Talk Easy with Sam FragosoA Love Letter to Comedy with Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello (‘Hacks’)
Hacks co-creators Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello, who are also husband and wife, have been performing and writing together for over a decade. Today, we discuss the road to season three of their hit HBO series.
At the top, they unpack the makings of their creative partnership (8:20), how they chronicled the evolving state of comedy in Hacks (14:38), and Jerry Seinfeld’s recent comments about the medium (20:05). Then, we walk through Paul and Lucia’s origin stories (33:45), their meeting in an improv class at UCB (38:00), and the New York comedy pipeline they fell into with Broad City (46:59).
On the back-half, we talk about the making of their feature film debut Rough Night (49:35), the road trip where they first imagined the premise for Hacks (53:25), their guiding principle while creating the show (59:10), and their journey into parenthood (1:05:48). To close, a piece of advice on art-making today (1:11:30).
For questions, comments, or to join our mailing list, reach me at sf@talkeasypod.com. This conversation was recorded at Spotify Studios. Clips courtesy of HBO.
Pushkin. This is talk Easy. I'm standing for Gooso. Welcome to the show.
Today.
I'm joined by filmmakers Lucia and Yellow and Paul w. Downs. Together they're the co creators of Hacks, the Emmy Award winning program that has recently returned for its third season. For those unfamiliar, the show is centered around an unlikely mentorship between Deborah Advance, a legendary Las Vegas comedian, and Ava Daniels, a gen Z comedy writer with all the expected trappings of being twenty five years old. They're reunited again in this season, this time with the express purpose of landing Deborah her own late night talk show. Here's a little bit from the trailer of season three of Hacks. Deborah, after your special, your career has never been hottered. Did you ever think you'd be back on top of Yes?
Yeah's here, you're here. She hired new writers. You know what, She hired two, which is actually a compliment, isn't it. She had to replace you with two people. Wow, I'm not ready to see her.
I was perfectly content being a gorgeous Vegas comic and then you come along and you make me want more for myself.
So you're mad at me for pushing you to be better.
Yes, that was a clip from the new season of Hacks. Two new episodes drop every Thursday, available exclusively on Max. I gotta say this is the rare half hour comedy that I think keeps getting better and better with each new season, and the credit I think really has to go to Paul, Lucia and their co creator Jen Statsky. But the show didn't come out of nowhere. Paul and Lucia, who are also as you'll hear in this episode, husband and wife, have been performing and writing together for over a decade now, dating back to their early years at UCB in the mid two thousands. We talk a little bit about that period in this conversation. We also discuss the ins and outs of this new season of Hacks, how their creative partnership actually works, the New York comedy pipeline they fell into with Broad City, and some good advice for people that still want to have a career in this industry despite how precarious it all feels in twenty twenty four. And so with that, here is my conversation with Lucia and Yellow and Paul w downs. Paul and Machia. Hi, Hi, how you to doing.
We're good.
We don't typically do this. We haven't really had pairs on the show. It's a little intimidating. Really, you're both staring at me.
You've never had Donnie and Marie or yeah, does Tiller? Yeah, well that would be fine because only one talks. Actually, know, Penniciller be a perfect guest if you usually only do one.
Right, Do you feel like you're not able to like fully connect because you're going back and forth between both of us.
You know we're gonna find out. Yeah, I'm hoping that it kind of turns into like a couple's therapies. Oh do you guys do that?
We don't know. We haven't. We don't.
You don't need it?
Well, we both go to therapy, yeah.
Individually, yes, okay, and then and then you guys get together.
Come together, and then we critique what we've heard. We share it, and we critique it.
I've heard. That's also basically how you two write script together as well, right.
It is kind of Yeah, we actually do write separately, and then we swap scripts and we highlight only the things that we like in the other person's script.
Yeah, we don't critique. Well, that's the coves. We don't critique each other's work.
We just uplift. We just say it's true, we elevate an uplift. We say, these are the things we like, this is what made me laugh, and that's it.
And we kind of ignore the things that the other that we didn't like about the other persons.
And then it works out. And I will say, there are times when one of us can say, but I really love this, and that's okay too.
Right, Yeah, And if someone says I really like the truck, it's like, okay.
Yeah, so you two have figured out a way to not really argue. Yeah, we had to figure that out before we could afford therapy. I guess that is true. I know what I mean.
Like it was early on, Yeah, we because we would write together and were really more of a song healthcare Yeah that too, Yes, yeah, I couldn't pay for it. This was yeah, I would say almost like maybe four or five years into writing, like collaborating together at all, we were like, this is not working, so what are we going to do?
And then I don't I don't think that's right. I'm going to I'm going to tell you why you're wrong. I think four or five years in we were like, how can we make this less like a faster and be more fun, because you know, when you're like sitting together pouring over a script and discussing each line, it's like, no, it takes too long. Yeah, and then and then you get to you get to unpack reasons why you potentially don't like a line or you think the joke could be this, And then if you're just doing it on your own, it's much more fun because this so boring.
No, I just was thinking, yeah, same time next week. I think we are already are getting into it. Yeah, we're jumping so deep, so quick. It's great.
Actually, there should probably be two episodes. Since there's two of us, you should probably just do a double or too. Yeah, to be continued.
HBO would love that.
Well, let's figure out a cliffhanger and then we'll end on a cli.
You know what it is.
It's a gunshot.
I'll tell you what I'm liking about this. Yeah, I almost feel like I don't have to be here on the podcast.
No, you do, you do?
You do?
I'm sorry, I'm kind of loving it. No, you're essential to it.
Let me let me, let me bring us back to earth. You two are married, you're the proud parents of a new young boy. I think it is right. Of course you're the co creators of this new season of Hacks. Not necessarily in that order. I don't know what the priorities did. I get the order right?
I mean, yeah, so that we got married, we we created Hacks together, then we got married, right, then we had.
The child, so we got pregnant, then got married.
Okay, what keeps you up at night more? The new child or Vegas extras walking through your shot?
Wow?
In the season opener of of of season three.
Luckily, that's a split second thing. When when when when a bogie as it were, walks through the shot, that happens fast and then it's over. I guess yeah, I would say I'm kept up more at night making sure that our child can breathe and checking the monitor. I think that keeps me up at.
Night, and also that keeps him up at night more than keeps me up at night. Yeah, because I'm like, I think he's going to be okay.
Right, Yeah, what's that about? Oh, I don't know, I don't know. We'll get to them. Yeah, that's the cliff has been about two years in season two exactly. Okay. For those who who haven't seen the show, or maybe they need a refresher, Paul, can you explain the premise of the show, and then Lucia, can you set up season three?
Yeah, So the show is about a legendary Las Vegas comedian played by Jeane Smart and.
The Joan Rivers type.
That's right, sort of an amalgamation of Joan Rivers, Philistilla or Lucille Ball, Debbie Reynolds, a lot of showbiz icons, who is in a fading moment in her career when we meet her. She's a Las Vegas stand up who is kind of forced to hire a young twenty something writer who's been outcast named Ava Daniels, played brilliantly by Hannah Einbinder. And it's really a show about the deep and twisted relationship in dark mentorship that forms between them.
Well done, Thank you could double as a publicist.
At this point he said it so many times. So that was like a slightly longer than the log line, which I appreciate it.
That was good. They gave good more context. Well, you know, we had five years to think about the show before we even pitch the show, so both Lucia and myself and our co creator Jenstatski can all pretty much rattle off the log line pretty fast.
You know.
There was one part of I was just looking at the pitch pages the other day and one of the lines, which I think is kind of funny, is we said it's like Devil War's product, but with less shame and more wigs or more sequence.
Sequence. That's good. Fun is fun? Yeah, Okay.
So at the end of season two, Ava has pushed Deborah to work on new material and that leads to them.
More personal autobiographical.
Materary exactly, and so that leads to them creating a new hour long special that she is unable to sell to networks, but then she sells on QBC and becomes a huge hit on QVSA she sells like four million physical copies, and then it is purchased by a stream network.
Yeah, and has done really, really well.
And at that end of that, Debra has decided to quote fire Ava and send her on her way to go and work on her own material and figure out who she is as a comedian by herself. And so they've separated and we begin season three.
One year later, when you pick up in season three, they're both not the same kind of underdogs that they were in season one and season two exactly. And I've heard both of you describe the show in a bunch of interviews as a program that has showbiz adjacent Did the attitude or spirit of the show change in the writing of it a little bit, especially since the show is focused now on Debra wanting to work in Los Angeles and become a late night television host, Like, is that underdog spirit still there or was it something else?
Well, we wanted to reintroduce it because we always want to make the show feel fresh and update the stories that we're telling, and yet we also want to give the audience the thing that they've come to know and love, which is this dynamic and also this underdog quality. Both of these women are really striving for dignity more than anything else, and so having this new quest of getting this chair that becomes vacant in late night becomes something for them that makes them the underdog. Because for a network to give a late show to a woman, especially a woman over seventy, is a huge mountain to climb.
How was she seventy please.
I know she insane. She looks so good, she's so hot.
I have a lot of questions about her skincare routine.
You gotta get her on. Honestly, I think she'll tell you this. She is not really someone who's focused on this.
She isn't she's like I'm going to She's not like I'm going to get a facial.
She never. I think she doesn't worry about it, and I think that's part of the reason she's you know, she looks so youthful because she doesn't actually concern herself.
We'll gets more facials, g and or Paul.
I know the answer. Okay, go for it, Paul, I do, but I also just enjoy the experience. Oh, it's the best feeling to fall asleep anyways.
Because you have so little wrong with you?
Is that that's very kind. I go for the compliments. I go because I want to hear what is going right. That's why you got in the comedy, right, That is exactly why.
A compliment from a facial that's why you sign up for improf one on one.
Can you imagine?
It's an interesting plot line because the fact that she is seventy to the network executives precludes her from being considered right. Was that your way of once again reworking the show in underdog terms?
Exactly?
It felt like this is such a wild proposition that to make it actually happen and make it justified would require full season of a ton of people working extremely hard. And that feels like the right tone for Deborah and for her world.
Here's a clip from episode four, season three of Hacks.
You put someone like Jack Danny behind that desk. Kids aren't getting off TikTok to watch him, and my mom doesn't know who he is. But Debrah sold four million physical DVDs last year. She's a queen of people who can't figure out their Internet. With her, you keep the audience you have. Plus you're doing something that's never been done before. Jimmy, it's a good pitch, but I just don't think she's it.
But I'm going to think about it.
You want to play tomorrow morning? Like in ten hours? Yeah?
See you this sister?
You reserve to see at seven?
Bye?
We can't reserve a quarter for non members.
How much does it cost to join?
Twenty grand a year a piece?
Maybe less if we were married?
How much less? Coming back. That was from season three. In the opening episode of this new season, Deborah and Neva find themselves at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. This is a real festival that has existed for for a long time, a place where, like the comedy world congregated, new voices could break out. But the festival was canceled this year, like.
Two weeks before we the first season aired.
That's right, the third season air a day after they announced that the festival would be canceled. They filed for credit or protection and quote initiated restructuring proceedings. I don't know what that means. It's a Canadian It sounds bad. It sounds I mean, is that a Canadian way of saying everyone's fired?
I think or broke.
Yeah, that's good. It's funny because I think of this show as like such a love letter to comedy. It is, and yet watching this premiere knowing that it feels more like a remembrance, like it feels more like a reminder of what comedy was. Where are you two at on all this?
That's so sad? That is different.
Yeah, And I mean we've been talking about this a lot, but like you know, in the last couple of years obviously with just like media consolidation now that there's like so few comedies that are really you know, on TV. If you look back five six years ago, there'd be so many more just comedies that existed. There's so many fewer comedies that are being made. Something like Comedy Central, who used to make so many comedies, doesn't make any original comedies anymore. That's how we broke in my working abroad city, you know, and a lot of like the young people right now, I just feel like I don't if when somebody asks me how to break into comedy, I really am like turn on your camera and like walk down the street and talking to your microphone and complain.
About something I really don't know.
And I think it is like depressing about all these comedy institutions.
Comedy clubs are closing. It's like and there's less there are less late night shows now. I think in every arena there is less and less comedy, and it feels like we need it more than ever.
Also because comedy can speak truth to power, I mean, oh yeah, and that is something that I think right now, we're really you know, politically and globally, really running into some nasty business, and so it feels like, you know, the more people are out there and having venues in which to talk about what's going on, have other people relate to it, feel more community versus feeling isolated. The fewer avenues you have to do that. I think it's honestly a cultural emergency.
In the Hollywood Reporter, you called making comedy in twenty twenty four scary.
Stuff eloquent as always.
Do you want to comment further? I know, I mean, like, genuinely, do the two of you feel just mostly grateful that you got in before the door is closed?
We do in one hand, absolutely, or is there a guilt also in that incredibly definitely guilt. There's, I mean, there's feelings of gratitude. Certainly, we feel very lucky to make an original comedy, especially one that's about two women. We feel very lucky that we get to tell that story, and we have for three seasons. It's also we don't exist now in a time when there is the kind of monoculture where everybody's watching a show and everybody's talking about that show. You know, it is much more siloed, and so we came after I think a cultural experience that we grew up experiencing, and so it's just it's it's weird how quickly things are changing.
What what do you what are you thinking about when you say.
That there is no musty TV where everyone's watching Seinfelder Friends and being like.
Or even thirty Rock and Parks and Rocks.
Oh sure, yeah, Weirdly, I do think young people are watching. They are watching the Office and they are watching right, you know, thirty Rock because they can stream it and watch it.
Are they watching Hacks?
I hope? So, I mean people are watching not really getting the stats. I don't know. I don't know the numbers.
They're not they're not sharing analytics.
No, you know, we know that we do have a great audience for the show, and we're very lucky because that's the thing. Also to break through now because there is so much it's also a huge undertaking.
All I know. I turned on Max last night to rewatch a couple scenes from season two and Hacks was number one in the in the slot of most stream right now. Yes, I don't know what the hell that means.
It means it's the number one show. Yes, that's what it means.
I mean, like, for how long. How many Yeah, people, I think.
Keep refreshing, keep refreshing.
You'll know what it changes every day changes.
I think they do update.
Paul doesn't. Homie just keeps refreshing in Apple TV.
That's that's it. That's all I'm doing is refreshing. I'm trying to turn it on. Honestly, I'm looking for the roote' trying to turn it on. I'm trying to get his hid in the remote.
Also, sorry, I want to go back to one thing you were saying about the door closing on comedy in general.
I'm not sure it's closing.
It just feels slightly a jar.
It feels only slightly a jar, and nobody really knows how to get through that door.
Right now.
I feel like you hear so many tragic stories of like this huge celebrity or comedian came out with this show and couldn't get it sold or how to show at this place, and in the last minute they didn't green light it. And these are some of the most popular, biggest comedy stars that exist, And so I think that's just the things. It feels like nobody really knows what should get made or what will get made, and so everybody's kind. And I mean both on the creator side and also I think on the executive side. I think people are like, what do people want to watch? And are confusions? Just feels like a very confusing time for comedy. It's a smaller confusing window.
