Next Question with Katie CouricCreating Comedy Gold with the creators of “Hacks”
Katie (a total Deborah) is joined by KCM producer Adriana Fazio (Katie’s Ava) to chat with the creative team behind the acclaimed show "Hacks"—Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky, and Paul W. Downs. The trio opens up about how their own path to comedy writing, including their love for classic TV like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and time spent waiting tables, inspired the characters of Deborah and Ava. From casting newcomer, Hanna Einbinder, opposite national treasure, Jean Smart, to the process of developing plotlines and story arcs, this episode offers a deep dive into the creative process behind an original show that has become a fan favorite.
Hi everyone, I'm Kittie Couric and this is Next Question. Okay, this is a bonus episode of Next Question, and I must say a pretty fun one. First of all, I've got my plus one today and it's none other than my sidekick, Adriana Fazzio. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Yes, she's terrific, Adriana. How excited are you to be here with me?
I am so excited. I'm usually silently next to you, but now I get to mic today.
And why are you excited? Fazzio?
I'm excited because you and I both love the show Hacks on Max, which rhymes. And we get to interview the three writers today, Jen Statski, Paul w Downs and Lucia Anello.
That's right. And when we watch this show, what do we always say, faz.
We say that we are the real life Dubbor Vance and Ava Daniels.
It's true for about or for worse.
Although we're not toxic.
No, well, I don't think they're toxic. Do you think they're toxic?
I do.
They are toxic maybe in moments, but then they have other moments of real just true affection and I don't know and connection, but anyway, I digress. First of all, they were so nice to spend so much time with us. But here is our conversation with the writers of our favorite show, Hacks.
Well.
First of all, I can't tell you how excited Atriona and I both are that you all have carved out a little time and your incredibly busy schedules to talk to us about Hacks. Because we love the show. We're obsessed with the show, and we actually think the show is about us. We do well. I'm an older, I'm sort of you know, I'm Deborah Vance and Adriana is Ava and we laugh about it all the time, and actually, following this podcast, we'd like to talk about a show based on us if you all have to do it, and you know, I know you think we're kidding, but we're actually not kidding.
Okay, love that.
I'm sure We're open for pitches. Let's do it.
Well.
First of all, I also want to say congratulations because it must be an incredible feeling. I know you all have had a lot of success in other shows, and we can talk about those, but I feel like Hacks has become so huge and has made such a mark. Paul, let me start with you. I mean, what is it like having such a hugely successful show. It must be thrilling, but also kind of a lot of pressure, right.
Well, it is a lot of pressure in that I think we've had such a great response and people, you know, who tell us that the show resonates with them, we just want to make it better every season for them. And you know, as people who love film and television, I love it when a show just gets better and better, and so I think there's pressure in that way. But knowing how much content in the world there is and how much great television there is, it is so gratifying that it's cut through because you never know, you know, we feel very very lucky that people have found the show and really respond to it.
Luccio, what about you?
Yeah, very similar sentiment, which is just like you know, I think, especially when people tell us how much the show means to them and how much they feel seen and connect to it, or say, you know, like I watched it with my dad when he was sick and it was something we could laugh at together.
You know, stories like that.
They're so sweet and touching, But also it makes me want to make the show good for those people and so that is really a huge source of the almost abilitating anxiety I feel in general about making the shows, Like I really just don't want to disappoint people, and I want, like Paul saying, to give them more of what they feel like they love about the show, but also, you know, still make the show that we want to make.
So it is.
It is a lot of pressure, but it really comes from having such gratefulness of being able to even make a show right now, Like the industry is in such a weird place of being able to be even writing a season four of a show, which we're doing right now, feels like such a rarity.
And Jen, bring it home, Jen.
No pressure, no everything, these guys said, And I think also, you know, just to get to make a comedy right now in twenty twenty four, we feel really privileged and lucky. Like we the three of us. You know, the show is about creative collaboration. It's about two people who are lit up and have a love of comedy and it's what drives them. And that's very much so the story of the three of us. We met doing comedy at the UCB in New York and we love it.
And upright citizens brigade for you neophyte listeners.
Yeah, and so to get to do that and make this comedy show with people that I meant like in a sketch group and like a theater underneath the grocery store is like feels really cool and special and we just I don't know, Yeah, there is there is pressure with it, but you try to just focus on how lucky you are.
Are you Canadian, by the way, because you say a bout I know.
Okay, so this is so talking about it all the time.
I'm glad she's either Canadian or from Baltimore.
I'm glad we're getting into this, Katie. So I'm from I'm from Boston and my.
Dad is what the hell is about about?
I know, it's so strange, it does pop out some sids.
What happened? Two things happened.
I think when I went to I had I had a pretty thick Boston accent because my dad is from South Boston and has like a really thick South the accent. I think when I went to NYU, I kind of lost the accent. But then I did date someone from Canada for a long time, and I think I picked.
Up started talking like that.
I started.
I think I picked up something. So shout out to Brian Bernstein. If you're listening to every piece of media I do. You're still in my life every day.
Hey, I'm big in Canada.
Paul, I believe it. I believe it.
So Lucie, I guess you're the best person to bring together the connective tissue A. Jen was talking a little bit about how you all met, but then also how Hacks became a show.
Yeah, so Paul and Jen and I, well, we originally all met when I'm Paul and I met at a level one UCB class, and then Jen and I maybe two or three years later or something like that, met because we were the only girls in a.
Kind of a sketch comedy group.
But then the boys stopped emailing us and so we were kind of kicked out of the group. But Jen and I remained friends, and then I introduced paulin gen around that same time, and we were just friends, you know, and then we I guess maybe when is the first time we worked together? Was it on Broad City that we actually well other than work making the videos?
Yeah, that's so crazy.
