“A Laugh Is Like an Orgasm”: Paul W. Downs Tells Susie Essman How Hacks Became Reality

 

This may come as a shock: Deborah Vance is not a real person. But when Hacks fans began clamoring for tickets to see the fictional comedienne live, Paul W. Downs knew he had made something transcendent. Over four seasons at the helm of the barbed, always funny, and often heartwarming showbiz satire, Downs and co-creators Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky have lifted the curtains on a world of stand-up comedy that feels majorly meta. And the Broad City alum has a hand in it all—directing, writing, casting, and playing Vance’s scheming manager, Jimmy, ever-beleaguered by his twisted relationship with his assistant-turned-business partner, played by Meg Stalter. Freshly renewed for a final season, Hacks has undoubtedly reached the television summit, with a boatload of Emmy’s and Golden Globes to its name (plus a willful and dedicated fanbase hoping that, one day, its two leads will get together). Take it from Curb Your Enthusiasm standout and Hacks superfan Susie Essman, who understands the inner workings of the comedy world better than most. “We have our own language in the way that prostitutes and cops do,” she told Downs when the two got together earlier this month to reflect on the show’s most recent season, the finale of which airs this week. “We have our own way of connecting to each other and our own shorthand, like Ava and Deborah have.” 

———

SUSIE ESSMAN: Hello.

PAUL W. DOWNS: How are you? You were in my dream last night.

ESSMAN: Was it a good dream?

DOWNS: It was a great dream. I was coming to your house for dinner because we were celebrating something. 

ESSMAN: I hope I was having it catered, because I’m not a cook.

DOWNS: I don’t remember.

ESSMAN: Actually, I cook a few things well, but another time. We’re being recorded, and much to discuss. We’re here with Paul W. Downs, who plays Jimmy, who’s also the writer, the creator, one of the directors, and the showrunner, of Hacks. You’re a slasher.

DOWNS: I’m a slasher?

ESSMAN: You’re a slasher. You’re an actor-slash-showrunner-slash-director-slash-writer.

DOWNS: I’m a pan-hyphenate.

ESSMAN: Tell me a secret about Jimmy.

DOWNS: A secret about Jimmy? He’s really well-endowed. People don’t know that.

ESSMAN: Really? I wouldn’t have thought.

DOWNS: He’s very passionate. He’s a triple Scorpio, so there’s a lot going on that people don’t know in terms of his private life.

ESSMAN: But it has nothing to do with Kayla, I assume.

DOWNS: No. Although there is a moment this season—and this is a spoiler—when she says, “We’re the best couple ever!” And Jimmy for a moment says, “Are we a couple?” Their relationship is so sick and twisted. The lines get blurred. But they’re more like siblings to me.

ESSMAN: It’s exactly like siblings, because otherwise you wouldn’t put up with her.

DOWNS: It’s also like cousins, because she does want to kiss. It’s kind of kissing cousins.

ESSMAN: Kissing cousins.

DOWNS: There’s a lot of history there. He does love her.

ESSMAN: I don’t think he has to. He could get rid of her.

DOWNS: He could. Initially he says, “She’s like my assistant and my boss,” because her dad is a partner at the company. But now he could. Although, I do think they’re weirdly better together.

ESSMAN: I totally agree with you. And I think Jimmy knows that, even though she’s completely bizarre. When you were first creating the show, did you know that you were going to play Jimmy?

DOWNS: That was the first attachment to the show. The pilot script actually said, “Jimmy the Sack Jr. played by Paul W. Downs in a Tom Ford suit, which he gets to keep.” That was a must with the sale of the show. They didn’t put me in Tom Ford and I didn’t get to keep it. In fact, I wore my own suit in the pilot.

ESSMAN: Did you really?

DOWNS: I wore a bunch of my own clothes the first season.

ESSMAN: I refer to you as a slasher. Is there a piece of that that you like better than another? 

DOWNS: Acting is the most fun. Directing is great too because I’m a control freak, but it’s the most stressful. I love being a backseat driver more.

ESSMAN: Do you find it difficult to direct and act at the same time? I’m always cringing when I’m watching myself.

DOWNS: Oh god, yeah. Luckily I have Lucia [Aniello] and Jen [Statsky] on set at all times and they’re very helpful with feedback. 

ESSMAN: You have to let that go if you’re directing, because you have to see it with objectivity. I saw all the episodes that you directed, and there was a definite difference. The pacing was slightly different.

