Hannah Einbinder & Megan Stalter

Hi Gay (Times) readers, you ready for a Hacks special?

“To get a queer character is one thing, but to have them honoured is totally different,” Hannah Einbinder tells fellow bicon Megan Stalter over a one-hour Zoom conversation. “I couldn’t believe it existed because I had never seen it before. I’d seen it in various films, not on TV and not as a lead character.”

The stand-up comic is speaking with her Hacks costar about her - let’s put this in bold! - Emmy Awardnominated character Ava on HBO Max’s brilliant new series, which follows a legendary Las Vegas comedy diva [Jean Smart] as she reluctantly teams up with a witty Gen-Z writer [Einbinder] to revive her career. Stalter, who received viral fame thanks to her instantly iconic “Hi gay!” Pride Month video, co-stars as Kayla; the nepotistic yet endearingly incompetent assistant to Ava’s manager who steals every goddamn scene she’s in.

While the comedy-drama, created by Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, has received widespread critical acclaim for its leading performances and hilariously fresh script, it’s also won rave reviews from LGBTQ+ critics and viewers for normalising the queer experience - particularly with Einbinder’s leading character.

Here, two of comedy’s most exciting queer entertainers try on a few luscious wigs, discuss their unique and signature styles of comedy, Hacks - as well as their hopes for season two - and, of course, “Hi gay!” Why? Because we love gay, and it’s awesome.

Megan: Every time I’m on Zoom I blush really bad. Like, look how red I am. Have you ever seen me this red?

Hannah: Never.

Megan: I start blushing as soon as I log on. Then when I log off, I’m fine, white as a ghost.

Hannah: Snap a screenshot, because this is gorgeous and natural...

Megan: You love it? Every meeting I’m this red though. I don’t know why.

Hannah: So, speaking of that...

Megan: [Laughs]

Hannah: Something I’ve heard from a lot of people whose performance styles are character-based, is the push and pull between comfortability in a character and out of one. How do you feel in a persona, out of a persona, do you gravitate towards one or the other? How much of everything you do is connected to a part of you?

Megan: When I’m doing stand up, it’s very rare that I’m telling a real story. I think I get a bit more nervous if I’m doing something as myself. When I’m on a podcast and they want me to not do a character, it’s a little more nerve-wracking but just as much fun when you’re doing it, you know?

Hannah: Right.

Megan: Do you feel like, when you’re doing stand-up, that it’s a totally different person?

Hannah: On stage I am just a version of myself that is confident, which is backwards. You’d think that you would feel more secure off stage, but there is something about having time to craft my thoughts and feelings on something, and stand-up being a presentation of those thoughts and feelings in a way that allows me to be incredibly careful and intentional with what I’m doing. It gives me a sense of security that I don’t feel when I talk in my life, because I analyse everything I say as it flies out of my mouth. So, it is one of the only places where I feel like I’ve done the due diligence of making sure that I’m aligned with what I’m trying to say.

Megan: I totally relate and agree because I feel like all of my characters and personas on stage are part of who I am. I feel like I play an extremely confident woman who’s secretly nervous, which is what I am. At the same time, for some reason, which is kind of what Kayla is on the show. I was talking to someone the other day about how, on stage, it’s almost the only time my brain can rest. It sounds so cheesy but you go somewhere else, right? I feel like I’m not thinking about emails or anything else, I’m truly out of my mind in the best way.

Hannah: The way that improv was so encouraged on Hacks, whilst still having this beautifully written and fundamentally structured material, it was so... Certainly for a performer like you, that was the sweet spot, right? Is that the place you want to stay, doing work that has various structures in place but allows you freedom?

Megan: When you say I can improvise, it’s like saying, ‘We like who you are.’ But, it’s so freeing to have an amazing script knowing you don’t have to improvise anything. God, if you showed up on set and they were like, ‘Only improvise,’ that’s a lot of pressure too.

Hannah: I’m interested in the way you go about developing these various people that you do. I’m sure it’s different case by case, but in terms of a voice, a look, a personality, a name, what does that process typically look like?

Megan: Always different. I got this mug yesterday that said, ‘Embrace your motherhood,’ and I’m like, ‘That’s a character.’ I had to get it. I feel like with all the characters, I’m making fun of part of myself. I make fun of the mother because inside, there’s somebody who wants to have like, six kids.

Hannah: I was walking down the street here in New York and I saw a woman with a shirt that said, ‘Be the person your pets think you are.’

Megan: [Laughs] Stop. That’s crazy. That’s like, ‘Be someone that brings people food and takes them outside.’ What does that even mean?

Hannah: Bring them food and pick up their shit.

Megan: When I saw you in the first read through for Hacks, you were so captivating as Ava. When you read the script for the first time, what connected you to that character?