It was.
It might have been It might have been Broad City or maybe I had done punch up for something you guys did.
I don't know, because I did feel like we took their material and made it funnier Chan.
Yes, which is it's hard to do because they're incredibly funny, the best writers.
So I tried, at least. I don't know that I succeeded.
She she always does, but yeah, and so we basically we started writing together in different ways. Punched up a movie that we made rough Night when she was on set with us, and we wrote a spec script. The three of us wrote a movie that we tried to get made that we have yet to.
Succeed in doing. But then we were writing.
Jen and I were kind of helping Paul on his Netflix special all the characters called Up Down Search that and on our drive from Boston to Portland, Maine, which is where we were shooting a segment for it, we started talking about, you know, women in this industry, especially stand ups, who like you, kind of only read about when their obituary happens, and you're like, oh, yeah, why didn't they ever have the same kind of careers that their male counterparts had, And we were just kind of talking about this idea of what it's like to be a woman of a certain age who's had to, you know, try to make it in that industry at a certain time, and then what that does to your personality, What does that do to your psyche, what does that do to your career, and how you have to kind of gravitate towards certain kinds of materials to survive. Maybe is it kind of what you initially intended to do with your comedy, but it's a way to make money, and so that kind of is like where we.
Started having this idea.
And then the idea of like a younger comedian, a younger woman kind of learning to respect the older comedian through working with her, and just kind of what that generational conflict would do you just felt like a great story engine. It felt like a great character engine. We kind of just never stopped talking about it. Whether we were hanging out or working together, We just kind of always would email each other ideas, Oh.
It could be this idea or that idea. Like it just kind of over the course of a.
Couple of years, from like I think twenty fifteen until twenty nineteen, it's just something we were always working on on the back burner and then twenty nineteen.
We were like, it really just felt like the right time to pitch it.
And it took you five years, as you said, from kind of the conception to getting it ready to pitch, and you were all busy doing other things. I know, Jen, you were on the good place, right And weren't you guys also working on broad City? Lucia and Paul, As Lucia mentioned, you both had plenty of other projects, but this thing was just sort of this nagging idea that wouldn't go away. And I want to talk about the characters and who they're based on in a minute, but if you will indulge me for a moment, I'm sort of interested in all of yours gin stories because I love to know kind of why people become what they become. And I know, Paul, you grew up in New Jersey. You describe yourself as kind of a weird, quiet, shy kid, and you had parents who were super funny, and you kind of related. I think you said that that comedy kind of fueled you, and it also made you less lonely, it made you connect with people. See, I did my research polem. Can you talk a little bit about that and how ultimately you decided to pursue this as a career.
Yeah, I mean, you know, I was.
I certainly actually wasn't shy, is the truth. But I was very eccentric and strange as a child, I think, and my parents certainly fan the flames of that. They you know, my mom and I used to watch Nick at night and we watched I Love Lucy and Bewitched and you know, whatever else was on. And my dad was a big fan of the Marx Brothers and mel Brooks and you know, so I was watching Young Frankenstein probably before I even understood what half of the references were. And yeah, it was the thing as a kid that you know, I think a lot of people get into comedy because it's, you know, the thing that, especially when you share a sense of humor with somebody, you find your people. And certainly for me, it was also a way of, you know, you can avoid being bullied if you can make people laugh, So that was certainly it was a defense mechanism in a way too. And yeah, I just always loved it, and I loved Saturday Night Live, and I loved watching Robin Williams, and I just wanted to do what he and those people did, so I started writing for myself. In high school, I would do character monologues because I went to a school that had a great performing arts program, and there was this thing called the black Box Theater, and at lunch time you would do like lunch room performances, like a coffee shop for the kids who weren't sitting at the popular table. You could go and do like coffee shop poetry or character monologue.
Oh, I love your school. I'm so glad they did that.
Yeah, the Pingree School.
Shout out to al Romano and Patricia Wheeler who were running the program there at the Pingree School. But yeah, it was like a performance at arts high school. And I think that certainly started me off. And then when I went to college, I did improv in sketch and college, and so when I moved to New York after I was doing stand up and I was auditioning for things, and I wanted to be a comedic actor. But it wasn't until I started doing improv again. And actually it was day one of our first improv class that I met Luccia and I told them this recently, it's so weird. Maybe it's just because you know, someone's going to be important in your life. But I remember the moment of meeting both general Lucia, and I don't have that for many people in my life, which is pretty wild.
What do you remember?
Well?
I showed up early to class because I was so nervous, and Luccia came about ten or fifteen minutes late, very nonplussed, and said what are we doing? And I was like, who is this girl who was so confident and walked in and was like essentially. And then very shortly thereafter, I was doing a scene in this class and she did turn to the instructor and said, you should write that line down, which is not something to do in improv, but she was already directing that's funny.
And then I knew of.
Jen because I had read some of the sketches that Lucia and Gen were writing, and for Lucia to be lit up by somebody meant they were very special. And I know Lucia spoke so fondly of Jen and how funny she was, so I was very excited to meet her. And then I met her at a coffee shop and I was struck by well, I did say, wow, funny and beautiful which is probably very inappropriate nowadays.
It's like I couldn't do.
It, but it's interesting because it was in front of your girlfriend at the time.
I'm not that jealous tight, but that's the kind of guy I am.
No, Yeah, I said, you know what, He's totally right. I agree, And that's.
An exclusive Miss Katie about that.
Yeah, breaking news is such an old timey line to kind of do.
Also at like what were you twenty four twenty fives?
Truly am I grout show Mark speaking of Yeah, I done the harp, putting my leg in her hand when I shook her hand.
But it was very old school thought Villian almost.
