV sitcoms today. Plus: I talk to Maya Rudolph!
For nearly every show competing to win an Emmy this year, even making it to the air was a remarkable feat. With the notable exception of The Bear, which aired just weeks into the writers strike last summer, virtually every major contender faced some kind of delay when the WGA put down their pencils, from pausing in the edit room to walking off the set entirely. But it’s hard to imagine anyone had a wilder ride than the team behind Hacks, which concluded its excellent third season on Thursday — a full year after we were initially supposed to see it. The season follows Jean Smart’s comedian, Deborah Vance, in the midst of a remarkable career comeback, reuniting with the frazzled millennial writer Ava, played by Hannah Einbinder, to make her bid to host a network late-night show. Production on the third season began in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2022, already a challenging time to try and start anything new with Hollywood’s holiday closures on the horizon. Then in late February 2023, Smart announced that she had undergone a successful heart procedure, and that production would pause while she recovered. That sent everyone back to set in May — with just a week and a half to shoot until the writers strike shut everything down once again. “We should start by saying every season of television or movie is a miracle, and always has challenges,” series co-creator Paul W. Downs, who also plays the show’s stressed-out manager, Jimmy, told me via Zoom last week. “It's a privilege to make things, but it's hard. It's hard for everybody. So we don't feel particularly different. Although I will say, Jean Smart said that in her entire career she's never experienced a season like this.” When the writers first went on strike, some productions waffled about whether the actors could continue with the writers gone. On Hacks, says Downs’ co-creator and wife Lucia Aniello, there was never any question. “Some shows were able to shoot a little bit more, and we were just very hard line not going to do it,” says Aniello. Downs adds: “It's a show about comedy writing, and so when you're making comedy, you are rewriting all of the time. There's no point at which we're not writing on the show.” Aniello, Downs and their fellow co-creator Jen Statsky opted not to include the strike in the show once they returned, but there’s a moment in the finale (SPOILER AHEAD) that seems to nod to the deep uncertainty that still wracks so many writers. Ava turns down a head writer job so she can continue working on Deborah’s new late-night show, only to have Deborah yank away that job, too. Talking to her manager Jimmy, played by Downs, Ava seems genuinely petrified at the thought of finding another job. In this market, who can blame her? (END OF SPOILER) The Hacks team didn’t have that kind of existential dread during the strike, knowing they had a set to return to when it was over. But Aniello and Downs do see a dire situation for comedies actually getting made, thanks to the same risk-aversion everyone else is complaining about in the business. (My colleague Elaine Low explored the harsh realities for comedy series development and budgets just yesterday.) Read on for more from them — but first, a look at all the other ways the strikes continue to shape the Emmys race.
Missing in ActionThe clearest impact of the strike on this year’s Emmy race can be seen in the shows that aren’t part of this season at all. House of the Dragon, which continued production through the strikes thanks to U.K. union rules, still didn’t premiere in time to qualify. Other veterans of the best drama series race that haven’t made it back yet include Andor, The Boys, Stranger Things, The Mandalorian, Severance and Yellowjackets. The comedy categories are a bit less hollowed out, though Wednesday — which broke through last year with a nomination for star Jenna Ortega and best comedy series — is only now in production on its second season. The Natasha Lyonne-led Poker Face, which became Peacock’s first true breakout hit last January, was renewed as soon as its first season ended, but has yet to go into production on its season two. As far back as last June, when the writers strike had just begun, creator Rian Johnson acknowledged that his next Benoit Blanc Knives Out mystery — now reportedly casting with such intriguing names as Andrew Scott and Cailee Spaeny — would take precedence. But the strike’s biggest effect might not be on any of the individual races, but on the Emmy Awards themselves, and the feeling that we just did this. With its last air date delayed when it became clear the strikes wouldn’t be resolved in time for the traditional September ceremony, the 2023 Emmys crept their way into 2024 — and now we’re about to have a second 2024 Emmy ceremony. For now, most of us expect repeat winners like The Bear or perennial reality host winner RuPaul not to suffer from having stood on that stage just nine months earlier. But who knows when fatigue might set in? The Future of TV Comedy — and of Hacks