Hannah: First of all, thank you and likewise. Our Zoom table reads were so much fun because everyone was so locked into their character. When I read Ava, I was shocked because I was used to opening my email and seeing auditions for people I had no connection to. This was the first time I saw anyone I recognised. Reading the audition scenes, which were the scenes in Jimmy’s office and the interview with Deborah, I was laughing out loud and that’s not something I had ever done. Especially around the way that Ava’s queerness was communicated in the script, I thought it was so graceful and seamless. To get a queer character is one thing, but to have them honoured is totally different. It’s a whole different bag, and I couldn’t believe it existed because I had never seen it before. I’d seen it in various films, not on TV and not as a lead character.

Megan: And not a lot in films either. We’re so starved of it.

Hannah: Especially in these identities that exist in a more fluid space. It’s very hard in our binary culture for people to wrap their heads around something that doesn’t really exist in a binary space. The key to good queer stories is having queer writers. Because this show has that, it’s responsible for what we see. What I saw in her was something special.

Megan: That’s how I felt too. Even if I auditioned for stuff I liked, I couldn’t see myself. It just felt so special from the start. And, how did you feel when you got the Emmy nomination?! It’s so exciting! We were all screaming.

Hannah: We were screaming in the group chat. I’m not gonna lie, I cried. I feel so connected to Lucia, Paul and Jen that I want to make them happy and do right by them and honour them. Everyone’s individual and collective nominations are good for the whole show and I was just so glad to be a part of that. It’s just so... surreal.

Megan: So surreal! It’s not surprising at all because you’re incredible and the show always felt so special. This is my first acting job and I was talking to Lucia about it and it’s hard to even wrap your mind around it, because I think our brains would really explode if we took in all that’s happening with the show. It’s so exciting and I feel so lucky, and we did it during the pandemic.

Hannah: The crazy amount of work that was put in by the writers to collaborate remotely and produce this through masks and a shield, to honour comedians and especially female comics - although I do really hate the term ‘female comics’, it’s just comics - it’s incredible. I wanna talk about the “Hi gay!” moment. It’s a generation. There’s Millennial, Gen-Z, Gen-Y and then Hi Gay.

Megan: It’s a full category!?

Hannah: It’s a full category. Obviously, when you create a character, you never know what is going to hit. But, “Hi gay!” is so seamless top to bottom - writing and performance.

Megan: It was right at the beginning of Pride where you see everyone promoting their Pride stuff. I was on my way out of the door and thought, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be funny if a company that had never really supported gay rights were cashing in on Pride?’ A lot of times when something goes viral, it is something you just did. I could spend so much time on a video; different cuts and different costumes, no one sees it! People do not want to see me work hard. It’s different in TV and movies, people wanna see the big production. But online, people don’t wanna see all of the effort you put in, they wanna see you be silly for five seconds.

Hannah: written, and They your want character you to coast. is reading It was but so beautifully you’re not reading... Wait, you’re not reading in that, are you?

Megan: I was reading...

Hannah: Oh my god, method!

Megan: I wrote out something really quick. I remember my mom and sister coming to get me and I was like, ‘Oh my god I have five minutes.’ I wrote out something and put the computer on the chair. Right when the video ends, my mom’s picking me up and I’m uploading it. So, I read... I hate to say that.

Hannah: There is nothing you could do that would disappoint me. Dear readers, can you imagine someone saying ‘I’m outside’ and then you going, ‘Okay, coming!’ and then pulling out some hilarious art in the time it takes you to get downstairs? That is really something.

Megan: Then on the other side, taking hours on videos, costume changes, text coming across the screen - not a single soul seeing it. They either want something that’s one minute or two hours.

Hannah: Did you start the Instagram Lives during quarantine, or was that something you did while you did live shows?

Megan: I didn’t ever go live until the week we were in lockdown lockdown, and then I was in New York alone, so I was almost going live every night. I was trying to feel normal and okay. I had nothing going on. My roommates left me. Not in a bad way, but they just left right away to their families.

Hannah: I tuned into so many of them. The effort that you put into them... And the place that you came from creating them was a place where you met all of us watching, if you know what I mean?

Megan: Oh my gosh, that’s so nice. I hate to complain because I know so many people had it so bad, but wasn’t it traumatising when we couldn’t perform live anymore?

Hannah: I had started to go on the road as a featured act, like two months before the pandemic. I had just become a semi-working comedian, so I was in this

really difficult but necessary period of growth. I’m from LA, born and raised, so my comedic sensibilities are shaped a certain way. I was starting to go throughout the Midwest and I was getting real experience. Then yeah, it all stopped and I had no prospects because I didn’t do Twitter in a substantial way. I didn’t have the capabilities of translating it online.

Megan: It’s like, all of a sudden there’s no stage? We all have to be online comedians? It’s wild. I wasn’t big online but I threw up a video every now and again, but then I definitely shifted only to feel... okay.

Hannah: Totally. That’s why Hacks was such a godsend, I’m sure for both of us, because it was the promise of a creative outlet. How was your first live performance since the pandemic?

Megan: I’ve been so addicted to live performing that when the pandemic started, I couldn’t even look at certain clothes I would wear on stage. It was like a breakup! I think it was an outside LA show and it was the best feeling on earth. Everyone was so excited to be there. Didn’t it feel like drugs, or something? We hadn’t had it in so long and part of you has the nervous beginner energy but then it felt even better than before.