Yeah, Jen, I know that you really like the Mary Tyler Moore Show and that was part of the reason you wanted to become a TV writer. What was it about that show that drew you to the industry.
Yeah, I was like, like I was an only child and my parents were around a lot.
I watched a lot of Nicked Night, like old tea.
Like this is a this is some connective tissue nicked Ye. Were you a big Nicked Night person?
I watched it. I see liked night.
Anonymous thought I were more Yeah, she was cooler, that is true.
I don't know, but were you watching the Mary Tyler Moore Show on Nicked Night, Because, by the way, Jen, you and I are kind of on the same page because I became a journalist because of the Mary telling Marsh and absolutely loved that show. And I thought it was so interesting when I read that you thought the pilot was the perfect pilot, and then it made me. I've rewatched the Mary Taylor Moore Show on YouTube or on what yeah, I guess on YouTube, and do you remember exactly what was in the pilot? Is that when Lou Grant said you have spunk and I hate sponsor.
Yeah, yeah, So the pilot, to me, that is exactly it.
During the interview when Lou and Mary meat for the first time, it is that, you know, I think the reason it's such a good pilot is like that in that interview scene, their rapport and their comedic games are so evident right immediately, and you immediately are like, oh, I want one hundred more episodes of these two doing this. And so I thought about that scene a lot during the deborn Ava interview scene in our pilot because it kind of had the same exact feeling which was you need to buy into the dynamic between these characters immediately for it to work, and you know Mary, they have such crazy good chemistry in that scene. It's so funny. And then the other reason I think it's the perfect pilot and it did influence me wanting to be a TV sitcom writer is for me like sitcoms are so special and wonderful when they are both really funny but have heart and make you feel things, even in thirty minutes twenty one minutes on Network, and that pilot is so funny, but it also is so heart wrenching at the end when her you know X comes back and she's moved and she's like kind of kind of been longing for him and he comes back in our life and she's finally realized her value and it's just like a two line thing. But when he says like, take care of yourself, Mary, and she goes, I think I just did that like made me choke up. That made me choke up as like a ten year old, And I was like, oh, this this is so funny and also so real and emotional that those are the stories I want to tell and what I want to do.
So yeah, it was incredibly influential to me.
We're going to throw it to break but first, I'm Katie Couric and I'm Adriana Fasio, my plus one for today's episode, and we'll be back with more of the writers from Hacks right after this. If you want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wakeupcall by going to Katiecuric dot com. We're back with the writers from our favorite show, Hacks. Luccia, I know that you didn't get into a school you wanted to get into and you ended up waitressing at a restaurant called KOI. Yes, and even before that, tell me what drove you to this line of work?
Yeah, I mean I I actually kind of what I really wanted to do when I was younger was be an MTV VJ.
That was like what I wanted to do.
I was like that just you wanted to be Martha Quinn, Yes, I literally did.
I was like, that's right, I'm going to hang out with rock stars and just kind of hang out.
I get famous doing it that.
She was perfect doing that.
Well.
Yeah, yeah, but she has an amazing music taste, so that's very sweet.
But that didn't work out. So then, you know, I also loved comedy.
I loved watching you know, SNL and I was obsessed with The Simpsons and Daria was really influential to.
Me as a kid. But then when I went to college and my undergrad I.
Did go I went to Columbia and I was and I loved the film studies program there, but I didn't get into grad school. I wanted to go to NYU Film School and I didn't get in, and so take that and film school, so I started I started doing improv classes because I knew I literally like googled Amy Poehler.
I was like, what does she? How did she get to because it was.
A time where Tina and Amy were the weekend update hosts. And then that led me to UCB, and so I moved back to New York after college, I like took this summer off and then that's where I met Paul. But I kind of, you know, i'd studied film studies and so I wasn't really planning on being a director necessarily, even though like you know, I had now seen so many films as an undergrad that it was really you know, I had a certain language to discuss it, and I actually thought maybe I would go into criticism because I had a professor.
There, Andrew Sarra, So I really learned a lot from and loved.
But then when we started, you know, like performing and doing improv and sketches and all that, I did start to gravitate towards the directing. But part of what I felt like was a great education for directing was waitressing. And yes I worked at a couple of restaurants in New York, but the tenure, my longest tenure was like Croy, which is that the Brian Parker tell.
I loved their coursby Rice with.
It's fantastic, and I have to say they're like the ogs of that. I don't remember having it before or seeing it now. It's kind of everywhere, but.
I know you Rice.
But I also grew up in the restaurant business. My parents own restaurants and my dad was a chef and my mom designed them. It was a pastry chef, and also they ran the restaurant together. So I also grew up with a husband and wife in front of me working together as Paul, and I do now?
And and where was that again, Lucia?
This was an Amherst, Massachusetts.
Oh that's right, that's right.
Are you the one that's behind the Papa Gino's pertucciese choke?
Actually no, because I would never go to another pizza.
Place, like I would never go.
To those places because yeah, she wouldn't be caught dead in a Papainos.
Papa Gino's family.
So I thank you for your six family.
Also, yeah, yeah.
I'm not I met my own family.
Literally, you're an an yellow family.
Yeah, I'm in a yellow so but I definitely felt like, you know, working as a waitress was such a great education for show running and directing, because you deal with front of house, back of house, you know, which is very much like dealing with networks and executives and you know, actors, and then also.
Back of the house, which is also kind of actors but like.
Crew people, and you know, learning the nuts and bolts of what goes into it and having to kind of shape shift depending on who you were dealing with, and like do I need to just be brief here and just get it done, or do I go over here?
And you know, do they want to show or whatever it is.
It's like everybody needs something different and you need it all to decide immediately. And also things are moving one hundred miles per hour and you get in the weeds in both scenarios where you're like, oh my god, it's so much right now, how am I going to get through this? And it's just one foot in front of the other and putting out fires and and so I really actually feel that waitressing was like the most incredible education I could have asked for.
