A few days before the Emmys, actress and comedian Hannah Einbinder was wearing a casual outfit you might expect to see on Ava, the down-on-her-luck comedy writer that she plays on the HBO Max breakout show Hacks: gym shorts and a forest green sweatshirt. That said, she was downright excited to be describing the Prada look she would soon don on the red carpet. She said she might be a little nervous about the Emmys, where she is nominated for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for her role in the show, but she probably won’t let it show.
“I have refined internal panic,” she joked. “I have really gotten it down to a science, with nothing on the face and just hellfire inside.”
Ever since the beginning of the promotional campaign for Hacks, Einbinder has been working with stylist Kevin Ericson, and when news of the nomination broke she hopped on the phone with him and her co-star Mark Indelicato for a bit of brainstorming. “We literally had one phone call where, because Mark is very into fashion, he called me out and was like, ‘Han, you need to wear a dress.’ He was like, ‘Babe, the gym shorts are not going to work on the rouge carpet. We need a dress.’”
They had a shape in mind, structured yet slinky, equal parts ’50 high fashion and the golden age of Las Vegas. (Einbinder described this mainly with her hands, and I promised I would translate.) When she saw the pink Prada gown with an on-trend train and a huge bow, she knew she had found the dress of her dreams. “It feels kind of meant to be and serendipitous,” she said. “Oh my God, it’s just gorgeous. Being in it makes me feel like I’m in drag a little bit.”
She was still elated and a little confused that she got the accolade in the first place, because playing Ava is the first major acting role she has ever taken on. When she took on the job, soon after the pandemic began, this was not what she expected. “When I first arrived at the show and onset, I really, truly was just hoping to get away with what I was doing and to not get fired,” she said. “That was the game plan, start to finish. So, something like this is a shock, to say the least.”
Anyone who has seen Einbinder’s stand-up wouldn’t be surprised that she has acting chops—her viral March 2020 set on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert caught her inhabiting a range of voices and moods in a mere six minutes—but on Hacks, she shows off an almost unbelievable amount of skill and subtlety.
Though it’s a show about stand-up comedians, Hacks has allowed her to try out a new way of being onstage. “I’ve got to say, I have loved the freedom of being able to purely express emotion,” Einbinder said. “With stand-up, any pure expression of a sincere, sad, difficult thing has to be followed by a punchline and a joke—a release of the tension. Whereas, in a more dramatic space on television or in film, you’re able to just have a pure emotion in a clean way, which I have loved.”
She said appreciated the support from her colleagues, especially Jean Smart, who she still feels a little starstruck by. And the cast and crew of the show, which was renewed for a second season, became close. Just this week she returned from Italy, where she traveled to attend the wedding of Lucia Aiello and Paul W. Downs, who created the show alongside Jen Statsky.
“Because it was a new experience that I had never had, acting, my default instinct was, ‘There’s no way I can do this. I don’t seem natural at all. This is so awkward. I’m not doing a good job,’” she said. “Now that I have watched the episodes and, frankly, now that Paul, Lucia, and Jen have expressed that they’re happy with it, I kind of go, ‘All right.’ Like, going into season two, I feel like I’m telling myself what I needed to tell myself for season one.”
Her parents—one-time Saturday Night Live cast member Laraine Newman and writer Chad Einbinder—were also looking forward to Sunday night. “I think my mom is going to go hang with my dad and my stepmom, and they’ll probably do a little watch party,” she said. “They’re pretty stoked. I mean, it’s crazy. We’re all shocked.”
However, they weren’t unreservedly excited about their daughter following them into the industry. “I would say that they know how hard it is and how hard it can be,” she said. “When I asked my mom years ago if she thought I could do it, she said, ‘I don’t know. I think you’re really funny, but that doesn’t always guarantee anything.’ In fact, it simply doesn’t. So my approach to this has always been really realistic, and that’s a privilege, for sure, that I got to kind of hear their experiences and learn from them.”
Einbinder said she doesn’t have a speech planned. “You always watch the speeches, and people are like, ‘I really didn’t think this was going to happen. I didn’t write anything.’ And sometimes you watch it, and you go, ‘Well, have a little something ready,” she said, immediately acknowledging that she won’t be following her own advice.
Though she feels a bit more comfortable in casual wear, Einbinder has adapted well to being a modern ingenue, rocking crisp suits by Thom Browne and Etro during recent photo shoots. She’s thankful for the team that is helping her get ready for the Emmys.
“I work with [hairstylist] Brian Fisher, [makeup artist] Molly Greenwald, and Kevin, and I’ve worked with them since the very beginning of all of the press around Hacks. I really trust them, so it’s such a relief,” she said. “I am super sensitive, and I’m self-conscious, and so it’s really easy for me to be in a full face of makeup and feel like a pig with lipstick on. But we do some really minimal stuff. It’s less vulnerable that way, when you’re with people who understand you. and really are just cool and empathetic and smart, and make you feel safe.”
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