DOWNS: It’s slower.

ESSMAN: I was very impressed with your direction, like, “Oh, this is a Paul episode.” It should feel different than a Lucia episode.

DOWNS: Yes, although I think we both try not to be conspicuous. Our favorite filmmakers are not about camera moves and style. It’s about the story. Soderbergh does that so well. You know it’s a Soderbergh movie, yet they’re so different based on what story he’s telling. 

ESSMAN: So you and Lucia and Jen have created these characters who are extremely flawed, and also extremely beloved. What’s the trick to that? 

DOWNS: We try to never make one of them right. We’re very true to their points of view, even to a fault, when they’re bickering about an idea. But I think it’s also fun to watch them be rude. You would probably agree from Curb that when characters are rude, but not mean—there’s a big difference, and it’s fun.

ESSMAN: It’s all about the line. That’s why Hacks works. Deborah could be out-and-out mean, but you never dislike her. 

DOWNS: It’s a testament to the actor, because when you are likable, it’s fun to watch you. You can feel the secret. Even when Jean [Smart] and Hannah [Einbinder] get harsh and vicious, they’re sympathetic because they are so unguarded and free, which appeals to people. People want to be like that, in the same way that Susie Greene is speaking her mind. It’s wishful filming in a way. 

ESSMAN: And it’s the tone. Was this something the three of you ripped apart before you started? 

DOWNS: No. We knew we wanted to do something that was not exactly anything we’d seen before. There are plenty of shows that are really funny and also have a lot of emotion. But the cheat code to the tone was that we have a character who’s a stand-up comedian, and her partner is a comedy writer. So they can talk in jokes, but also keep it really grounded. It’s not like when you watch a sitcom and you hear jokes. It’s like, no one really talks like that. But stand-ups do talk like that. Comedy writers do that when they hang out with other comedy writers. They talk in the way that sitcom characters might talk. And then finding actors who can do that made it even better.

ESSMAN: You’ll watch sitcoms we grew up with, and there’s some seven-year-old saying this incredibly witty thing and you’re just like—

DOWNS: “Shut up.”

ESSMAN: My experience with comedians is we have our own language in the way that prostitutes and cops do. You know what I mean? We have our own way of connecting to each other and our own shorthand, like Ava and Deborah have. The other thing that’s so interesting that you’ve done is having an older woman in her 70s that’s completely relevant.

DOWNS: I don’t know if that was ever the goal of the show, but it is true that Jean as Deborah has really made it cool to be 70. We drew on a lot of different people when we made the show. There’s a little Phyllis Diller, Debbie Reynolds, Lucille Ball, Elayne Boosler. 

ESSMAN: A lot of Joan [Rivers].

DOWNS: And Joan is somebody who stayed relevant and knew what to do to stay relevant up until the end. Just before the end she was saying that she fucked Johnny Carson. [Laughs] I’m like, did that happen? Maybe that happened…

ESSMAN: I don’t think so.

DOWNS: She knows how to get print.

ESSMAN: The difference between Joan and Deborah is generation, because Joan would be 92 now or something. Deborah would’ve come up in my time in the ’80s, and there were only a handful of us female comics. It was hard, but not like it was for Phyllis and Joan and Totie [Fields]. For them, there was no one.

DOWNS: It was just them.

ESSMAN: But she’s very Joan in that kind of glitzy way, the QVC and the Vegas. Joan’s home looked like the Palace of Versailles. It’s the same effect that Deborah has. It’s very different from my generation of comics. That’s really an old school comedian thing.

DOWNS: It’s cool this season that we have Rosie O’Donnell on. She plays herself on the show, and I don’t even know if we scripted it as Roe, but they called each other Roe and Deb. They talked like they had known each other since the ’80s. They imbued the scene with history and it was so cool. It’s so weird because it feels like Deborah Vance is a real person.

ESSMAN: Absolutely. I’ve watched the show and thought, “How come I never ran into her in the clubs?” Because she’s a fictional character. [Laughs]

DOWNS: That’s so good. I love that. Pat Regan, who’s one of our writers, said someone told him, “I wasn’t aware about Deborah Vance until I started watching Hacks.” And he’s like, “What do you mean? There is no Deborah Vance.” We also shot in North Hollywood in the theater, and we did an exterior shot so they put on the marquee, “Special Taping Deborah Vance.” And people on social media were posting it like, “Oh my god, Deborah Vance is in North Hollywood, we’ve got to get tickets.” [Laughs]

ESSMAN: That’s a testament to the writing. The first time I met you was when you had written a script for Broad City called “Knockoffs.” I remember getting the script and thinking, “Who is this guy? This is fucking brilliant.” You captured the voice of the character that I played, Bobbi Wexler, and created this woman that was so real to me. How did you start as a writer?

DOWNS: I always wrote for myself. I remember in high school we could do this thing called lunchtime theater, where if you weren’t sitting at the cool kids’ table, there was a variety show in the theater during lunch. I used to write monologues for that.

ESSMAN: Can I just say that the older I get, the more I realize how much better it was to not be one of the cool kids.

DOWNS: Me too. I was wildly popular, I can’t lie, but I wasn’t cool. I wasn’t hot. I was weird. I was really weird, actually. I was much more eccentric in high school.

ESSMAN: How did it manifest?

DOWNS: I think I realized that being funny was my social capital, so I leaned into it. I made my own clothes and I wore wingtips. I dressed like Paula Poundstone. Then I did sketch comedy in college. I didn’t write a screenplay until I met Lucia, and we met doing improv.

ESSMAN: At UCB?

DOWNS: Yeah, in New York. She was like, “We should do the New York Television Festival and write a pilot and shoot it.”  It’s her ambition that has really carried me through. We worked with Abbi [Jacobson] and Ilana [Glazer] on Broad City when it was still a web series. We did the one that introduced you playing Ilana’s mom, and it’s still our favorite script.

ESSMAN: That’s a great script.

DOWNS: That script was a real predecessor to Hacks in terms of tone, and you brought such grounded work to the role. It was a big turning point.

ESSMAN: Do you write easily or is it painful?

DOWNS: It depends. Some things come fully formed, but a lot of the stuff we have to write in Hacks is standup and monologue jokes, and I’m not good at traditional setup punchlines. 

ESSMAN: Me neither.

DOWNS: No, you’re a stand-up.

ESSMAN: I’m a horrible joke writer.

DOWNS: You’re kidding! I am shocked.

ESSMAN: I used to write punchlines on the stage. I would get a setup, and I would not have a punchline until a gun was to my head and I had to come up with something. I’m not Jerry Seinfeld, I don’t sit and write jokes. 

DOWNS: Me neither. 

ESSMAN: You’ve discovered a lot of people on this show, which is nice. Jean was a rediscovery in a sense, and Hannah had really not done anything. Megan Stalter was a great discovery. That must feel good.

DOWNS: It feels great. That’s one of the joys of the show. This sounds earnest, but it’s a privilege giving people a platform to show what they can do. Jean’s always been the best, and Meg’s brilliant. This year we have Robby Hoffman, who we can’t believe hasn’t been in a million things already because we’ve been fans of her as a stand-up for so long. We love casting. Talk about slasher…

ESSMAN: Casting is a talent in and of itself. You always hear the famous stories that Ronald Reagan was going to play Rick in Casablanca or something, and you’re just like, what?

DOWNS: I didn’t know that. That’s crazy.

ESSMAN: Something like that. I want to talk about Deborah, because she fascinates me. Do you think she’s capable of a relationship?

DOWNS: Well, she has one, and it’s her career. I think that’s the most important relationship in her life, and that has to do with her having a lot of trauma and betrayal in her life. A lot of people want Deborah and Ava to kiss. People always want us to get them together. 

ESSMAN: I know. [Laughs]

DOWNS: I think the reason their relationship is so fraught and loaded and sexy and fulfilling is because she never thought she would find somebody like her husband, who was her comedy partner. There’s a lot of [Mike] Nichols and [Elaine] May in Deborah. 

ESSMAN: There’s something about creating with somebody that is incredibly powerful. You create with your wife [Lucia Aniello], and I’m sure that’s a huge part of your relationship. It’s almost like sex, I think.

DOWNS: Yes, it’s like sex. And when you make someone laugh, a laugh is like an orgasm. It’s uncontrollable. It’s visceral. It’s full body.

ESSMAN: And it’s very sexy.

DOWNS: Yeah, it’s sexy to make someone laugh and for someone to make you laugh and to laugh at the same time.