And maybe maybe you could do a show about a restaurant, maybe based in Chicago behind you chef and all your experiences at Coy.
You know what's so funny is that? Okay, so now I can't do that show because of the bear. Great show, but also, you know, the other thing that I'm very passionate about is soccer.
And I can't do yo.
So I'm like, what about a female soccer story. I feel like they can't have the corner on the market on soccer. I mean, I don't know. It seems like people have short memories too, which is something you were worried about because you guys had a big do you like that seamless transition.
That was good. I know what's going yet, but I'm loving.
That because you guys had to take a big break because Jean had some medical issues and then you had the writers strike, and I know you were concerned that viewers weren't going to stay with you or they were going to move on, but I think nobody moved on. I was so excited and Adrian, we were so excited when the third season came on. Weren't we a trona? We were so weird, so weird, and we were.
Like cracking up in the theater at south By Southwest, like to a strange degree.
Oh that's great, thank.
You, that's so nice.
Oh that's so goa. That was such a fun screening.
That was really so fun.
We were so happy you guys were able to come.
Well, we're your biggest fans, as I said, So, I know you guys have said that Deborah is really an amalgamation of a lot of female comedians.
Can you talk to us a little bit about building out her character and what you might have pulled from who.
That was sort of the biggest challenge in getting the show ready to pitch was creating this history of this iconic stand up, and yeah, basically in our history of the character, she started doing a husband and wife live comedy act, kind of like Nichols and May, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and they had a very public and messy divorce. Not unlike Lucio Ballan Desiernez, she was you know, maligned by managers. And we read Debbie Reynolds's autobiography and there's obviously a lot of Joan Rivers. She has her stand up life, but also her QVC life, and then there's you know, there's other stand ups like Paula Poundstone and Phyllis Diller, and she's sort of an amalgamation of a lot of different women who you know, suffered in dignity after indignity, especially in the industry of comedy. And Ava is much more someone you know from sort of our generation, though younger than us now, who came up, you know, through a more traditional comedy writing path, although she was plucked off of Twitter, as Debra says in the pilot, But you know, both of them are our characters that exist in our minds in the world of comedy.
As someone who was an assistant, I can't imagine writing Ava's character without having some lived experience of being an assistant or a writer's assistant. John, how much of Ava is based on the early days of your career.
I mean, Ava is very much her experience as a comedy writer is very much an amalgamation of all three of ours, you know, having come up doing comedy. I mean I was, I was a assistant to difficult people at times, and so yeah, there's a little bit of that in there. But I think you know, the thing that Ava has at the beginning that hopefully none of us had, is like all three of us, like like we said, waitress saying, working in service industry, like kind of pounding the pavement doing comedy like we didn't. I guess I maybe I did get my first paid writing job at twenty five, which is really young.
But Ava is even more of like.
Didn't have to pay her dues at all, like she kind of in our backstory for her, like got this job off of Twitter and didn't even finish college, so in a way, like, yeah, she didn't have that until she meets Debra, of course, and then she goes through the hazing prices of working for dever Vance in season one and beyond, never quite had anything as rough as the gembre A dynamic, though thankfully not yet.
Anyway, I want to ask you guys about Hannah because she's got a really interesting background too, and I know that you all marvel at her acting chops, how committed she is, and also what a great person she is. I'd love to hear more about that, because we always hear when people are creeps and not when they're really nice. Right, But you know, she's got an interesting sort of family history and comedy, and just tell us a little bit about picking her for the role and where there are a lot of people who auditioned. And I know you can't tell us who auditioned and who didn't get the role, although those stories are always so fascinating, But tell us a little bit about selecting her for the role of Hannah.
Yeah, we I think, I don't know, Jen, you counted it one point, how many people.
Read I think I looked at all the casting tapes submissions we had gotten because we only you know, we started doing readings for her in person, and then COVID happened and so then everything switched to virtual and I think at one point I tali it up and we saw almost five hundred audition tapes for a Oh my gosh.
Were they well known people or were they mostly.
It was a combination.
There was some definitely well known people, and then of course a lot of people who, like Hannah, had not really done much or people who had just been working. We're working actors, you know. We always in the conception of the show when we talked about casting, we didn't lock ourselves into anything, but we always felt that it was Gene and she'd be incredible, and like, you know, that it would be a known performer for Deborah, and then the dream was to find kind of a newer discovery for Ava. So we were really open to getting tapes from anyone and everyone, and we watched all of those and Hannah really in her first tape and every moment after that, every callback and to the test with Gene, she just really surprised us. And you know, you you the thing about it being a writer is you when you audition people, you hear your writing and you're scene over and over and over, and I will just speak for myself, I was like, I can't hear this scene anymore.
It's not good. This doesn't work.
You know, like when people you know, we were lucky, we had really wonderful people addition, but no, like you know, you just sometimes I think it's not that, it's not that and it's so specific. And when Hannah did it, she just brought something so unique and new to it but also familiar to us because we had been living with this character for so long and we knew who Aba was and who she was supposed to be. So to get that combination of someone delivering on what you'd envision but also bringing you know, newness and freshness, and like, oh I never imagined that line that way, but that.
Works, That's what it should be.
Like.
She really had that in space.
And it's so interesting that her mom is Lorraine Newman from SNL And I know, you know that was that was kind of exciting? Was she pretty much just writing and not acting? Was this? I know because I think I read Paul that you said it's just such a shock that she had never acted before.