You mentioned Seinfeld earlier speaking of a big comedy star. He recently appeared on the New Yorker radio hour We're Talking Jerry, We're talking Jerry. Okay, Hi Jerry, where he was asked about the state of the industry uh oh, and where he sees comedy in this moment. Should we take a listen?
Nothing really affects comedy. People always need it. They need it so badly, and they don't get it. It used to be you would go home at the end of the day. Most people would go, oh, Cheers is on, Oh, Mash is on, Oh, Mary Tyler Moore is on. All the Family's on. You just expected there'll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight.
Well guess what where is it? Where is it?
This is the result of the extreme left and PC crap and people worrying so much about offending other people. Now they're going to see stand up comics because We are not police by anyone. The audience polices us. We know when we're off track, we know instantly and we adjust to it instantly. But when you write a script and it goes into four or five different hands, committees groups, here's our thought about this joke. Well that's the end of your comedy, Paula.
Yeah, here's the upside of what he said, or what I think is correct, which is what he was mother. Yeah, yeah, I'm so. I think, like I was just saying, there is no monoculture. There is no musty TV. There's no thing that we're all like watching because it's the only thing. In a way that's great, because there's been more choice for audiences. But in a way that isn't because of the PC police or the left, whatever he's talking about. It's because we all watch content in different ways, especially young people are online and on their phones. And I think also the reason that less comedies are made is because people are looking to deliver profits for shareholders, and we are now how a lot of the networks are owned by tech conglomerates which are publicly traded, and they have to answer to shareholders, and so they need to have the most amount of eyeballs on the biggest thing. And I think that there's a lot of fear around that stuff, but it certainly isn't because of the left.
Quote the extreme left and PC crap.
The extreme left and PC crap. That is, that's not why there are less comedies.
I'm like, have you seen an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
Have you seen Sorry Hacks? I'm like, we never. I'm like, Deborah is somebody who's not to answer him? Where where is the comedy? It is on Max and it is Hacks, So he can he can stream it at any time. Actually, that's the great thing, is where am I going to see it after work?
Well?
You could see it after work or before work. You can stream it. You can actually watch our comedy anytime a day or night, and you can laugh because it is funny, and it is funny. First, it's a hard comedy. So I've never gotten no getting older.
He's not working that much.
Hey, he can watch it midday, he can watch it before his nap, he can watch it whenever the heck he wants to watch me naps.
You think he takes it.
I hope he takes I hope he takes a couple.
I actually hope he just powers through and goes to bitterly.
Let me tell you, based on that interview, there's no napping.
Yeah. But I also don't think that in like, I do think that there's this thing about, oh, you can't make comedy because you're going to be police and you can't say things. It's like, no, you can say anything. The fact is is that cultural context has shifted and we are now more aware of the harm comedy can do or the harm anything can do. Right, but to be able to be funny and hit a target that isn't harmful is still very very easy. There is a way to make comedy that isn't something that's going to be protested. But it doesn't mean it's not funny absolutely.
I mean it's like we've never once gotten a note about something is going to offend anybody. And of course we've had conversations in the room about like is this going to make somebody feel bad? And I think his point is that, like somebody is probably thinking someone who dyed hair and a nose ring.
Is going to say this makes me feel bad.
But I'm like, well no, I mean I just don't feel like that there's over sensitivity actually on the extreme left, if anything, there's over sensitivity on maybe extreme anything.
Well, that's the thing I think on either side, you can have criticism, and the fact is is that you can make comedy and it's allowed to be criticized. I think a lot of comedians, especially ones who are very established and oftentimes a little bit older, feel very attacked and they feel like their entire body of work is attacked or their entire being is attacked when people respond negatively to things. And the fact is is, and we say this in our show, you can be rich and famous and make money because you're a comedian and people can have their reactions and that's okay. And the fact is is that they're entitled to those reactions. And you should also shift the way in which you are making comedy based on where culture is, because quite frankly, there is a lot of things in history that we did, whether it's as a people or as a country or whatever that no longer works.
Can you rank them for us?
I mean fourteen ninety two, Oh my gosh.
Also, I think that there tends to be a thing with comedians where they had especially community had extreme fame at a certain moment and any time that we start to evolve as a culture and people say, actually, that was maybe not so good, that that that made people feel bad in retrospect to that joke wasn't great. They get sensitive because that's when they were at the top of the world.
But the honest part of that is, no one is saying that about Seinfeld. No, Seinfeld has endured.
Rights show about nothing.
It's kind of unblemish though. I mean the bits mostly work are the ones that go like, oh my god, Kramer, the unhouse people in a rickshaw. It's still mostly it's still mostly worse.
Yeah, it is interesting why he in particular is so sensitive about it.
Hasn't He also said that he won't do colleges. Yes he has, but I am like, okay, well, what what's your material?
Though? This conversation is one that happens on the show between Deborah and Ava, like throughout this season, that innergenerational sparring about what is appropriate and comedy and what crosses a line and where that line is for the two of you. How do you two hold these these dueling perspectives amongst yourselves.
I think when we're writing these characters, we try and write them in a way that neither is one hundred percent right or one hundred percent wrong, you know. Debora in the first episode of the first season says abasa Is, I think I crossed a line with this joke that kind of got me blacklisted, And Deborah says, there is no line. It's just not funny. And I think, to someone like Deborah, do you believe that? Well, what I do believe is that you can satirize or explore or examine anything in culture. But I think there is a way to do it that isn't harmful, you know. I think there's a way to unpack and examine things, even if those things are stereotypes, for example, that aren't making them true in your material. And so in that way, I think it is about the execution of the material. It's not like this is completely off limits. It's like, no, we can deal with something. I mean, even in Hannah Gatsby Special she deals with sexual assault, and she deals with that in a way that is enlightening and is often very funny, But isn't It's not like she's making fun of a victim of sexual assault, you know. So I don't think that there's anything that you can't explore. It's about the way in which it's done, and it's about the thoughtfulness and the inventiveness in which you make comedy around it. And I think that's the thing. A lot of the stuff that's the most offensive is low hanging fruit. It's the easy joke, it's the duh joke.
And that inventiveness, for some reason, is really hard for people to want to do. They don't really want to evolve as people or involve their thinking. They're very sure that this ideal that they have is so correct that they should be able to make jokes about it, and if anybody doesn't like it, that means they're easily offended. But it's simply them not wanting to question their own beliefs and not wanting to interrogate it and turn it over and consider.
But you know what, all of these people, I think all these people look up to and respect someone like Carlin, and he's somebody who evolved his point of view and changed the material he was doing and changed the way he was talking about the same kinds of things. And it's because he had that flexibility and that ability to change his point of view that made him relevant throughout his career and made him someone who was, like so thought provoking, and a lot of his stuff was provocative, and a lot of his stuff touched on things that someone might say, WHOA, that's that's scary to get into because it could be problematic, But it wasn't problematic because he was speaking truth to power and he was examining things and talking about his personal point.
Of view on them. In an episode four of this new season, Debra is invited to a gathering with fellow comedians that are all men over the age of sixty five, I think. And there is this interaction where you know, she's sparring over the word bisec and can they really exist? And this old crotchety group of men saying, oh, come on, like that's not real. And so it does seem like, I guess I'm posing this to you too, that you want Debrah, you want Jerry Seinfeld to maybe take a step forward with everyone else? Is that is that fair?
Absolutely?
Like I think, And we also in that same breath acknowledge how hard it is for that person to do it. She this whole time is always resisting Ava's pov and they are bickering and they're fighting about it, and I think that episode is a moment where she has to actually decide has some of this avas psychology seeped in and do I actually believe it? Or am I willing to joke around with these guys who's approval I've wanted for so long, And it is a bit of a moment where she has to make a big decision. And as you can see, she actually does believe that bisexuals, or as she says, an elite few are actually bisexual, And so we know that you know, she does believe it, and she and Ava's constant yapping in her ear has seeped in, and it is only from them bashing their heads together over and over and over that they've start to bleed into each.
Other's Watching that interaction reminded me of conversations with my parents where they go, okay, you know, you start them on a certain term that they don't know about, an idea that they are resistant to, and gradually, over years, like the good son of a lawyer than I am, I've warned them down and slowly but surely, they have opened their hearts and minds to new ideas.
Good for you.
My parents do both of our parents have been I have really kept up with the times in a way that is really awesome and cool.
Yeah, after the break, the origin story of Luccia and Yellow and Paul w Down's stay with us coming back, we've been talking about like the state of comedy, but also this pipeline that feels like it's from a before time that doesn't exactly exist. And I want to just talk about how you two came up together. So the two of you are like fresh out of college. Paul, you invented your own major at Duke studying public policy and cultural anthropology. Couldn't imagine a more white Straake I thing today, it.
Sounds so horrible. It's just cut it out. Don't tell people. Yeah no, we're not going that.
Lucia. At Columbia, you majored at Film and Media Studies and yet and probably did you actually create the major.
Well, they have something to called program too, which is like GALLAS and NYU. It's a thing where you can take classes from any discipline and yeah, create your own major. So I got to take classes with such crazy brilliant professors that you know the title of the major was one thing and but it ended up being about who is the best teachers.
He also took one for a half credit massage class.
I did take a massage therapy class for half credit because I think it was a requirement weirdly that you had to take a like a phys ed class. I don't know if that's true, but maybe I just told myself I have to do it, and I did a massage therapy class where half of it was you would give a massage and learn technique and the other half you would get one.
So the two of you finished college and then at your created major in your established major, and the two of you improbably find yourselves at a one to one improv class at UCB in New York City circa two thousand and seven around then. It's more improbable for Lucia because she was also you're also an athlete in a D one school and wasn't as immersed in the comedy scene in college as I was. I was also majoring in improv at school. I did sketch an improv and it was like, yes, I took a lot of classes, but every single night I was doing that like a real dork.
So for me it was this was grad school. There is a there is a track, and I.
Really liked so. But when the two of you find yourselves in this class, Paul, you arrived to the class first, I do, because you're anxious and want to be there early. You that she has him to stroll in that a casual time.
Yeah, yes, which is interesting because I'm not actually usually that.
Why do you remember why you were late?
I was coming from so far away, honestly, it was Bushwick at the time.
Yeah, when you walked into the class, do you remember noticing Paul.
I don't remember that moment of like noticing him that day, but I do. I did remember, like remember him after the first class.
Why did you remember?
I thought he was cute. That's sweet. I remember her walking in. I remember what you were wearing. You're wearing a purple Polo shirt, and I remember her walking into class casually late, casually, no fashionably late fashionably. Yeah, that's amend. And I think she came into that because I think we were all this is so cut this out. I think we were circled up doing a warm up, and I think she joined the circle and said what are we doing?
In a very hapt way, improv before I never I had seen it though, because I was.
In a sorority at Columbia.
So you're in a circle warming up, and what's that warm up? Like? Was scene work part of that first day?
Probably?
Yeah?
Sure? Yeah.
Do you remember what you two did?
I don't remember what.
I don't remember the scenes, and I don't remember pretty much any scenes from the six plus years of doing improv. But I do remember in that class Paul doing something and I did turn to the teacher, Hi, Tara, and I said, write that down because I thought it was so funny, which is insane considering I was a student and she was my teacher and I was teaching her.
I guess I also is in line with someone walking in and sing what up to? Yeah, as if she was the assistant director.
It's you know, when you when you when you look back at what people are telling you, go Jesus Christ.
But at the time it just seemed normal.
So if I gave you to a suggestion to reenact the scene, could could you do it?
Yes?
I couldn't. Oh that scene, we couldn't reenact it?
Could Oh no? No?
Yeah, oh my god.
How about getting arrested on edibles?
Okay? I was I was, Oh, no, I don't think my mom knows this story. Well, you found it somewhere, but this was an early bonding experience too. Well, yes, okay, when you go through something, you do whatever you want. I'm just here. I'm just here to listening to you to I actually wasn't she was booked. I'm just here. Okay, So here's the story.
It'd be better if you told it together.
Okay, Okay, We're in New York.
Paul had a car at the time in the city because there was parking for some reason, kind of near.
Near my building you could kind of park. So I had know I had just graduated from college, and so I, you know, drove it and I would keep it in the city, not far from my apartment.
And we were in We went to a Yeah, we went to a party in Chelsea and I was high and.
I was not.
I was sober, but someone gave me a cookie that I found out had marijuana in it. Okay, didn't know I was tricked. I did say to Lucia, we should go now because I'm driving home. My car's here, and I probably I don't even know. I have like twenty minutes before I shouldn't drive, so let's go now. But I absolutely was one hundred percent sober and good to drive.
And within thirty seconds of us driving away, we get pulled over.
With it within a block. And it was because I think there was a party and people I think there was there was some there was scoping out. There were scoping out the party. So we're waiting. They asked for my license and registration. I handed over and I'm like, don't worry, don't worry, it's fine. I'm you know, there's no reason for them to pull me over, even though they said the tags on your license plate are not updated, which was probably true. So they take my license and registration, they go back. We're waiting, and we're waiting and we're waiting. Another cop car shows up, and then a third cop car shows up, and I'm like, oh man, what is going on? And it's taking so long that I'm like, they need to issue me a ticket, do whatever they need to do soon because I have limited time.
And how long had the two of you been dating at that point.
We were like a couple of years. Yeah, Well there was like gray area.
Yeah it was gray area, And you're like, let's talk about the guys.
Were having fun, yeah, okay, writing together.
Yeah, yeah, we were dating. But it became serious after this because about about ten minutes later, which seemed like hours, Yeah, they came back and said, do you remember getting a ticket for not wearing your seat belt from a few years earlier? And I was like, I do remember it, and they said, well you never paid it, and I said, I'm sure I paid it, because don't they send you like a letter in the mail or like a bill and a follow up? And they said they do. Do you still live in Carolina, which is where I went to college and where my license was from. I said no, and they said, well that's where they sent the late notices and also the warrant for your arrest up out of the vehicle. And I do think when I heard that, I went, oh god, yes, I don't know why. I thought this is an inconvenience, but it's not. It just didn't seem you know. Luckily for me, I was like, well, it's about it's a clerical error. It's something I get out of the car.
I will say, Paul, I mean this is a compliment. Oh you do look like someone that could only get arrested over a clerical air.
Thank you. I appreciate that. That's good, that's fine.
There is no way if you saw Paul in the back of a cop card, you'd be like, but I tell you what clerical error or white collar crime?
Well, I'm going to follow up with there are a few times when we were living in New York when I would be the police were after me, right, I know you say that, but anyway, so they were targeting you. I don't know. I don't know the cops in New York, you know. So they basically they handcuffed me and they said to Lucia, take his wallet, his watch, and his cell phone. So she takes my wallet, my watch, and my cell phone. And I said, oh, well Lucia does yes. And now don't forget Lucia is stone under the influence. And when I hand her my my or when she takes my wallet, my watch, and my cell phone, I said, well, she goes call me And I said, well, you have my cell phone. How am I going to call you? I don't know your number. Now this is like year two thousand and seven. Nobody knows anybody's number. It's in a phone. But I'm handcuffed and she says, you don't know my number.