ESSMAN: Last season DJ says something to Deborah like, “You’re just like me. You’re an addict.” That was so telling to me about what the entire show is about. You get addicted to the laughs. You get addicted to the power of being on stage, and it’s not like anything else that you could describe to anyone. When you were casting, did you think about the fact that Jean was not a comic? Was that ever an issue?

DOWNS: We did think about that. The scariest part of casting Deborah Vance was getting someone who could believably be a stand-up comedian. But because she had done theater and sitcoms, we knew she could deliver a joke. And when we met her, she said, “It’s like you guys are psychic because I’ve always wanted to be a comedian.”

ESSMAN: Oh, is that true?

DOWNS: Yeah. She said, “When I was 12, all the girls were princesses and mermaids and witches, and I dressed as Phyllis Diller. I teased my hair and I looked insane, and nobody knew who she was. I wanted to be a stand-up, but it’s too scary to be out there as yourself, and I have the mask of a character.” The only person we actually wrote for, other than me, was Kaitlin Olson as DJ. We didn’t think she would do it because it’s a supporting role. She was already the lead of The Mick, which was a network show, and It’s Always Sunny [in Philadelphia] for 15 seasons. Thank god she did it, because she’s so brilliant. I remember the first day we were working with her, Jean would exit her scene with Kaitlin and run around to monitor and watch the rest of the scene. 

ESSMAN: She was impressed.

DOWNS: Game respect game. When Kaitlin is on set, everybody’s a little different, Jean and Hannah in particular. They are a little funnier. They really try to rise to meet her.

ESSMAN: That’s terrific. That is something to say about somebody. And Paul, you are now wildly successful. The show has won everything. Did you ever dream when you were a kid in your little house in New Jersey that this would happen?

DOWNS: I did dream this would happen, but also it’s crazy that it actually happened. We say every day that we are so lucky. With Broad City, it really broke through and became culturally relevant, and it was a Comedy Central show.

ESSMAN: And really low-budget. [Laughs]

DOWNS: Yeah. We thought it was so cool for people to know and care about the show, because it might never happen again. So the fact that we have experienced this with Hacks is really hard to believe.

ESSMAN: I feel incredibly lucky to have been on Curb for 12 seasons. People always say to me, “But you’re so good.” But it’s still luck. It’s the trifecta. It’s talent, tenacity and timing. And every now and then you get somebody with no talent, but with tenacity and timing. That happens.

DOWNS: That happens a lot.

ESSMAN: But when you have all three, it’s a beautiful thing. You’re going to go on to do other amazing things, but no matter what, you’ve had this.

DOWNS: It’s like our baby. Film is forever, and hopefully it’s around way longer than I am.

ESSMAN: There’s a universal sense to it. And I don’t get the feeling that it’s going to get that much easier for female comics.

DOWNS: I hope it does. You said to us that it’s more likely for Deborah Vance to get late night than a woman in our reality.

ESSMAN: That’s right.

DOWNS: And she did get it before anyone else got it, at least one of the big three. We’ve had some amazing women do late night shows, but not at 11:30.

ESSMAN: And network. You’re doing the show on Max, and you are satirizing network executives. Were you ever conscious of the fact that you’re satirizing people who control your world?

DOWNS: Yeah, especially because we wanted to do more seasons. We are spoiled with the executives at HBO Max because—you know this from Curb—they are so talent-friendly and they’re about the creative. Even when the writer’s strike happened, they were so supportive of us.

ESSMAN: I think it’s why they’ve had such great shows.

DOWNS: If they believe in something, they let it happen. We tried to represent the people on the business side that are trying to do the right thing for art. I think that’s really difficult to do in this era of publicly traded conglomerates where people have to answer to these shareholders. We also represented people that are all about the bottom line and don’t really care.

ESSMAN: So this is season four. You’ve got one more season. Is that it?

DOWNS: Probably. That was the plan. We break the season and we figure out how many episodes we need. That’s why every season of Hacks has a different number of episodes. In the last season, there’s going to be a lot of story we want to tell, and a lot of characters we want to serve in the ensemble. So I’ll leave it open, but we don’t want to overstay our welcome.

ESSMAN: That’s smart. Leave them wanting more. And five seasons is a lot.

DOWNS: Nowadays in comedy, it’s unfortunately really fortunate.

ESSMAN: You want to keep it fresh. We all look forward to seeing them.

———

Groomer: Aika Flores.