Really oh crazy. In fact, I remember when Jeane found out and she was like what Because some people just have something that Hannah has, which is it isn't innate. She has a gift for you know, she is just so natural and so watchable, and also she's able, especially in this season, to become so authentically emotional. You know, she's never acting at something, she is feeling these feelings of the character. She is so in the character. And part of it, I think because she comes from a family that valued comedy and worshiped comedy, like I think, she has the same kind of reverence for comedy that Ava has, so she really feels the character. And for us, you know, we had Gene attached and she is a national treasure. So part of the reason for the extensive search was you want someone who can go toe to toe with Gene, and if you're getting someone who's lesser known, that's a very tall task. And also, you know, we really wanted somebody that earned the role.
And so actually, when.
We googled Hannah, the only thing we could find was she had done Colbert, which is ironic and very full circle since doing Late Night is very much the white whale for our main character. So she had done some stand up and she is a stand up but that was about it. And then we also discovered who her mom was, and that her mom was Loraine Newman, who all of us were fans of. But we also were like, oh, nope, I hope people don't have the misconception that she got her foot in the door because we had no idea when she auditioned who she was, much less who her mother was, you know what I mean. So it was a really interesting thing that I think it gives her so much to draw from in her actual life in terms of what women in comedy have gone through and in terms of like what comedy means to people. But for us, we never we didn't ever want that to precede her because she is so so good and she is She's always like, well, I'm I'm a comedian. I come from comedy, And we're like, sure, you're a comedian, but you are a gifted actress.
You are an.
Actresspitala And I guess she's been nominated for Emmy's but hasn't won one yet. And I think this is going to be her year. Kids. You know, you say, Jeane Smart is a national treasure, and honestly, you know, as somebody who was a big fan of hers, who watched Designing Women, you know, I feel like she hasn't had a platform like design since Designing Women to really show her incredible skills and just how funny she is. Was that a natural thing going to Smart? And I love what Atrona was mentioning about this amalgamation of comedians, because you know, these are kind of my generation, like Elaine Boosler, like when it was last time you heard that name, and Paula Poundstone and all these women who You're right it was it must have been so hard for them back in the day. But was Jean Smart just an immediate thought from you all, or how did you come up with her as the lead?
Yeah?
It was a very short list, you know, and Genie's very much at the top of that list. And I think the thing we were searching for was somebody obviously who could be a believable stand up, because if you don't believe this woman is a stand up and like kind of this iconic Eva, then the whole thing Paul's apart, you're like, eh. But we knew that we wanted to write towards some more dramatic elements and to be able to find somebody who could do comedy and believably be a stand up but also can do serious dramatic work. And it has a resume that shows that it was really hard there's some people that were like, that person's so funny, but can they do drama?
They've never really done it? Do they want to do it? Is that going to be a stretch?
But Gene was really the perfect person for us because not only can she do comedy and drama in equal measure, but there's something about also her stature, her aura that just gives like this fabulous twist to it as well and feels like this. You know, it's partly because she's a tall, gorgeous blonde, but there's just something about she has a command and she just draws your eye and it just felt like that is what you kind of need to believe that this is a woman whose entire ecosystem circles her.
And you know what not to diminish her prolific career because she's been working, honestly, NonStop, she works so much. But she was always one of our favorite things when we would see Frasier. She stood out in that show so much. And you know, when she did the Brady Bunch movie, she plays like a really seen stealing person in that movie. And it's crazy to think that she very much embodies Debora because even though Jane has worked forever and is beloved. She'd ever been number one on the call sheet. She had never had a lead that could show her range. So it was sort of like, Oh, here's someone who maybe hasn't had their due to show the world everything that she can do. And so in that way, she very much was Debra Vance.
And she's I think she's seventy three geen and you meet shen't ask me. I mean she's she is so gorgeous. I met her at gosh, I think I went to a Vanity Fair party for the Oscars. I know I'm very cool, and were walking out at the same time. First of all, she's so lovely and I've interviewed her before, but that lady is one tall drink of water. Yes, she was amazing, and she's just so gorgeous.
When we met Jean and Hannah and all of you at south By Southwest, Jean was presenting Hannah with a an award, and their relationship in real life just seems so authentic and so sweet. Did their Chemist Street Was it obvious just from the first table read?
It was actually from the audition, I would say, yeah, it was just like an immediate even just the way that they like, you know, there's something also about their.
Gender expression that also just felt like the right thing.
Where you know, Debra, I mean, Gene is just kind of this like statuus, you know, female ideal, and Hannah also so beautiful, but like has kind of you know, she she showed up.
In the Doc Martin's and the Gunians and it was just kind of like.
She had a grunge going.
Yeah, just something about just the way that they looked together that just felt right. And it's true that like their relationship mirrored that, like, and they've really been there for each other through a lot of hard, hard moments. We've had some you know, really sad things happen on our show.
I was going to mention because I talked to Jane about this, and I think, you know, she was very generous about talking to me because I lost my husband a number of years ago, but she lost her husband of thirty five years, I know, in March of twenty twenty one. And you know, gosh, I guess work, at least for me, it was really invaluable for me because you could compartmentalize and focus on something other than your sadness. But that must have been a tough period for her and for you all for her.
Right, Oh yeah, we've all I mean, and this is overused this term, but we really have become family. You know, you become that when you're together with people for so long in so many places, and especially when you've been through things like that. And I think, you know, it happened during shooting. It was like the last couple of weeks of season one, and.
I know that.
Hannah was really there for her, and Caitlyn Olsen, who plays her daughter on the show, was really there for her.
You know.
Jeane has now a thirteen year old and she has two children. But it was really it was a very hard time. But Jean, I think she wanted to finish the show and come back and have you know.
She didn't want the crew to be out of work.
She was like, let's finish, and I think it was nice for her to be back together with this little family. But yeah, it was. It's been kind of crazy the things that have happened. A lot of life has happened behind the scenes.