Now, I like to interject here, why because I.
Did not say it like that at all. I will say all of the cops giggled. All the cops and it as a joke. Actually, I was like, you don't know my number, and they laughed. I got it. I got a good laugh out of it. And I thought, like, guys, let's keep laughing. Let's undo these handcuffs. Let's have a good time. Yeah, I'm having a great time. They're dragging me to the They're dragging me to the big.
Change the tenor I'm trying to change. I'm trying to reverse the cursive.
The last would lead to freedom.
They didn't. They brought me to failed. They brought me. He was like Jerry Seinfeldt said he can't say anything anymore. They brought me down and put me in a group cell. And it was unbelievable.
Now, let me ask you this. The edible hit while you were in prison.
No, while I was getting fingerprinted. Literally as I'm getting fingerprinted, I was like, and I was like, oh no.
But every hour they let you make a phone call.
I did call that. She almost every hour.
I heard about that. And you did bits.
I would do bits. I'm like, daddy's in the clink.
Yeah.
I don't know why I became like.
He would do bits, and I thought it was so funny full timing that in jail he would call to do bits and like like workshop stuff and tell me to write things down here.
Sweet hot Daddy's in the clink. And I was experiencing things that I'm like, this is nuts.
He tried to set up his friend with somebody that he met in jail.
I did. I did meet somebody that was that was arrested for like protesting or something. And I was like, I have a really I have a really political activist friend who you might like. And then I told her when I yeah, an occupy person. And I got out and told my friend and she was like, are you are you kidding? You're telling me about someone that you met in jail.
When he's calling you and doing bits on the hour and what is I'm guessing for his life one of his darkest hours. Yeah, yeah, did you go maybe this is a serious relationship?
Literally literally, I was like so funny.
I was like, that is so funny. He's doing bits.
I was like, that's it, Like I'm really into life bits.
I'm into people like doing bits, not for like I'm going to workshop this for my hour whatever that just do bits in life, right. You know, like at the time he had a Twitter called That's a Raven where he would just retweet things that raven simone said and say, that's a raven.
That was a good Twitter. You know, he was just doing He wasn't gonna nothing was going to happen from that. He just do bits just for life.
By the way, you didn't need to tell me that nothing was going to happen from that.
It wasn't going to get me.
So it was like he was doing life bits, which I love. And also I was really worried about him, and so that is thing.
It became funny I think in the moment when you came down, because she came down to the pre saining and I think when she saw where I was, I think then it became scary for sure.
So him going to jail got the two of you out of the gray area of your relationship.
I think it did. It certainly heated things up, it moved things forward.
Yeah, well, I think as it was like, you know, we met the week I turned twenty two, we were so young.
And also, yeah, I think for me it was like, the only person that I really want to call, even for comfort in this moment is Chia. Yeah. I also didn't want to worry my parents. They would have been very worried.
But I think just in that time, it did clarify things for me.
And you think back on the early years of your relationship, did you two make more sense of writing partners or romantic partners? What came first in.
That well it romantic was before writing. Okay, yeah, and just in terms of the order of what actually happened.
That's true. We were on an improv team together, so we weren't doing comedy together, but we weren't writing together. Eventually, Lucia said, you know, we should start making videos so people can actually see them. Because as much as we had fun doing sketch and improv, you know, the theater had one hundred five seats and it was hard to get your voice and your name out there.
And also he was far more successful than I was, and I was like, I want to be doing stuff too, so why don't we work on videos?
Right late two thousands, early twenty tens, Yes, you start making videos, you learn how to edit on YouTube. Yes, like through YouTube tatorials. Yes, did the two of you making videos? Did it make sense right away? Did it seem positive?
Oh? Definitely. It was so fun.
And I mean I was also making videos with other people at the time as well, which was also positive and good. But it just wasn't the exact same speed, if you know what I mean. Like, you know, some people are just more casual about doing it and some people are and I think we were in this category more ambitious about it. But it's like funny thing to say ambitious about comedy, you know, but there certainly are people that you interact with that.
Are And this sounds so lame, but it felt like it did feel like we were like, oh, this is our calling, this is what we're going to do. Right. It really felt like, oh, great, we're making comedy. And there was something about the fact that you could just collaborate with people that we were meeting and then put it on YouTube and people can see it and react to it, and it was just like, Okay, we're on the track for the thing we want to be doing.
It was a vision, yeah, and also it tapped into a lot of things that we both were interested in like music, and you know, even like the production design of things or like how things would look, and like we weren't just making videos just to be like, haha, that's a funny idea.
That was part of it.
But we were starting to like try to make things look good and edit them in a way that felt different, and we were really trying to like we didn't really realize it, but we were like it was like early Showrunner days, right, but just with like videos that had like a three hundred dollars budget.
Throughout this conversation, we've been talking about a pipeline where like you make videos on YouTube and then College Humor, then Comedy Central and eventually you you know, make broad City with with the Lana Glazer and Abba Jacobsen. Is this the pipeline that you were talking about, the one that doesn't totally feel like it's here anymore.
Yeah, I mean we used to we'd get money from Above Average, which was like a digital arm of Broadway Video, and they gave us money to make video.
I don't really know if that kind of a thing exists anymore.
And then exactly like making stuff for Comedy Central that doesn't really exist anymore.
I don't know, but I feel like even just doing stuff on YouTube doesn't exist in the way it does. I mean, they were earlier generation than we were, but I feel like Lonely Island was discovered for us now off of doing YouTube videos.
I think. I don't know. So the Donald Glover and Derek.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Derek people like that was a thing that was happening, and I don't think.
Which came in and out of UCB as well. That's right, And yeah, I don't think that that is the same anymore.
So.
All those people we just mentioned, whether it's Alana or Abby or a Donald Glover type, they're either at UCB in New York or Los Angeles. They're performing around New York City or Los Angeles. You were talking about ambition earlier, which you thought was kind of a funny word to use around comedy, But all of those people had really clear visions for what they wanted to do. When did the two of you start to go, I think I see a roadmap for us.
There was no roadmap, but I know that we gravitated first toward each other because we had a similar vision of what we wanted to happen, and the things that we wanted to make. And it's why we became so close with Avian Alana because they were doing the same thing, and they also we really recognized that kind of vision and ambition. I think in the other people.
That's a great example of speed. When I was saying on the same we were not on the same train as them necessarily. I mean we helped worked on the websites a little bit, but we were all in the same going the same speed.
We were all making things, and then we were all starting to think about how to pitch things for TV. We all wanted to get legit and be on TV, to make film and television, to make a life out of it. Yes, to be filmmakers. I mean all of us wanted to be filmmakers in some way or another. And I think that was true of the people in Derek or the you know, I think that was true of a lot of these people that we came up with, but I think.
For us, for me anyways, I think as soon as we started making stuff, it felt immediately correct. I think like our tastes really aligned in every way. We were having fun and it just felt easy and it has continued to feel that way so you know, that pressures of having more budgets, and whether it's feature films or whatever, it is like there's a whole other it's a whole other world, but like it's still at so many moments, is still that fun excitement?
Can we talk about the movie you two made it? Yeah, So you're working on broad City and the two of you write this specscript called rough Night and you get Scarlet Johansson cast. It comes out in twenty seventeen, and in it she plays a kind of like Hillary Clinton, like politician running for office. Watching a movie from twenty seventeen feels like it might as well have come out in like nineteen seventy seven. You feel so far away.
Classic from right now it feels like a classic hit.
