‘Hacks’ Creator and Star Paul W. Downs Has His Head in the Game (2024)

“And it has to bounce.” Paul W. Downs is explaining pickleball to me on a humid Friday morning. The star and cocreator of Max’s Hacks has returned to West Hollywood’s rooftop court, the site of his final training session for a scene in which his talent manager, Jimmy, takes on and defeats Helen Hunt’s TV network president in a game. As he reacquaints himself with the rules, I sense we may be making some of them up as we go: who serves and when, when a point counts and when it doesn’t, how long we’re supposed to play for. The details of the five-minute YouTube explainer I watched on the way to the court didn’t exactly stick.

I wonder, initially, if Downs knows the rules a bit better than he’s letting on. In his black hoodie and Hacks-branded baseball cap—he was going from our game straight to the writers’ room—Downs presents as both friendly and keenly emotionally intelligent. We had met at a packed Emmys event for the show the previous week, where he and his cocreators and cast were riding high: The just-concluded third season of Hacks has been hailed as the show’s best. That event is also where Downs learned I’d never played pickleball before. He has a way of explaining things without going overboard, and acknowledging his own practice without sounding co*cky.

“He comes across as just likable, and you root for him, and you can tell that he does have principles,” Hacks star Jean Smart tells me. “But at the same time, he’s kind of a kiss ass.” Through chuckles, she clarifies that she’s talking about Jimmy, not Downs.

Still, there seems to be a kinship between actor and role. Downs is unfailingly warm and attentive, even when he winds up losing both sets of pickleball—to both of our surprise. His demeanor doesn’t change during our post-game coffee, when he’s hit with a few stickier questions. “I’m choosing my words carefully. Is that bad?” he asks at one point. In Hollywood, that’s the name of the game. Just ask Jimmy.

Downs created Hacks with his wife, Lucia Aniello, and their close friend Jen Statsky. Both Downs and Aniello emerged from the storied improv group Upright Citizens Brigade and were previously producers on Comedy Central’s hit sitcom Broad City. While Aniello tends to both write and direct, Downs has always balanced scripting duties with acting. (He also directed two episodes this season.) “Acting is what I’ve always wanted to do. I started writing because it’s easier to write for yourself and put yourself in something,” he says. “I always did both hand in hand, but it certainly is a means to get to perform.”

Downs previously proved his comic chops in a small role on Broad City as Abbi Jacobson’s boss turned love interest. But he’s gradually become an indispensable part of the Hacks company, finding both humor and heart in his dynamic with Meg Stalter’s Kayla, Jimmy’s assistant turned partner whose many bad ideas can prevent him from seeing her full value. A woman on the pickleball court had recognized Downs and raved about his performance. I figured she had no idea he was also the show’s creator.

“I know more about Jimmy, and I have inhabited him more, so I find myself sometimes siding with him, even when he oversteps a bit and doesn’t give Kayla agency by saying, ‘We’re not doing this,’” Downs says. “I do understand, objectively. I’m not Jimmy, so I get it. But I think I’m much more sympathetic.”

That intimacy translates in a sharp, nuanced performance that veers from sweet to weaselly to dryly funny (Downs knows his way around his own punchlines). “He just makes me laugh so much,” Smart tells me. But Downs now pitches fewer ideas for his character and more for the rest of the cast. “I guess that I am less selfish—I used to write just for myself,” he says with a smirk. “Sad sentence, but I did write solo shows.” Downs hopes his celebrated Hacks turn might get him more acting work. “I would love to be in a Todd Haynes movie…. That would be a dream,” he says.

The surging popularity of Hacks has been both a blessing and a curse in that regard. “There have been a couple of really cool opportunities I probably can’t [reveal], that I just couldn’t do—one that’s in London in September.” September is off the table because Hacks season four is already on the way, with Downs and co. breaking down the story now (“It’s really daunting in the first month,” he says) and production slated to begin in the fall.

In this season’s penultimate episode, Hacks takes on cancel culture. But unlike most of its peers, the series offers a genuinely nuanced, thoughtful breakdown in which Deborah is confronted with offensive past material at a college and weighs whether to lean into it or atone for it. Hannah Einbinder’s Ava compels Deborah to consider the backlash as a teaching moment. But Deborah isn’t merely taught a lesson; she brings wisdom in experience too. “I was canceled before there was even a name for it—they only gave it a name after it started happening to powerful men,” Deborah says in the episode. “The problem is, I don’t have the time to go to Europe and wait it out…. I don’t have any time.”

I thought of Hacks and that episode during the fallout of Jerry Seinfeld’s viral comments about political correctness and how the “extreme left” is allegedly making TV less funny. Having gotten to know Downs as a deliberate communicator, I acknowledge that this might be a tricky topic to navigate. “Not tricky at all,” he says quickly. “As long as you’re not doing harm and you’re not punching down, I think there’s nothing that’s really off limits—you just have to execute what you’re saying in a way that’s thoughtful and not harmful. I’m like, ‘I think you can do it, Jerry, because you have a comedian brain.’ If you write comedy, it’s your job. And if it’s getting a little harder, that’s okay. The job has never been easy.”

But Downs will also argue that if Hacks were being pitched today, it might not get a pickup at all. Though he may not agree with Seinfeld’s perspective, he acknowledges that this is a “weird time” for TV comedy. “Because everything is about shareholder value and about driving up a stock price, and to do that you need a huge hit,” Downs says. “It’s harder to take a risk on something less safe.”

His show’s success hinges entirely on its execution, as a character-driven half hour that weaves the emotional beats of a drama with the fast pacing and dialogue of a comedy. For Hacks’ trio of creators, awards success is the only way they’ve been able to gauge how many people are actually watching their show. (Hacks has won an Emmys for writing, directing, and acting, and Downs is seeking his first personal acting nod this year.) Max does not give them viewership numbers, even privately.

The day of our chat, Statsky texted Downs and Aniello an article from Media Play News highlighting Hacks’ high placement on the Whip Media chart of streaming TV. Downs takes out his phone and shows me the article. I confess that I don’t understand what the chart means, beyond the fact that it sounds like good news. He nods in agreement: “We were like, ‘I don’t know what Whip means. I have no idea.’”

“You want me to spill some real gossip?” Downs asks me at one point, teasing a “bombshell.” Objective journalist that I am, I bite. “I don’t really have a lot of tea,” he replies. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Downs knows when he’s playing things a bit coy or needs to pull back a thought. He goes a bit quiet, so I interject: “The tea is that I actually was decent at pickleball.” Downs lights up. “​​We’re going to say you were supernova-good so that it makes me not look so bad,” he says with a laugh. “You were playing a comedian. You weren’t playing a professional pickleball player.”

Is Downs competitive? “Jen, Lucia, and I are all competitive, which is interesting, because I just played pickleball with you and was happy to be like, ‘No, it’s fine!’” he says. “I’m competitive about some things, but not others.” I wonder how this extends to the Emmys and this year’s race in particular. Hacks has been positioned as the chief challenger to reigning champ The Bear, which rival networks have allegedly urged the Television Academy to recategorize as a drama. Arguably, Hacks played runner-up to Ted Lasso in its previous two seasons, having won major trophies both times, but not best comedy.

With a sweet smile, Downs declines to discuss his competition. “Being funny is central to what we’re trying to do,” he says, slowly and carefully. “It’s hard, because I’m also coming from the perspective of hearing feedback about the show, which is so nice…. We’re just trying to make something we would want to watch that people find funny.”

The bombshell, it seems, will have to wait—because it can’t just be that Downs is not great at pickleball. All this proves is that the guy can act.

Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair