
Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels and Jean Smart as Deborah Vance in ‘Hacks’
SPOILERS: This post contains details about the Hacks series finale
As Hacks fans mourn the end of the HBO Max show’s five-season run, nobody has been as deeply affected by the show as star Hannah Einbinder.
The Emmy-winning actress, who made her onscreen debut starring as comedy writer Ava Daniels, recently explained to Deadline how the “incredibly heavy” finale episode, written by co-creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, was “pretty easy” to access emotionally.
“There is like a convergence of real life with the text,” said Einbinder. “Of course, it is not lost on me in the moment that this is the last time I’m going to be with this character, and I feel after five seasons, so, so deeply connected to Ava’s perspective. So, I think that the experience is really genuinely real. I really feel like I love Ava and I love Deborah [Jean Smart].”
Directed by Aniello, ‘Hacks (Finale)’ follows Deborah and Ava on their getaway to Europe, for which Deb reveals she plans to check into an assisted suicide facility after her cancer came back. After an emotional back-and-forth, in which Ava tries to convince her not to go through with it, the only thing that could keep Deb alive is the potential of writing another comedy special with her best friend.
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“It’s one of the most meaningful parts of the show is knowing that it’s brought together people who maybe had trouble understanding each other,” said Einbinder of the show’s reach across the generational divide.

Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels and Jean Smart as Deborah Vance in ‘Hacks’
With Hacks ending its five-season run that kicked off in 2021, Einbinder can next be seen on the big screen in Jane Schoenbrun’s surreal horror Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, premiering Aug. 7, as well as Victoria Strouse’s SXSW comedy Seekers of Infinite Love.
Meanwhile, two years after releasing her debut comedy special Hannah Einbinder: Everything Must Go on HBO Max, the comic is easing back into her first love of stand-up.
“I’ve been on stage lately, actually, a little bit, and it’s felt really good to be back,” noted Einbinder. “I took about a little over a year off. I didn’t touch a mic for over a year after I did my special—almost two years, maybe. I just was so spent after putting that hour out, it was just the culmination of my entire career as a stand-up.”

Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels in ‘Hacks’
Read on about what’s next for Hannah Einbinder, as well as her experience working on the finale of Hacks, all episodes now available to stream on HBO Max.
DEADLINE: You gave such a beautiful, heartbreaking performance in that finale. What was that emotional rollercoaster like for you behind the scenes?
HANNAH EINBINDER: You know, there is like a convergence of real life with the text. Of course, it is not lost on me in the moment that this is the last time I’m going to be with this character, and I feel after five seasons, so, so deeply connected to Ava’s perspective. So, I think that the experience is really genuinely real. I really feel like I love Ava and I love Deborah. The circumstances of the episode are obviously incredibly heavy, and so, getting into that emotionally is pretty easy for me, I think.
DEADLINE: What was it like filming the Montecito episode, especially just knowing that fans have been shipping Ava and Deborah for years?
EINBINDER: Oh, it was so much fun. I’m like so happy with how that turned out. Cherry [Jones] and Leslie [Bibb] are unbelievable, and were so funny and real, so real. Jean and I just had so much fun because this season doesn’t have a ton of our bickering or any of the tumultuous stuff that we are used to doing, and so it was fun to dip back into a little bit of that dynamic for a bit cause that’s also fun for us too.
DEALDINE: And I also loved the Jesse McCartney episode. What was it like getting to meet him? I heard there you guys had DM’ed before, and he was a fan of the show.
EINBINDER: Yeah, he watched the show, and Season 1, there was a Jesse McCartney poster in Ava’s childhood bedroom. And I said, “You know, dude, I love you. I’m such a fan.” And it just made sense that that’s who they would have surprised her with, so it’s pretty sweet.

Jean Smart as Deborah Vance and Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels in ‘Hacks’
DEADLINE: Also, one of the episodes that, you know, has really gotten a lot of attention is the ‘QuikScribbl’ episode and your AI monologue. What was it like getting to really let that out during such a charged time in Hollywood around AI?
EINBINDER: The timing was borderline divine. It came right around some intense conversation about it and a lot of divisive conversation about it, and a lot of people in Hollywood coming out for it. I’m just so proud that we are vehemently against it and that we do it in a way that is rooted in research and facts, so I’m super proud of that.
DEADLINE: And I loved how we see how Ava has rubbed off on Deborah so much in that episode.
EINBINDER: Yeah, I love it. I mean, this season, we really get to see a lot of that. We get to see a lot of the effects of Ava on Deborah and all of these ethical decisions that she makes, and even in that land acknowledgement in the opening of the Central Park show. Super cool.
DEADLINE: That’s why I love this show, or why I love that my mom loves the show too, because it just really feels like it bridges that generational divide.
EINBINDER: Yeah, I agree. It’s one of the most meaningful parts of the show is knowing that it’s brought together people who maybe had trouble understanding each other.