I wanted to ask you all, Sorry, Faz, you want to ask something.
I was going to ask Paul about Meg Stalter because she's your counterpart on the show, and I love.
Her, love Meg Stalter Adron, and I love I mean, we love everyone on the show. Paul, we also love you on the show. Well, thank you very much. So yeah, we think you're great and so funny, but thank you. Meg is so funny. Yeah, and that first season especially just so annoying and so hilarious. I felt for you having her work for you. Tell us about her because she kind of came came out of no where, didn't she.
I mean, she's another one who this was her first like television job. You know, she had been doing live comedy and she is like she comes from the alt comedy scene where the three of us met and was doing like Instagram videos. Really we had we had written this character and we're basing it on like again. This character was also, weirdly an amalgamation of people we have known. But Meg, in her character work on Instagram did this thing of having like bravado but also kind of a weird, kind of stuttery way of speaking in a nervousness that weirdly like was exactly what we wanted. And then I did a stand up show that she was on, and she was I had never seen anything like it. It was To call it stand up is unfair. Honestly, it's performance are like she you know, you like write a set in jhone a set and she came in. She's like, okay, hello everybody. Oh that's my daughter right there. Please be nice to my daughter. It was just so like the stream of consciousness bizarre. So like I'm going to show you how to enter a party and make a scene.
I can't.
Even if you get a chance to see her performing, you guys have to because it's like her live is incredible. I've never seen someone so connected with the audience but like off book and like you're chaotic, chaotic, but it's like she's in control because it works and everyone's laughing.
She's so free. I think that's the thing. She's so free, and that's like a great thing to have in a scene partner because it allows you to be free too. You have to be because there's just like it's just an electric thing and we have a lot of fun, sometimes too much fun that she and myt the time.
She's like, guys, get the story.
Please, we make.
Each other laugh, you know, like she was.
She and I both had a mutual affection for each other, and that night we met, we were able to tell one another and it was really like even though she audition for the role, and even in her audition, she was like she was remembering that she had like a lamp on the floor.
She was like, yeah, it was like an interrogation room.
There was like one bowlb on a thing, and she's like, I thought this would look good. Sorry, it became like.
A performance piece just getting her to start the audition over zoom.
So there's no one like Meg's aalter.
Well, I was going to say, this is probably one of the best things that ever happened to her to be in the show, because she's just exploded as a result. We're going to throw it to break. But first I'm Katie Couric and I'm Adriana Fazzio, my plus one for today's episode, and we'll be back with more of the writers from Hacks right after this. We're back, And of course I couldn't let them go without talking about a scene from my favorite season, season three, and you'll hear why.
Look, I'm your sister and I shouldn't have done it, But you two weren't even sleeping in the same room for months he made the first move and I.
Was only nineteen years old.
To give me a fucking break, you stayed married to him?
Yeah, because he made me happy.
I mean, you don't want to hear this, but we were a better match than you two were.
And thank god because.
Because I lost my sister for it.
Oh, I'm sorry. You've been so much pain.
Well I have been.
I've also paid for it.
I've taken all your punishment over the years, billboards for all your specials on my street. You told Katie Couric, I can't read.
It's a joke.
Who thought of the Katie Curic line? I'm going to give full credit where credit is due, Lucia, was that you, Paul?
I don't remember.
I actually, I think guys correct me if I believe we have to credit our writer's room with that.
Yeah, I probably.
I think one of our writers wrote that joke. And and we will find their name. We will tell you names. We'll find out who and tell you and you can send them a gift basket.
Or I don't know them a Katie correct media mug.
Okay, I guess.
One of the things that we sometimes do is we'll have like a lot, like an area and we'll highlight that. We'll write a joke and we'll highlight it and send it back to our writers, and we'll basically get pages and pages of alts, and we won't know which of our writers wrote which jokes, and then we'll go through them and just pick our favorite one or two. Those will be perhaps what will end up in the draft, which is why we're saying we don't actually know it was in that list of joke.
But I will say I don't ever. I didn't think of it as a Paline reference. I just thought that it was a Deba either you did, Deborah No.
I thought that was like just Deborah did a one on one with you and she's talking about her sister and she said, well, you know you can't read, And that just was part of even for some reason.
I mean, maybe maybe they thought of it that way. But it's so funny because Luc and I just rewatched Game Change and we were like, man, what a pivotal moment in political history was.
I had a good I thought Jay Roach did such a good job. And Janny Strong, who I think is? I think Danny Strong is so amazingly talented. I I thought dope SIIC was one of the best shows. I'm fantasticing as hell, but so good and so well written. I just think Danny Strong is a genius. Well, Adriana, I feel like I kind of picked this conversation as I usually do. It's fine, it's all good. You did he not put makeup on for this?
No?
I did tell so so.
Among the things, among the things that contribute to the Katie Adrianna Deborah aerodynamic one. Katie always picks up my shoes and says, are these yours? Are these John's her husband's.
Because she said.
Achana has very big feet.
I wear a nine. But I literally put like lit bom on before.
There, and I feel like, you look like you have mess scar on. I don't you just have very pretty eyelashes.
Then the show, it might be a reality show for you guys.
Oh wow, I know pretty good, Adriana. I'll tell you very quickly and then I'll let you guys go to a million things to do. But Adriana uh went to Notre Dame and she wrote her thesis about me and what was the name of the thesis?
Adriana Katie Kirk's career and shifting perceptions of femininity in broadcast Journalissa thank.
You Cool.