Hannah: I had the exact same feeling. I would wake up sick to my stomach. I would truly draft cancellation texts, I would cry and feel terrible. I thought, ‘Why on earth, would any person in their right mind get up on stage in front of people?’ I had this new perspective on comedy because, as you know, when you do stand-up comedy people come up to you and go, ‘Oh my god, I could never get on stage. You’re so brave.’ I would go, ‘Doctors and nurses are brave, this is not brave. I am doing this out of desperation, actually.’ Coming back, it really made me see what people were talking about because, not that it is brave in a noble way, but that it’s brave in a risky...

Megan: Nerve-wracking way, yeah. Do you have a preference for live performance or acting in front of the camera?

Hannah: I think they’re both so different and I love them differently in their own ways. They’re fulfilling almost equally because being able to play with someone and the collaboration is so new to me and it’s so much fun and a richer product. There’s nothing like a live performance. For those of us who really start off doing comedy with the intentions of only doing comedy and find these things along the way, it will always be our special safe place. I have just started to have a more fluid approach to all of it because everything is just an expression of all of our souls.

Megan: That’s beautiful. No, truly! I keep pitching this, but I want Kayla to have long hair, like down to her knees.

Hannah: Because of the pandemic, we weren’t able to shoot a ton of our stuff together because most of the time we’re on the phone to each other.

Megan: Oh my god, do they have any scenes together?

Hannah: Only the pilot.

Megan: You’re right! They’re only in one scene together. We need them to have a dinner or something.

Hannah: The only other time is Vegas in [episode] 10.

Megan: I think Kayla thinks Ava is her best friend, but they never see each other.

Hannah: Kayla is Ava’s only real friend.

Megan: She’s very supportive of her, yeah.

Hannah: I wanna know, in episode 10 with the hotel room with you and Paul [Downs], what is improvised?

Megan: They’re so funny and the script is so good, and it sounds so naturally improvised, that it’s hard to remember what parts were and weren’t. But, the Fiji line was me. I think the sugarfish line was Paul and then I said the Fiji line, but I can’t remember if he improvised that or if it was written. It’s so intertwined. We had so much fun doing that scene that we kept doing it even though they got the shot.

Hannah: I love that.

Megan: And we’ve had a lot of long shots where it was completely improvised. The way that you can cut a scene where one part’s improvised and another was from a different take, it’s crazy. Did you and Jean [Smart] improvise?

Hannah: We did. I’m telling you there’s hours of solid fucking gold of me and Jean just going fucking off, takes that are minutes and minutes extra and Lucia just letting us fly. What is your favourite Kayla moment from the season?

Megan: Definitely the hotel scene. Paul is so funny. I’m such a mega fan of his. Broad City is one of my favourite shows and I definitely think he was one of the funniest parts about it. So, it was a dream to do that and the hotel scene was one of the audition scenes. When we did it together I was like, ‘I’ll be devastated if I don’t get this.’ Do you have a favourite scene of yours?

Hannah: I think Lemony Snicket, the scene in the antique dealership. I feel uncomfortable yelling and I was screaming at Jefferson Mays. That was so much fun to watch, to feed off of his energy because he is a real Tony Award-winning actor. To watch him commit to this desperation over this vase was truly so incredible and taught me so much, and

allowed working me with to him. go the places where I went, so I just loved

Megan: scene where That Deborah was one of leaves my favourites you and she to watch says, and ‘It’s not the enough gave her just the to little be good.’ shaker The is so scene sweet. at the end where you

Hannah: I was like, After ‘Oh my watching god. Are that Deborah episode and probably Ava the six pepper times, and salt shakers?’

Megan: I got the chills.

Hannah: Isn’t that crazy? It’s like you’ve gotta work for it. She goes out of her way and she gets the pepper shaker. That is the moment where the work truly begins.

Megan: I didn’t think about it like that. My other favourite scene is when you’re watching the tapes and she comes in and smiles at you. It kills me. I was sobbing.

Hannah: That killed me. Just looking at Jean and getting to see her live doing all of this is one thing, but really seeing her on screen is... As a viewer, it’s such a pleasure and so incredibly moving. She’s so fucking good.

Megan: You guys are truly amazing together.

Hannah: In terms of hopes for season two, where is your heart landing?

Megan: I’m just so excited to play the character and see what happens with the show that anything could happen and I’d be absolutely ecstatic. I’m so glad we got a season two and it’s so exciting to not have any idea what they’re writing for us. I’m gonna be shaking when I read the first script.

Hannah: I am so fucking desperate to read these new scripts, I cannot even express it. I feel the same way. I am so excited because I’ve grown to love every single character on this show so I cannot wait to see more people who haven’t interacted as much have moments together, and for these relationships to continue to deepen. Paul, Lucia and Jen are beautiful writers. It’ll be all of that and more.

Megan: They are the best writers in the world.

Hannah: We love you writers.