It's exactly what I mean. Yeah, and not that the last seven years have felt like five decades. When the two of you started making that movie, how did you think about, like what you wanted to do, because at that point you'd only made television right in retross. But when you look at it, do you see it as a kind of precursor to Hacks.
When we wrote that script, we just thought, oh, this is a funny idea, and this would be fun thing to do in a similar way to when we were making videos, like a fun thing to do together that we could put funny people we know in and sort of make something small and dark and funny. And then it sold to a big studio and we suddenly had a movie star attached to it, and so it did become something much different than I think we initially even conceptualized it to be. I think we were like, oh, this is a little indie we're going to make, and it'll be dark and funny and we'll see and then it became a much larger undertaking.
Yeah, And I don't I think maybe that is kind of something that like, if you are delivering on like a small, weird, dark thing, it gets to be a small, weird, dark thing, and then when you have a bigger budget and a lot of movie stars in it, then people just see it in a different way and it had different expectations for and even if it just happens to have those people in it, and it still has the heart, I think, and I haven't watched it in a while, but just still that fun, dark, weird.
What I'm trying to get at is the voice, right, there's such a clear voice and Hacks. And I wonder, like when you're making your first movie and all of a sudden, like Scarlett Johansson's doing it, and I think, Sony Bot, I don't really remember. How do you hold on to the thing that's the two of you writing with like the lights off, going in different rooms and working on jokes and then bringing the scenes back together. How do you hold on to that?
That's hard to do with the studio movie, particularly because unlike in television, there's testing, so testing really changes and edit changes the way things are, what stays in the movie and what doesn't, And so I think it's hard to do that. I think it's really hard to do that. I think in terms of like our voice, there are still scenes in there that it's ultimately about friendship and about connection of these women who are in this movie. And I think there are scenes that are heartfelt as well as being funny. So I do think you can see our voice in it, definitely, And the same is true I think in the episodes that we have more to do with on broad City too, I think you could see some of the precursor to Hacks. But it's also I think no matter what we're doing, and particularly maybe because when we were making videos sometimes they were parody, and when we did parody videos, we tried really hard to adapt our storytelling visually and in terms of the content to what we were parodying.
Sort of sort of chameleonic.
Then, yeah, I think I think like the all of it, the look, the tone, the feel, that everything is in service of the story we're telling.
But I think the thing that they all have in common is we're always just trying to reflect life in a real way, which like can be funny and sad and gross and whatever like. And so I think that if you look at all three of those things, particularly like in a row, I think that like tonally, they do feel the same to me. I mean, obviously Brod City was a little bit broader, yeah, sketchyer at times, but I do think that if you look at rough Night and then Hacks, there are some I could I definitely think there's a lot of immunity there. Jen wasn't didn't write it with us, but she was on set for a fair amount of it, helping us with jokes on set and stuff too, so her you know, fingerprints are on that as well.
Speaking of Jen, the three of you, I think in twenty sixteen go on this road trip to Portland, Maine, Is that right?
Yeah? From Boston.
You're making the special for Netflix called The Characters, and the two of you like in the car start talking about what would become hacks. So three of us, Yeah, the three of you. What did that conversation sound like?
Well, we were talking about a lot of female comedians that had come up in the seventies and eighties and nineties and who you know. One thing is that we all came from, you know, the UCB, which was like this all comedy scene, and there was this like thing of around like cool comedy, what was cool and what was a little bit like passe or whatever. And I think it was just we were just talking about like people that had potentially had a great deal to do with the legacy of comedy, especially female comics, who were misjudged in that way and who not only paved the way for a lot of comedians, both male and female, but who never got the do that a lot of their counterparts. And so we were just talking about those kinds of women.
It's like kind of easy to be like, what did these men who were stand ups in the eighties and nineties, they went off to write on shows or have their own shows, but like they just didn't have the counterpart for women. They're like, you know, somebody like Kathy Griffin, she's the best part of Suddenly Susan or whatever, and then doesn't get to have her own show, and then what is she left? You know, that's just an example, Like, then what is she doing, you know, and what does the rest of her career look like? There's no blueprint for that, but there is for a lot of men.
And it's true of a lot of directors that are women in the eighties and nineties.
There's so many.
And I think we were just kind of like, how does one And I think Paul and Jenn and I have a lot of reverence for especially these kinds of women who have come up and who paved the way for other female comics. And I think we were like, well, you know, it would be interesting to see somebody a younger woman like Ava's, you know, younger than we are, but we're closer to Ava's age, and it's so easy for her to say that she's a hack or whatever, but to actually understand, like she's had to become a hack because of just society not letting her be just an easygoing, free flowing, happy comedian. She had so few paths that like becoming like doing QBC or doing whatever kind of red carpety things or whatever. These people have been kind of relegated to do is because they had no other choice. And to be able to say like, this is why this person has become this. They had no other choice. How dare you judge them for what they are? You wouldn't be here if it weren't for them.
And there was also this experience, and there's no one name of like oh, this person's obituary, but we had this experience which might feel familiar to people where you read an obituary usually or often I would say about a woman in show business, and you'd be like, why have I never heard of this person? Like when you read the history of their work, even if it's someone that was a Broadway star, it would be wild to experience like how is this person not more a part of popular culture. It's just something about like the people that are forgotten in show business, who who had such lasting legacies, And what is it like to be someone who didn't know their name, you know, and what would it be like to have a character like Ava start to understand someone before the rest of the world did, and help potentially change that person.
At the end of this road trip. It's my understanding that you wrote an email to yourself and Jen and Lucia. Is that right?
That's right?
What did that sound like?
The subject was show idea and it was about, yeah, exactly what the show is like, like female stand up and hire as young writer. You know. It was it was literally just that it was very generational. Yeah, it was very short.
What did do you think when you read it?
Well, we typically send those emails when we're all together because like whenever we have an idea, like if we have an idea for hacks, we send an email the subject we write jokes hacks, and so that way we can easily search everything. So if I'm like, what are hacks jokes? I just go hacks jokes, search subject and then everything come up. And so we do that for every project we have.
And if we were, you know, here on your show and something came up and we were like, that's a great show idea, we would start a chain with the three of us and then it would be like, that's a great idea, and ma'am fargoso show jokes. And then anytime we were together and we experienced a piece of material that worked for it, we would just email it that we would see you at a party and something funny would happen and we would say, that's actually good for the show.
We talked about it, and then he or I or you would send an email about what we talked about while we're still together, so we don't forget it. So I wasn't like, oh my gosh, that was a good idea. I'm there and we're like, I'm emailing it so that we really love this.
I do think that's true of all a lot of comedians. It's like, oh, you're hanging out and then you're like, you'll see a comedian write something down, you know. I think a lot of times stand ups will do it. And actually Debra does it in the pilot of Hack. She says a joke that Christoph McDonald's character Marty laughs at, and she takes out her notebook and writes it down.
So and we also just like know the painful feeling and be like, God, that was something there's we thought of something funny, what was that?
That's the worst feeling and that has happened to us, and that's why we do the immediate emailing. It's happened to us. It happens to us all the time recently. And I'm like, so the.
You have the email threads with collaborators slash friends of yours, you have the writing process where the two of you write the same scene separately, then come back together and basically pluck the highlights from each Yes. And it's fascinating because when rough Night came out, the two of you did a podcast in which Paul said, rough Night is about feeling guilty about putting your career first, which is something Lucia and I can relate to. And I was thinking about that it was season two and season three of Hacks, and where you two are at with that guilt now, given that that was seven years ago. Global Pandemic a new HBO show, a child like, is that something that's still top of mind?