Was very smart because she somebody she knew, the mother knew a producer I had worked with on Sixty Minutes and eighty Way. Adriana tried every which way to get to me, and I think my friend Deirdre actually was a producer on sixty Minutes. She wrote me and said, you know this girl is writing her thesis about you. Can you do an interview with her? And you know I do get a few requests like that, and I was like, oh well. I was very flattered, like wow, the whole thesis about me. That's gonna that's gonna be hard, but okay. And I remember my assistant at the time was like, you don't want to do this, really, do you? And I was like, no, I feel like I should do it, So go ahead to Adrian to pick up the story from there.
So then Notre Dame gave me a grant to do research, and I flew to New York and I all of a sudden heard from Katie as I landed at Guardia. It was very made for TV, but you landed at La Guardia. Why So I conveniently used the grant that Notre Dame gave me to book a flight to New York the weekend that Notre Dame had a football game at Yankee Stadium, And then I was hoping that the timing would work out and it did.
Smart.
Oh yeah.
Then Katie invited me over to her part meant to interview her, and I was hungover, slightly incredibly nervous and like sweating through my like blouse that my professor like made me wear.
Oh my god.
Yeah, she was so cute.
Do you guys have a photo of that? Yeah?
Oh we do.
Then I was writing a book and she was graduating, and I was like, hey, I's Rhanna, You're you know more about me than I do, having written this thesis. Do you want to come and help me write my book? And she did, and then the pandemic happened. She ended up living with us for like over a year.
Oh my god, Oh my god.
And so anyway, Atreano knows me probably better than almost anyone, including my husband.
Oh my god.
Okay, this is a show. This is a show.
It's a show.
It's a show.
Why you guys live together?
Yeah, wow, I want to be mindful of your time. But I wanted to ask just a couple quick questions about the logistics of making the show, because I've never really been in a writer's room. I think I told you all my daughter Ellie writes for this show called The Boys Onto Side. Yeah, I think I mentioned that at South By Southwest and I kind of understand what it's like. But you know, when you sit down and you're kind of talking about what is going to transpire in each episode, is that the three of you kind of just riffing?
Do you all?
I mean? And are there a lot of other writers in the room. Can you just kind of give us a sense of how something goes from an idea to an actual episode.
Yeah, so at the beginning, it's like the three of us really kind of hone in on what we you know, there's a tremendous amount of material that we built up while we were developing this show and when we pitched it. I think We've said this many times, but we you know, when we pitched the show, we pitched the very last scene of the series. So we know very much have a roadmap of where we want to go for each sea and in for the characters, and so three of us, you know, we talk before a season of like what we big picture ideas and what the ten polls are, and you know, we do like blue sky big picture can kind of be anything. And then we'll have you know, sometimes we'll have a few outlines even written or you know, things like that before the writer's room starts, because you know, the thing with the show, it's like such a we're very lucky to keep making it. But it's like by the time we finish post on one season, we're doing press for that season coming out, and then by the time you know it, like the press hasn't ended, but we're starting writing the next season. And so it's kind of just like this constant train that's always on the tracks and moving.
You know, we talked me out. It's a it's a party train. It's a fun trains NonStop but NonStop.
Yeah, And so you know, then the writer's room, well, we have a wonderful group of writers who you know, pretty much all of them have been with us since season one, and they come in and we you know, the breaking of an episode is you talk big picture, you say, okay, here are the ten polls of the season. We know, for example, in season three, we know we're building to Deborah getting this show and then taking the job away from Eva and then blackmail. But so then when you start getting more granular, it's like, okay, the premiere episode, Deborah and Ava, they've been a part. We know we're going to do a time jump, they have to come back together. Where are they coming back together? Like just kind of big idea pit, like pitches on what that can be. Then you hone in on stuff. And once you hone in on stuff, I'm getting very granular and specific, but maybe it's interesting you start writing it down. You start writing it down on cards, which is kind of breaking of an episode, which is each index card is a scene, and just saying like, okay, deborahn Neva meet in the elevator. They have an awkward interaction where Deborah's kind of cold to her and Ava is taken aback by it. And you just do that for a full episode until you have all the scenes broken and you feel good about the beats of the story and the turns and the character development and the resolution. And then once you know we've all decided that that works, someone goes off and outlines it, and then someone goes off and writes the episode, and so yeah. We usually the three of us write a half or so of the episodes, maybe a little less of the season, and then our writers write the others.
But it's such a TV writing. The thing I love about it is it's like.
Such a collaborative process that like sometimes when people would be like, you know, I would when I was a staff writer in Parks and Rack or good Place, They'd be like, oh, you wrote that episode. I could tell you wrote that episode, And I'm like, everyone write, you know what I mean, Like it's it's it's which is what's so wonderful about it and like so so fun is that it's really collaborative.
And Lucci do you all have you all directed episodes? I know, Lucia, you have done a number of episodes, right, I mean I should know this. I apologize, but tell me about direct.
I direct most of them. Paul has also done I think you've done. Has it been to each season?
Yes, so Paul is directed at least yeah, to each season.
And we've had a couple guests come and do one or two episodes of season. But but I usually do what a six or so at a season something with that of the eight or nine or ten.
And Jen, don't you want don't you want to direct?
You know, I get this question a lot.
I've been really spoiled by my creative collaboration with two phenomenal directors because I'm not I'm not lacking in feeling the show is in very good hands. But if I want the show to start going downhill, I definitely will Doret.
We always say we want her to direct, but you know we can't force her.
You know, you say the show going downhill, and I you know it must be sort of when I said earlier on about you know, it's both exhilarating but a lot of pressure. You know, these characters do have to evolve and new things have to happen, and you all have to come up with new storylines. And I think season three was really I found it more dramatic in some ways than comedic, although of course there's so many comedic moments. But you really started to understand Debra's journey. I hate the word journey. Don't hate the word journey, like we need to strip that from the lexicon because it just is so overused by breast cancer. Journey's journey anyway, but you know, tell me about kind of what went into that and where you go from here. Obviously you go from she got the late night talk show, right, and that I can't imagine doesn't provide just endless storylines and fun things about staffing and all sorts of stuff. Right, You can introduce all kinds of characters, but can you just talk about sort of the evolution of her character and where you see the show going in season four? If you guys, are you starting to wait? When does season four come.
