“We’re always just trying to reflect life in a real way. If you look at three of our projects in a row — Broad City, Rough Night, and Hacks — tonally, they do feel the same to me. There is a lot of DNA there.”
-Lucia Aniello, episode 370 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
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.
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Show-notes:
- Stream all three seasons of Hacks exclusively on Max. New episodes drop on Thursdays.
- Watch their previous work on Broad City, Rough Night, Time Traveling Bong, and more.
- Listen to The Official Hacks Podcast.
- Follow Paul on Instagram and Twitter.
- For more talks, hear our conversations with Natasha Lyonne, Abbi Jacobson, Dan Levy, and Bob Odenkirk.
- Order your Talk Easy mug in cream and navy or our vinyl record with Fran Lebowitz.
Illustrations by Krishna Shenoi. Reference images by Octavia Klein and Ethan Lovell.
Subscribe, rate, and review: Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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