I think less? So for me, yeah, I think what is top of mind is something we really unpack and hack, and that is what it's like to be a creative person and feel like if it is what you've chosen to pursue. It means you always have homework, you always have something to think about, and Navis says this to Debrah in season two. She says, you know, sometimes it feels like there's nothing more important, you know, for better or worse. But I do feel like I don't. I don't have guilt around it, but it is something that, yeah, I don't have guilt around it.
I think we also, especially now that we have a kid, I think we're like, well, we're definitely doing not work stuff because that takes up so much time.
And I'm like, we spend so much time with him and we love him.
But it makes me feel like, you know, I definitely don't have, if anything at this point in my life. To be totally honest, the only thing that I like don't pay attention to enough is myself.
Can we watch that scene you're talking about? Sure, that's from season two, episode five, Good Memory.
I should just retired and gone out on top.
Who are you kidding? You can never retire.
You're gonna be up on that stage until you die at one hundred and nine.
The same way, I can't.
Turn it off either, and nothing matters more even if it should.
Well, shit, you're right, and I don't want to stop. I like the work.
You know, Deborah, back in Vegas, you were on top. But with all due respect, I think that was just a hill. And now you're climbing a mountain.
Mountain sounds exhausting.
We can't even figure out that stupid business manager punch line.
Yeah, maybe it's like something about.
Filing taxes, filing taxes, filing, filing, nails filing.
Ah god, no, no, no, I can't do this. I can't do this. You know, get your baby suit. You need to learn to float. Come on, come on, no, what do you thing's gonna happen? Come on, off of pizzake.
I'm gonna hold you off like I'm just gonna support you, lean back, coming back first your chess.
Okay, what about this? My business manager still over three million dollars. If I wanted to to take that much money for me, I would have married him.
Oh yeah, I know, We've got so much marriage stuff right before this. How about how about something about how much that would be today with inflation?
Well, how much would it be?
I have no idea.
My business manager stole over three million dollars. You know how much that is when you adjust for inflation.
I did do.
Why, It's why I had a business manager.
Oh that's good.
Oh I like that. I like that I write that.
No, No, total me.
You got it.
That scene feels like the heart of the two of you and the thing that you do and can't stop doing. Yes, how did you to feel watching that? The chill? You just gave me a look? That's like, why are you asking that?
No?
I am like, I will tell you. I think between Paul and Jenny and myself, I am the person who's the most addicted to constantly thinking and constantly I mean, am I wrong?
No?
I'm like it's a little bit like even if we're like, Okay, for one lunch, we're just gonna not talk about the show. We're not gonna talk about work. And then I'm like, by the time we've ordered, I'm like, quick, idea.
It is a true addiction, you know. But I love it so so what.
I make the show every week, fifty two episodes a year. I hear you.
Yeah, do you feel the same way?
Oh?
Absolutely, Yeah, that's why I pulled the scene. Yeah.
And you really do work, I mean you really do you prepare and you do a lot of work unbelievable. I agree. I'm like, dang, this is the most prepared of any host we've ever talked to ever. Really, Now, can I ask you some questions?
Yeah, we can do that in an hour three of this episode.
Okay, Well I get one.
Okay.
Is it because you just genuinely like getting underneath, like, let's say, the process for people, or is it just like I just like talking to people and seeing what happens, or do you like there is the research part of the joy or like, what's the part of it that really does it for you?
Yes? We look, we've met in the past at a party or two or two, even with a few drinks in me, I'm still curious and interested and that always happens. But the thing that I want to do with the show, and that you're probably feeling, is I really don't want to waste anyone's time. I don't want to waste the listener's time. I don't want to waste your time. And also, we only get to do this the first time once, and there's something that happens when you really sit down with people for the first time that I just kind of feel like I don't want to waste that, and so the only way I know how to do it. Unfortunately, like you at lunch saying I have one idea before you can order an appetizer or an entre, I don't know if you do appatiz just is I have to listen to the ninth podcast the two of you have done.
Wow.
I have to read all the press he'd done, because I feel like we only get to do it once like this, and I want to try my best to capture the spirit of the thing that you two have labored over time and time again, so much so that in the middle of season two, speaking of labor, you are about to have a kid, and you go to the hospital and in between contractions, you are offering stage direction through a monitor. Tell me how this happens.
Okay, So I had been directed. I was directing late into the night and then went to sleep. So we probably wrapped it like nine or ten or something, and around one point thirty I did wake up and I was like, I'm having contractions. I was a week early, which was unfortunate because I had only one We only had one week left of production, and I didn't wake Paul up because I knew he needed to sleep. Because we were going to have a lot ahead of us. Woke up and I said, you need to go.
I'm in labor. You need to go.
You're acting today, so you need to go and do that, and also you need to direct some of the stuff scenes that I'm supposed to be directing today. And he was like, oh, should we go to the hospital. I'm like, I'll be fine. So he goes and has his day of work and I stay home and they do set up q take, which is basically me being able to see what's going on live, and I do at home for the entire day, send texts, not like you know, sometimes I'm like, hello, had a good one.
You know.
I wasn't always just giving direction.
But I'll tell you what, if anybody's anybody who's listening knows labor, you know, you have like forty seconds or fifty seconds of you're fine, and then ten or fifteen seconds of like really intense I guess you'd call it pain, extream pain. So I've got a lot of between those that pain. I've got a lot of time that I'm looking to distract myself.
So some part of you thought in those forty seconds, I'm on the clock.
Or I wanted to be on the clock because it helped distract me, and also, yeah, you can't stop. And so once by the time he came home, then we went to the hospital and by that time we'd wrap, so I had and now I was like, well, I'm not working, might as well get this guy out.
Were you surprised that she was doing that in between contracted.
No, No, not surprised at all. I was surprised she wanted me to go to work right because I thought, well, I should just be around. But like she said, people are often in labor for a long time before they actually even go to the hospital. And so I did go to work, and my parents happened to be in town, so it was my parents were there, which was also I think had they not been, I don't know if I could have done it. I was kind of my mind was at home with her. It wasn't really on set.
But you knew that if something happened, I'd be okay.
Yes, the fact that her parents were in town, which was great, really helped.
When she said that of the three of you, including you two and Jen, that she is the most like compulsive and obsessive about the.
Work, well, I'm not necessarily the mostly obsessive and compulsive about the work. I'm just I can't stop pitching. Okay, I actually think Paul might be more compulsive in some ways.
It depends. It depends on what it is.
Well, what's the dissension.
It's about, almost like the stage that it's in. Actually, I think I'll be most compulsive in the beginning, and then maybe Jen more in the middle, and then you more at the end.
Does that make sense, Yeah, we do have that weird Can you explain some of that energy? What does that actually look like?
Well, what it looks like when we're making the show is that there are certain things that you know when you're when you are running a show, there are a thousand questions a day about like this prop, this location, this actor, this casting this, you know, all of the things. And so I actually hats off to people that run a show on their own because it is so much to to undertake. Now, I will say we not only show run, but Lucy and I directed the majority of the episodes. So we show run. We also you know, we write the show, we direct the show. I'm in the show, so we do wear a lot of hats. But because of that, it is helpful if there's a clearances question and Jen is really on that, you know, she's like, I'm going to take care of this and I'm on it, or there is a marketing and promotions question and I'll take over and I'll respond to that. There's just so many things to respond to at all times that we do almost without asking. It's almost like there's it's choreographed almost without asking or plotting who's going to respond to what? It just happens. And we do always check in with each other to make sure that we're on the same page, but we have a high mind about it.
We also have just different things once we're actually in the creative process that we all become obsessed with and it can change and it's so random. But like, for example, Jen is very on top of like the captioning that gets put on top of episodes if you put on captions, being word perfect in every letter, being like everything being exactly correct.