Jean Smart as Deborah Vance and Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels in ‘Hacks’
DEADLINE: I love how outspoken you are. I’m curious, the way the show mirrors how Hollywood is censoring people or has the ability to censor people, does that make it feel more important to speak to these things?
EINBINDER: Yeah, I feel really lucky to work with people who are aligned with me politically and not afraid to voice their opinions. Paul, Jen and Lucia have always said something with this show. We’ve done so much on this show that is incredibly political, but they’ve always made sure that it wasn’t preachy and that it was funny. It’s one of the most effective ways to communicate, and it’s just been masterfully done. And so, I as an individual, feel so fucking lucky to be in the position where I’m working with people who, I don’t have to feel uncomfortable because I don’t have to feel like I’m misunderstood.
DEADLINE: I am dying to see Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. What was it like working with Jane Schoenbrun and Gillian Anderson on such a something so tonally different from what you’ve been doing the past few years?
EINBINDER: Jane is like one of the comedic loves of my life, an absolute soul tie. They are one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, and the experience was total euphoria. I mean, it was highly connected and intimate and light and deep at the same time, and it’s just miraculous to me that I could come from the most creatively fulfilling experience in my life on Hacks, and then go right on to something that just felt right on par. To get to have these connections is like the most meaningful thing that I could ever ask for.

Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels and Jean Smart as Deborah Vance in ‘Hacks’
DEADLINE: Well, I’m excited to see that one. And now that Hacks is over, are you specifically trying to pursue more acting roles or maybe another stand-up special?
EINBINDER: You know, I’m kinda medium agnostic. I love film, TV, stand-up. I just kinda go where the wind blows and where the good work is, and where I feel the most connected. I’ve been on stage lately, actually, a little bit, and it’s felt really good to be back. I took about a little over a year off. I didn’t touch a mic for over a year after I did my special—almost two years, maybe. I just was so spent after putting that hour out, it was just the culmination of my entire career as a stand-up. So, I definitely love it all though, so I’m stoked to just do the work that feels right for the moment.
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As Larry David‘s comedic trip through U.S. history comes to an end, he took credit for one of the nation’s more recent presidential scandals.
On Friday’s season finale of the HBO sketch comedy miniseries Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, President Barack Obama made a surprise appearance as himself in a sketch set in 2014, as David advised him to wear the now-infamous, outrage-inducing tan suit during his live press conference on military response to ISIS.
Following some banter on how the POTUS avoids stains, David accidentally spills juice on Obama’s suit jacket when he leaves the room. When the 44th president returns, the comedian recommends he wear the tan suit that Obama planned on taking it to Turin for NATO Summit, for “a daytime event, it’s outdoors, a little more casual.”
“First of all, it’s a gorgeous suit,” David declared. “And this is casual Friday!”
“It is a great suit,” admitted Obama, as David told him, “Oh boy, oh boy. I think this is the move. … Old lips won’t let you down. You’ll thank me!”
As Obama models the look, David gives him his signature, “Pretty good! Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.”
“You sure about this?” asks Obama, as David assures him, “Never been more sure about anything in my life. People are going to be talking about this for a long, long time.”
Obama’s cameo in the finale comes as David marks the United States Semiquencentennial with the seven-part sketch comedy limited series, which recounts major events in U.S. history through the comedian’s signature observational humor.
David’s longtime Curb Your Enthusiasm partner Jeff Schaffer, who serves as an executive producer on Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, previously told Deadline that Obama, who produced under his Higher Ground banner, reached out to his buddy David to ask if he’d be interested in making the show to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday.
“When you’re doing a show about American history, you want to do it warts and right now we have this orange saggy wart that we wish would go away,” said Schaffer. “But the nice thing about having President Obama produce this and be a part of it is that this country’s had a lot of fuck ups, we’ve seemed to have learned very little, but we’re still moving forward sometimes, and then we move back a little bit, but we always move forward again. While Larry’s pointing out a lot of the steps back, the President is telling us we can still step forward.”
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Matthew McConaughey shows off his vocal skills (and some hidden banjo talents) with his latest role in The Rivals of Amziah King.
On Friday, Lakeshore Records released the single and music video for “Quill” from the original motion picture soundtrack, performed by the Oscar-winning and co-star Ben Hardesty, also featuring Miranda Zickler, Angelina LookingGlass and Andrea Pister.
Set in the backwoods of Oklahoma, The Rivals of Amziah King follows the musically gifted Amaziah King (McConaughey) and his bluegrass-playing band of misfits while overseeing the premier honey-making operation in town. When Amaziah’s estranged foster daughter unexpectedly returns, he leaps at the chance to reconnect and create a family business. But the honey game is ruthless, and Amaziah’s rivals threaten to destroy everything he has built.
Premiering Aug. 14 in theaters, the Andrew Patterson-written-and-directed drama also stars Angelina LookingGlass, Cole Sprouse, Jake Horowitz, Tony Revolori and Kurt Russell.
Producers are David Heyman, Teddy Schwarzman, Jeffrey Clifford, Michael Heimler, James Montague and Will Greenfield.
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With their latest directorial outing, Jane Schoenbrun used subtle pieces of nostalgia to deconstruct the slasher genre.
The Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma writer/director explained to Deadline that they wanted to create “a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary,” noting the frequent symbolism of candy and junk food as providing an atmosphere “that’s actually safe” while diving into a horror movie or exploring sexuality after trauma.
“There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe,” said Schoenbrun, who is non-binary. “Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, ‘Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.’”
In Schoenbrun’s latest film, Hannah Einbinder stars as queer director Kris, who is tapped to helm a new installment of the long-running Camp Miasma horror franchise. While courting Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), the actress who played the “final girl” in the original film, to reprise her role, the pair spirals into a psychosexual frenzy as the slasher’s killer, Little Death (Jack Haven), comes to life.
Acknowledging the problematic trans representation of horror films like Psycho (1960), Sleepaway Camp (1983), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995), Schoenbrun admitted the genre has been “catnip to me since I was 10 years old,” and they jumped at the chance to direct their own.