Out next spring?
Next next spring? But so we're starting to shoot in September.
Yes, yeah, we're writing it now.
We're about halfway through, well a little bit more than halfway through writing season four. We always knew season three was going to be her Deborah's quest to get this late night job which was opening up. And you know the idea of late night. Obviously, late night is such like an institution in the comedy world, and it was the thing that you like. I think that for stand ups it was like the marquee job, the thing that they all wanted to do, and if you were a stand up, it was the show you wanted to be on because it could make your career. And so we always wanted to build to this season. But now that we're in season three and you understand the characters more and you get to see, you know, I think, a different gear for each of them. So we got to get underneath the characters. We get to meet Deborah's sister, which was obviously a point of trauma for her since her husband left her for her sister. We got to get some more you know, heartfelt moments from Jimmy and Kayla because now we've been with them and while they are the comedic duo and oftentimes comedic relief, that we got to see a little bit more of what makes them tick. And so yeah, I think partially because the stakes are so high for Deborah in this stage in her career, it lent itself to being emotional and in some in some cases more dramatic. But I think that was the thing for us, is that we always wanted to make a show that was both heartfelt and hard funny, and we never saw that to the degree that I hope we get to do because we have a show about comedians who get to deliver jokes. Like Deborah's love language is joking. She's addicted to telling jokes. She cannot not make a joke about something even you know, DJ, her daughter after feeling very maligned in that AA meeting or that NA meeting, is like, don't make jokes, Like she just can't stop making joke folks. So we get to how our cake and eat it too, which is make a show about comedy where we get to tell hard jokes but then also show the real life moments that are hard and sad and you know, real for these characters too. And then season four, like you say, it's like, we're off to the races. Because while getting that job was a huge challenge for Deborah, launching a late night show and having it be a success is an even bigger challenge.
Are you going to be talking about you know, it's interesting because I know, I'm sure you all do too, people who work on late night shows. Nobody's really watching them anymore on television. They're watching them online the next day. You know, the ratings are I don't want to say infinitesimal, but they're not nearly what you would think they would be or you know, what they were in the day before digital you know, before iPhones and online stuff. Are you going to be dealing with that or is that to complex? But I feel like, if you if you want it really of the moment, you're going to have to talk about this stuff, will you? And if not, I just gave you a terrific idea.
I mean, one of the things that we are going to be kind of tackling is the idea of the glass cliffs, which is that you know, women oftentimes in business especially are kind of offered hired job or you know, CEO jobs or positions of power you know, right before kind of the downfall of the company, as sometimes as a scapegoat, sometimes.
As a like glass resort.
Okay, finally, final, let's give it to a woman now that we've kind of already sunk the ship or whatever it is, I'm not.
Familiar with that phenomenon.
Yeah, so for us, that's definitely something that will be tackling, and like you said, it is of the moment. And also, you know, I think that's part of why Debra is given the show, you know, is because so you know, it's almost impossible to have a successful late show, but if there's anybody crazy enough to make something as success, it's sub Evans.
So that's definitely part of what season four is a dow.
And I'm so glad, you know, because really it's really ridiculous. I just wrote an op ed in the New York Times about how there will be no female anchors of evening news broadcasts after Nora O'donnald steps down after the election. And you know, that is a declining industry or declining format for sure, But it's still attracts about, gosh, nineteen million people a night now. Granted they're all out buying fix it in and depends. But you know, if you look at the commercials, you're like, whoa. But you know, I think it's so important in it it really it bothers me. That's still with the exception of Samantha Bee, there really haven't been any successful and of course Joan Verse for that moment in time, successful late night comedians. And I think it's you know, it shows a real bankruptcy of imagination for programmers and audiences.
Honestly, absolutely, yeah, I think that's I mean, that's very much part of the ethos of the show is about how unfair that is and how, you know, in this world we get to do it. But you know, we were asked in an interview, do you think you'll see a female president or a female late night host first, and we said, President, it's a really weird thing that, you know that they haven't been given the chance. And I think that the same goes for broadcast journalism. It is it is really wild because audiences are also largely, if not equally, female, you know, I think women just have a greater ability to empathize and watch someone in a different gender role than their own. And I think there is still like a weird ingrained thing even in storytelling, even in shows, you know, like especially in comedies, there are not a ton of female at comedies. Yes, of course they've been fantastic ones, and we talked about many of our favorites that were on Nick at Night, but they really don't have the same degree I don't think of respect and often instant notoriety that ones that are led by men do.
Thank you all so much, as you know, we've already said, we're such fans of yours, such fans of the show. And I feel like, you know, as somebody who's the mother of a writer, I feel like writers don't get enough credit because without them, these shows just wouldn't be anything. I mean, obviously the actors bring it to life, but the writing is so good and the stories and the characters are so I think beautifully drawn. That we were just very excited to spend a little time with you. So thank you all so much.
Thanks for having us.
This was so fun. Thank you, Thank you for having us. It's a dream come true.
Yeah, you trying to anything else before we go.
The one thing I was going to let you guys know is we solicited questions from Katie's audience ahead of this, and my favorite comments not question was I use SBF fifty on my hands now because of Debra Vance.
Love it that that's good one one liver spot at a time, because, as she says, you can't get a hand job.
Yeah.
Thanks everybody, Thank you so much, Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me, a subject you want us to cover, or you want to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out. You can leave a short message at six oh nine five one two five five five, or you can send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app, or visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