So guy, it is. I even experienced that when I watch something and I'm like, that's not what they said, you know what I mean, Like you wanted to represent the writing because we work really hard on that.
Writing or Paul might become very obsessed with like what is the perfect song we need to know ahead of time before we shoot it. I want to know the song so he'll put together, you know, fifties play like fifty song playlist just for one moment for when transition honestly through, you know, or like I'll be like this location is absolutely I'm like, no, another one, another one. I'm like, We've spent four days looking for locations. I'm like, these don't work. We have to find keep it whatever it is. And that's like those are just random examples. But like we all get obsessed with different things and it always is constantly changing. But we're all obsessed, all obsessed with every part of it as well.
God, we must be nightmares to be around. But also we're fun, you know.
But you know what, most people at home, they don't have to be around you. They just get the great they watch the show, they just get the great thing.
But you know, you only get the experience of interviewing people for the first time once. You only get the experience of making something and putting out and having people watch it once, you know, and then film is forever. So that's why we're obsessed. Yeah, we want to put out things and make it worth people and make and make them good and like you, yes, make it worth everyone's time.
Well, my last question then, is I hear what you two are saying, and I and I believe in it because also the great thing about the show is it's got better each season. I guess the only question I have left is the two of you have made this thing. You have poured all of yourselves into it, at the expense of probably some friendships and mental health and on all kinds of things. And yet the thing that we keep talking about is the thing that we can't escape, which is that the two of you and and and the way in which you got here, the pipeline in which you came through, it doesn't really seem like it's possible anymore. The methods of getting to make a show like this, the ways in which one would be able to make a show at this, the steps you'd have to take, that that that roadmap doesn't seem like it's legible to me. So what did the two of you say to people going, I still want to make art, I still want to do comedy. What what do you two say in this moment?
Well, I think that the way that we came up, in the way that we established ourselves was true of a very specific moment, but it was true ten minutes before that and ten minutes before that. And I think it's always changing, and I think if you want to do this and you are dedicated to it, it's just you have to be relentless and you have to not give up on it, and you have to continue to put things out. You know, I steal this all the time. A friend of ours intern for Conan O'Brien, and he said to that friend, the person who puts out one hundred bad things will get noticed and have an opportunity before the person who puts out one brilliant thing. And you just have to put yourself out there and continue to be dedicated to it, completely dedicated to it. And the path has changed, but there are still paths. And people need stories and they need comedy, and they need voices and they need you know, we do need that. So it's just like, you know, you have to find that path. And that's the thing that's hard is that people sometimes reach out and say, can we have a coffee and can you tell me about like how to break in and I'm like, well, it's different now than when I broke in, And yes, there are certain things that will always remain the same, you know, writing us back and trying to get people to read that, and maybe getting people together to shoot something that is a short version of that. You know, there are still those things still exist, and I think they've existed for decades and decades and decades since the seventies. You know, people wrote a script and then we're like, well, let's just shoot a scene and let people see that scene so we can do a proof of concept. Like I think that stuff is the same, but I do. I agree.
I think there's still something to an original voice, a new, fresh voice that still is exciting and intoxicating to people. I think that's still a thing, whether it's like making a short or something that says here's my voice and it's different than everybody else's and people are like, I do want that new voice. I still think that's there. I think the thing that's harder right now to like understand how to do is like get practice, because like I off of the internet, I got to make direct I don't know, like probably fifteen I literally don't fifteen or so episodes of Broad City, and that experience is insane that I got to do that much. And I mean I wasn't the biggest budget thing. I mean by the end, I was doing five five days in episode. That's like a legit healthy thing for a comedy.
You know.
To have that much practice is like, I don't know if that exists now for anybody.
And I'm like so lucky.
So the practice part is the thing that is like you get better from practice, And so I would say, yes, you know, go and make your new thing and try to be that next voice, but then keep making it and keep figuring out.
Maybe your voice is immediately perfect. Hey, I don't know. It is about practice, That's exactly right. Like I feel like it's practice and you're putting your work into practice. It's just about practice and doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it.
The two of you meet and a UCB one on one class. Eventually you start writing a little more time passes. You figure out a process where the two of you go off and write these scenes and then come back together. When the two of you come back together in twenty twenty four, when you're writing, now, do you still love it?
Yes?
And is that the happiest you are in your creative process? Yes, what does that feel like?
It's like a combination of And then we have this with Jen too, and I think it's a combination of like, you know, when you're like at a party or whatever and you make your favorite people laugh, it's the best high on Earth. And I've tried a couple highs, and that's the best high on Earth, you know. And so when we are still like able to make each other laugh, especially with something that like we've gotten practice and we've gotten to make, you know, the world deeper and get to like stretch our imaginations farther. But when we have something that really hits, it's just, yeah, it's the best feeling on earth.
I think, Yeah, making the tree laugh is the best feeling in the world. And I now have that also with our son, making him and her laugh is the best. It just it's the best feeling in the world. And so we do love it. That's why we're addicted to it.
And I think we're teaching our son, whether we mean to or not to have this, to be chasing the same high, because now he has a joke which is I'm literally gonna cry. He literally goes, I said, I say, okay, I have a secret, and I say, I love you, and he goes, I have a secret roast beef.
And that's his joke. He's at roast beef once and he doesn't eat me. And so we laughed because we're like, what roast beef? Or do you ever hear of roast beef? And so we laughed. He was like, that makes you laugh. So now he just says roast beef has like a punchline. But then he heard the setup I have a secret. I love you, and he said I have a secret rust beef.
And it was so much.
He understood a joke structure, and we were like, oh my god. So now he all the time will say I have a secret roast beef.
Why does this make you cry?
I don't know, because he's he's learning, he's learning this thing we love.
Yeah, yeah, I do think there's something to it that the thing that both of you came together over is making comedy and making the show and it is being passed down to the kid.
Yeah. Yeah, roast beef and all roast beef so funny and.
By the way, the joy the two of you feel it is so felt watched in the show, So thank you for making it, Thank you and thank you for doing this with me.
Thanks for having us, for having us, and thank you for watching.
Paul Luccia. Until next time, and that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode, sharing the program on social media or reviewing it on Spotify, Apple, wherever you do, you are listening. Really, all of this insures that we can continue making the show each and every Sunday. I want to give a special thanks this to Lauren Gold and the team at Shelter PR. I also want to thank HBO and our guests today, Lucia and Yellow and Paul Downs. If you don't already watch Hacks, the show streams exclusively on Max. We'll include the link on our show notes at talk easypod dot com for more talks like this one, I'd recommend that Abby Jacobsen, Dan Levy, and Bob Oenekirk to hear those and more Pushkin podcasts. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at talk easypod. If you want to purchase one of our mugs a Common Cream or Navy. We've also made a vinyl record with writer fran Lebowitz. Can buy all of that and more at talkasypod dot com slash shop. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Chinnick sa Bravo. Today's talk was edited by Roman Richard and mixed by Andrew Vastola. It was taped at Spotify Studios here in Los Angeles, California. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Christia Shannoy. Photographs today are by Julius Chew. Graphics, as always, are by Ethan Seneca. I just want to thank our team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond, Kerry Brody, Jacob Smith, Eric Sander, Kira Posey, Jorna mc millan, Tara Machado, Owen Millers, Sarah Nix, Malcolm Gladwell, Greta Cohen, and Jacob Weisberg. I'm San Fragoso. Thank you for listening to another episode of Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next week with actor and comedian Alana Glazer. Until then, stay safe and so long.