“So many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals … And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy,” they explained.
“But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants,” said Schoenbrun. “It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language.”
Read on about Jane Schoenbrun’s love letter to the slasher genre with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, now playing in theaters.
DEADLINE: It was really fun to see the slasher genre through your eyes. Tell me about finding inspiration in that genre and “final girls.”
JANE SCHOENBRUN: I mean, it was the easiest thing in the world because it’s just one of those genres that has been catnip to me since I was 10 years old. I just raided the horror section of the video store as a kid from an age when I really shouldn’t have been doing that, like in 5th grade, I watched in the span of about one week, every Nightmare on Elm Street movie. I think that I was always drawn to movies and really anything entertainment where it felt forbidden in some way, like the thing on the tape, how is that even allowed? And that’s the thing that I love about a lot of my favorite slashers. Don’t get me wrong, I love like brutal ones, like I love Texas Chainsaw, that’s a nasty movie at its core, and that’s what’s so special about it. But so many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals of, OK, what’s the most outrageous way that like these like dumb kids can get killed? But watching it, it’s not about fear a lot of the time, it’s about joy and celebration. And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy. But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants, whether that be Norman Bates or Buffalo Bill or Sleepway Camp or Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface in drag. It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language.

DEADLINE: I’m curious about the symbolism of all the processed junk food and the chandelier of wrappers.
SCHOENBRUN: The junk food in the movie, I forget when it found its way in there. It’s like so much of the movie is about, like I said, ritual, about being in a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary, whether that be Kris [Hannah Einbinder] in bed, with, you know, with Raisinets and the popcorn, watching a schlocky horror movie, or the two characters learning how to be present and enjoy sex after a lot of trauma. There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe. Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, “Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.”
DEADLINE: And one thing I really love—I just feel like it’s a theme in your work—is how it depicts the way media and entertainment influence us. Why does that inspire you?
SCHOENBRUN: I think it comes from a fascination and sensitivity to the complex relationship between what we think of as fiction and what we think of as reality, which we tend to, as a society, think of as pointing in one direction. Like, reality dictates fiction, not vice-versa, but when you actually look at the way the world works, it’s like one echoes off the other. And I think a complicated, sometimes terrifying and sometimes beautiful way, where the fiction, the cultural norms, the things we grow up looking at on our screens, the roles that we’re told people play, they kind of inspire us to create reality. There’s something liberating when you start thinking in that way. I think it’s a way of thinking that we as a culture, could do a lot more of. To think about the idea of fiction inspiring reality just as much as reality is inspiring fiction, is a potential path to liberating us from this hellscape that they’re telling us is the only way the world can be.

DEADLINE: And I know you have the Secretary reading. Tell me what it’s been like prepping for that and why you all chose that movie.
SCHOENBRUN: I mean, that was such a huge influence on on Miasma. There just aren’t that many fun and funny movies about deviant sex. And just the way that movie is like feather light while talking about really raw and taboo things, it is just really inspiring to me. And the dynamic between those two main characters is definitely one that had a lot of influence on on Kris and Billy’s [Gillian Anderson] relationship in Miasma. And it’s already to me a very queer movie in its way, but having Gillian reading the James Spader part and Hannah reading the Maggie Gyllenhaal part, I think it’s just gonna be like a very unique joy. Honestly, we’ve been prepping a little bit, but I think it’s just gonna be about getting up there and feeling the chemistry of it all, and just letting these folks who we have all gotten to know each other really, really well, but we haven’t actually done anything wacky and creative like that in a while, like as a reunion, it’s gonna be a real blast, I think.
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