With two years elapsing between the end of its second season and the beginning of its third, Hacks had a long break but it was by no means unprecedented. After all, years would go by before a new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm would even be confirmed, and devoted fans still flocked to it. But Aniello and Downs are well aware that audience attention can move on quickly. “One of our worries was, if the show's off the air for a very long time, are people going to forget about it?” says Aniello. “Are they going to feel like they don’t need to get back into it? Is the audience not really going to be there?” Even before Hacks was officially renewed for a fourth season on May 30, Aniello’s worries seemed unfounded — some critics called the third season the best yet, and if the retweets I see for Hacks memes is any evidence, the audience is right there with them. Much as Deborah Vance is a veteran of a bygone age, Hacks — with its reliance on setups and punchlines and its willingness to go just about anywhere for a laugh — sometimes feels like a relic of a period we didn’t realize was ending until it was too late. “It is really bleak in the world of comedy,” says Downs. He and Aniello both got their big TV breaks with Comedy Central’s Broad City — a network which, as Aniello points out, doesn’t make original comedies anymore. “There is that trope, ‘Drama is hard, but comedy is harder,’” says Downs. “Comedy can be riskier, because for it to hit and to really resonate and make a lot of people laugh and not feel like it's niche — it’s harder.” The risk-averse nature of the business is part of Hacks, too, as network executives initially reject the notion of hiring a woman in her 70s to host their flagship late-night show. The season ends with (SPOILER AHEAD) Deborah getting it anyway, and with Ava — in a ruthless, Hacks-ian way — getting the head writer job too. It’s a rare Hollywood happy ending, with everyone gainfully employed — but when the fourth season happens, it won’t be that easy. “Getting her the job is nothing compared to launching a show and making it work,” says Downs. “We feel like there's so much to explore that's so fun, because they have their biggest quest ahead of them.” (END OF SPOILER) Maya Rudolph Builds Her Dream Team
In case you missed Tuesday’s episode of the Prestige Junkie podcast (subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!), I caught up with Maya Rudolph, whose Apple TV+ series Loot wrapped up its second season last week. Rudolph has been one of television’s most reliable guest stars and has the Emmys to show for it: two for hosting Saturday Night Live and three for her voice work as the Hormone Monstress on Big Mouth. But on Loot she takes center stage, playing divorcee billionaire Molly Wells who, in Loot’s second season, is working to give away her fortune. I spoke with Rudolph about reuniting with series creators Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard, the joys of bringing in old collaborators like Ana Gasteyer for guest roles and her “secret costume designer” tendencies. Some highlights from our conversation are below. Katey Rich: You and Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard made the show Forever, which only got to have one season and is so different from Loot. When you decided to work together again, was it a conscious effort to do something really different? Maya Rudolph: It felt more like we were taking what we knew, which was working together, and investing that in this new idea. It was just a real testament to getting to know people and forging these work friendships that allow you to speak each other's language. They brought this idea to me, and I thought, wow, this is such great timing in the world to delve into the world of billionaire-ism, if that’s a word, and try to pair that with a real human being. KR: You've said before that you've spent a lot of your career doing things because your friends asked you to come do it with them. I wonder how it felt being in kind of the reverse position, where you're in the middle of this show and inviting people to come with you. MR: Oh, it's been amazing. When you're creating something, you always think, oh, it would be great to have this person or that person, knowing someone's strengths or their voice or their brand of humor. So we've had the luxury this whole time to be able to call upon those longstanding relationships. That stuff makes it richer and better and funnier and more fun. That’s the joy of these long-term work relationships. Why not call upon them, especially in the world of comedy where it can be a group sport? Call upon my Magic Johnsons, my Kobes, my Shaqs, my Scottie Pippens. KR: What kind of input do you have on Molly’s look, particularly her clothes? MR: Well Kirsten Mann, our costume designer, is a genius. I think I've been working with her for almost 15 years. There are very few costume designers that I have found who understand comedy when it comes to costumes. In this case, we get to do so much with Molly because she's someone who takes things literally. In the first season we talked about, What would she wear to her first day at work? And we thought, Oh, she would want what she would ask herself, ‘What would Beyoncé wear?’ So she got an outfit that’s exactly like Beyoncé's outfit. Then on top of that, Kirsten just knows me and she knows how much I love clothing. I'm a secret costume designer, and I've just always loved getting the chance to create in that way. We have to be pulled away from fittings. Follow us: X | Facebook | Instagram | Threads ICYMI
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