In recent years, many television series dealt with production delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the writers and actors strikes. But HBO Max’s “Hacks” had an added complication: Work on the show’s Season 3 halted for three months in February 2023 to allow star Jean Smart to recover from what she said was “a successful heart procedure.” The delays meant that the series went a full two years between seasons, taking it out of last year’s Emmy race but bringing it back in May 2024 in time to land 17 nominations, including its third consecutive Outstanding Comedy Series nom.
The season was both very funny and surprisingly moving as it chronicled the desperate efforts of comedian Deborah Vance (Smart) to secure her dream job as host of a late-night talk show decades after landing and then losing that job. At the end of Season 2, Deborah had fired her young writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) as a way to encourage Ava to go out on her own. But Season 3 brings the two women back together because “Hacks” wouldn’t be “Hacks” without the wildly dysfunctional but winning relationship between the aging comedy diva and the sharp but at times clueless newcomer.
The nine episodes include a day in which Deborah and Ava get lost in the woods, a golf tournament at which Deborah tries to woo station owners and an uproarious roast in which Deborah’s estranged daughter DJ Vance (Kaitlin Olson) brings the house down by repeatedly describing her mother with the catchphrase “what a c—.” The season builds to a shocking change in the balance of power between the two, garnering the show’s best reviews in the process.
Acting nominees included Smart, who was nominated for lead actress after winning for Seasons 1 and 2, and Einbinder, who landed her third supporting actress nomination. In the guest acting categories, Olson received her second nomination and Christopher Lloyd his first. And Paul W. Downs, who also works as a producer, writer and director, added his first acting nomination (for playing manager Jimmy LuSaque Jr.) to go along with his third nods for producing and writing.
Smart, Einbinder and Downs sat down with TheWrap for a conversation that never went more than a few sentences without collapsing into laughter.
The writers had this season’s storyline in your minds from the start, right?
PAUL W. DOWNS Yeah. We pitched what we hoped would be five seasons. So we knew what the thrust of the season would be. We always knew that Deborah would have this goal of late night, that she would eventually get that goal and that Ava would be the head writer. But we didn’t know the twist until the first week we started writing. We figured that out in the first couple days.
JEAN SMART I didn’t know any of it. I like to be surprised.
HANNAH EINBINDER Me too.
So when you first signed on, you didn’t have a sense of where the story was going?
SMART No. I didn’t ask. They told me they had five years, so I said, okay. [Laughs]
EINBINDER I had no sense of where it was going. I just had the pilot and I auditioned, normal style.
DOWNS She’s a real normie, you know? She just went up for it, and then she booked it.
EINBINDER Well, our audition was not normal.
SMART We were on a dark soundstage with plexiglass in between us.
DOWNS The screen test was pre-vaccine COVID era. That must have been so terrifying for both of you.
SMART We walked into this empty sound stage. It looked like a massive airplane hangar. It was dark with a light bulb on a stand and two straight-back chairs. Like someone was gonna be waterboarded after they were interrogated. And they were in the dark kind of watching us.
EINBINDER I walked in and I was like, “So this was all a ruse to kill you.” [Laughs]
Perfect setting for a chemistry read.
SMART [Laughs]
EINBINDER And here we are.
DOWNS And yet they had it between plexiglass and six feet apart.
Let’s talk about the twists in the final episode. Jean, did you feel bad in that episode about the way Deborah offered the job to Ava and then took it back?
EINBINDER [Leaning toward Smart] Yeah, how’d you feel?
SMART [Moaning] I felt terrible! Well, I have to be frank: I thought that people wouldn’t like Deborah very much this season because I thought [she] was so dreadful. But after two seasons, I guess I underestimated how much the audience was invested in the characters. And then you have more freedom to take them wherever you want them to go.
But that was ruthless of Deborah to do that. At least she kind of admitted that it was terrible. She said, “You know, I’m sorry. This is what I gotta do. If you don’t understand, then too bad.”
EINBINDER Well, I don’t understand. [Laughs]
Hannah, did you feel bad about Ava blackmailing Deborah for the head writer job?
EINBINDER Of course. I think Ava feels bad but is given no choice. Her hand is forced, and Ava is taking a cue from the years of watching Deborah behave in this way. And also, you know, feeling kind of fed up and pushed to her limit.
For Season 3, what were the biggest challenges for each of you?
EINBINDER I think the biggest challenge might have been running after the golf cart.
SMART The hike was definitely more strenuous than I had imagined it would be.
EINBINDER We were really in the woods.
SMART And I had just twisted the bejeebers out of my knee.
EINBINDER Yeah. Jean was actually injured when we did that.
DOWNS She’s very Method. We said, “Jean, you don’t have to hurt yourself.”
SMART I mean, I twisted the correct knee. I was limping on the correct side.
DOWNS For me, the thing that was hardest this season was when Jimmy delivers the news that Deborah got late night. It was hard for me not to be emotional, to hold back, ’cause it’s been building to that moment for three seasons now. The audience and the characters are all so happy that Deborah achieved that that I had to work to hold back because I found it really moving.
EINBINDER Oh my God, you guys. I just realized: We are the Powerpuff Girls. I just realized that in real-time.
SMART What does that mean?
EINBINDER You’re Bubbles, I’m Blossom and Paul is Buttercup.
DOWNS I’m Buttercup? [Sighs] Yeah, I knew that.
SMART Why are we them?
EINBINDER Sorry. I have ADHD, so I had no choice but to say that. [Laughs]
SMART Is it the way we look, or what?
EINBINDER Yeah, it is. I have red hair, you have blonde hair and Paul has black hair.
SMART Oh. Well, we are nothing if not diverse.
EINBINDER That’s right. In that way. Only in that single way. Sorry, folks.
I think Bubbles usually gets the best lines, too.
EINBINDER That’s right! [To Smart:] You are so Bubbles.
Paul, you said that Deborah getting the late night show was emotional for you. But it felt like several other episodes were unexpectedly emotional, too. Were you trying to take the show in that direction? DOWNS That was the goal from the beginning. We always wanted to make a show that was this mixed tone that we didn’t see on television. From the very first episode, you see this larger-than-life character, Deborah Vance, go through her day and then she comes home and has dinner alone. The moments behind the curtain are often melancholy and a little bit lonely. The show is about comedy and it’s about comedians. So we get to write really hard comedy punchlines, because comedians speak in punchlines. We get to tell a lot of jokes but still make a show that feels grounded and emotional.
I also wonder how on Earth Jimmy and his assistant Kayla, who have largely been comic relief, got to the point where they had an emotional moment where a whole airplane was rooting for them when he runs onto the plane to persuade her to stay with his company?
SMART Oh, my God. One of my favorite scenes ever!
EINBINDER So incredible.
DOWNS Thank you. I think that scene speaks to the DNA of “Hacks.” Jimmy and Kayla’s arc this season got to be a little bit more emotional and deep. But that scene in particular was so fun. And our background actors and guest actors were so good.
SMART That girl behind you!
DOWNS She was so good. We tried to do that with the whole ensemble this season. Give them layers, give them complexity.
EINBINDER To me, the funniest scene in Season 3 is that, and the funniest scene in Season 2 is [when Kayla says] “K-cups are bad for the environment!”
SMART Scenes that I wasn’t in. Is that what you’re saying?
EINBINDER Did I say that? I just… I didn’t mean that.
SMART You wanna go for Season 1 now and get a trifecta?
Do you have a sense of where you’d like things to go now that Deborah has late night and Ava is the head writer?
DOWNS I’ll take notes. I’m listening.
SMART Gosh. I mean, I’m very curious to see how they move forward from that last moment of Season 3.
EINBINDER It’s gonna be interesting to see maybe a new dynamic. I feel like we have had a pretty consistent dynamic between the two of them…
SMART Which has been just fine.
EINBINDER Which has been abusive and toxic, let’s be honest. [Laughs] This will be like, they’ll be able to butt heads in this new way.
SMART More as equals.
EINBINDER Yeah. I think that’s cool.
We talked about what was most challenging in Season 3. What was the most fun?
SMART I got to kiss Tony Goldwyn. [Laughs] A dirty job, but somebody had to do it.
EINBINDER It was definitely challenging, but the nature episode was the best one. Because we got to go out to the Angeles National Forest and walk the paths. It was beautiful. I have really fond memories of being there with everyone. In between set-ups and at lunch, we were kind of like at camp.
SMART She was looking for mushrooms all the time.
EINBINDER Not that kind of mushroom! [Laughs]
SMART I must say I enjoyed the roast episode quite a bit.
DOWNS That was fun to have so many comedians there. It felt like a real roast.
SMART And Kaitlin [Olson], this season — I mean, oh my God, when she did the roast. I never would’ve known from reading it on paper what she could’ve made out of those lines. It was absolutely brilliant. She was so funny in that scene. And then in our next scene together, she says, “I get it now, Mom. You’re an addict like me.” And she said it in such an offhand way that it was like an arrow in Deborah’s heart. She realized in that moment, I will never have my daughter back.
In the show, the name of Kaitlin’s character is DJ Vance. Is it good or bad that if you flip those initials, you get the guy who’s Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, JD Vance?
SMART It’s actually perfect.
EINBINDER It’s good PR for this.
SMART No relation.
EINBINDER No relation.
DOWNS No relation. And I think Deborah would have a T-shirt that says, “No relation.”
EINBINDER I saw a meme that was like, “This is the only Vance I support,” and it was a picture of Deborah.
DOWNS Have you seen the thing where there’s a montage in Episode 4 where Deborah is announcing that she wants late night and somebody was like, “This is the Harris campaign?” [Laughs] “Watch out America, she’s coming for you!” I’m liking all of the “Hacks” memes.
This story first ran in the Down to the Wire Comedy issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.
Read more from the Down to the Wire Comedy issue here.
