Hannah Einbinder Reflects on ‘Hacks’ Success, Emmy Win and Stand-Up

Hannah Einbinder is having an even more eventful year than Ava Daniels. 

After June brought her debut stand-up special, Everything Must Go — a personal and at times philosophical set of riffs on everything from botany to funerals to a full rendition of a classic Israeli anthem — September saw her Hacks pull off a best comedy upset at the Emmys. 

Einbinder, 29, has plenty to say about all that’s happened this year. 

Let’s start with Hacks. To see it get that recognition was exciting for a lot of longtime fans of the show. How did it play for you?

Total shock, major gratitude. Everybody on the show has a comedy performance background. This is the highest recognition we get.

What was the moment like when they called its name — did it take a minute to register what was happening?

I feel like I could read [presenter] Catherine [O’Hara’s] lips. One moment before she said the name, I could see the “H” on her mouth. I was just so shocked because we didn’t talk about that possibility at all, so [creators] Paul [Downs] and Lucia [Aniello] were winging it onstage.

The Bear is a great show, but we know the criticism that it’s not a comedy. Did it feel like everything turned out how it should?

The category thing is not really something I can have my head wrapped around. We really can’t compare pieces of art or artists. The value of art is its impact on people’s hearts. 

On the special — I did not think I’d ever hear the Six Day War victory anthem “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav” (“Jerusalem of Gold”) mentioned, let alone sung, in any mainstream non-Israeli or maybe even Israeli comedy special. How did that bit and the killer punchline about Schindler’s List germinate?

That song is the last song on the Schindler’s List soundtrack; that’s why I chose it. The reason I sing that song is because it invokes a device I use comedically, which is a long build of tension. It’s long enough to where I can take the audience on a journey with it. First, it’s funny that I’m singing on it. And it’s like, “Is this serious? Oh my gosh, she’s serious.” And then it’s funny again. It’s used for me as a device. I wrote that joke four years ago.

The choice of song, though — the full-on Hebrew and the fact that it’s an Israel anthem and a pro-Israel song — is that an accident or is that by design?

I would say it’s an accident. The reason I’m singing a Hebrew prayer for me personally is not connected to the state of Israel. It’s more just a beautiful prayer and wanting to sing in Hebrew in a way that makes my Judaism visible. I don’t see it as connected to Israel.

If it’s OK to talk about your Judaism for a minute: There’s a menorah behind you [on Zoom], you’re obviously proudly Jewish and you’ve worn a Star of David a lot. I wonder how much you wanted to foreground that in your special.

A comedian’s first special is very much “Welcome to me, this is who I am.” And my Jewish identity is a big part of who I am. I’m a spiritual person; I have a strong connection to my faith. It felt like an important piece of my identity to reflect.

You’ve said the Nazis haven’t found you on Instagram — you’ve mostly dodged some of the backlash that one can experience from being so vocal about their identity, maybe particularly Jewish identity. You said that more than a year ago, though. I wonder, if given the events of the last year, if that’s changed or what your experience has been as someone who’s proudly Jewish in the entertainment business. Or maybe there’s been no change as you’ve experienced it.

I don’t think there’s been a change, no.

That is, you haven’t modulated what you want to say and you’ve felt the same acceptance — whatever it was you were feeling before, you still feel.

I have always had the likest-minded group of leftist individuals that I feel comfortable with. I’m a queer Los Angeleno, and I have the same peer group I always have had.

But I guess I’m referring less to your friends and more to a larger cultural reaction — there has been a lot of discussion whether being out and proudly Jewish in the wider world is as easy as it was.

I see Judaism as being different than — I feel it’s disconnected from what I think you’re getting at, which is the Israeli-Palestinian War. And I think it’s a really huge topic to get into in this context. I think if there was a dedicated thing to that, that would be different.

Fair enough. I actually wasn’t referring to the Middle East, though. I was curious because there are proudly Jewish celebrities who’ve said they’ve felt uncomfortable in the last year unrelated to their feelings on what’s happening in the Middle East. 

[A publicist requests a change of topic.] I don’t mind if you ask me about being Jewish. I wear a Star of David. I’m very visibly Jewish. It’s a big part of my identity. But I think the specific “in the last year” obviously leads to that [conflict] and so that feels different.

You have that bit about a decision decades ago to plant male trees, which disperse pollen, instead of female trees, which remove it from the air, and how we’re still bearing the consequences of that.

Neurodivergent people [Einbinder has ADHD] have special interests. One of mine is nature and ecology. I also feel like I have this comedic lens that I view the world in — literally I was reading an article in Scientific American and thought of that joke. I see it as such ripe terrain for comedy. My goal is to do something alternative, whether that’s the way the jokes are presented, the style or the subject matter.

It’s an incredible ambition and potentially a bit of a tricky dialectic — a traditional stand-up format with heady observations.

I think duality is my goal at all times. I’m constantly holding two truths inside me externally and in how I see the world.

The special reminded me of a number of performers, feminist monologists like V and Heidi Schreck, the sly profundity of Steven Wright. Were you thinking of any of them?

This is an ode to performance, so I definitely was thinking of all those comedians and so many more. My goal was to create a variety hour in one piece. There are observations and classic setup-punchline and character bits and physical comedy. I love straight up-and-down classic shit, and I love burlesque comedy where people are going, “What the hell is this?”

How do you aim to push that forward with the next special?

I have been thinking a lot about what the next iteration is. I would qualify what I’m doing here as alternative comedy, and what is the alternative to that? I don’t feel interested in contributing something that doesn’t feel like it is contributing something to the medium. And so I think it’ll be maybe a while before I do another special. I write like a harvest. I plant seeds and water them for months, and maybe twice a year I have beautiful tomatoes.

Does it help your stand-up that you’re acting in a show about a stand-up? 

Acting has destroyed any boundaries I’ve had — I’m completely uninhibited now onstage.

And does your stand-up in turn help the show? Oddly, Jean Smart has never done stand-up, and she’s playing the person who does.

The one note I’ve ever given Jean was to hold the mic closer. That’s the telltale sign of a first-time comic — they hold the mic too far.

Jean is your mother figure on the show. I want to ask about your actual mother, actress Laraine Newman. How does she feel about both Hacks and the special?

She’s really obsessed with both things. She’s a tough cookie. Really a tough critic, which has made me into the machine that I am. (Laughs.) Luckily, she’s been really jazzed about them. She’s been very effusive when she loves something. But she’s very honest with me. She’s never sugarcoated anything.

So she’ll give you a note to, say, use this joke or hit this line harder?

No. It would be like, “I think I’ve heard that before,” or, “I don’t really find it funny.” It has instilled in me a very high standard. She can’t lie; she doesn’t lie. She tells everybody how she feels. Which is refreshing, I guess.

That Emmys Bear-diss tweet comes to mind. Anyone who’s had a parent say something cringe could relate to you at that moment.

Yeah. God, she felt so bad. I just — my heart breaks thinking how bad she felt about it. My first thought was my friends on that show and how upsetting it was to them. Just … not good.

I’m sorry.

Yeah, it wasn’t good.

I want to close with a more positive family memory: that viral video of you and your dad celebrating at the Eagles bar in 2018 when they won the Super Bowl.

One of the best moments of my life.

Really?

My dad’s connection to sports was wanting to spend time with his dad, who died when he was young. Let’s be honest, that’s really what it’s about. I love the Eagles and I love football, but I love my dad; it’s a big point of connection to him. What isn’t captured in that video is that he was crying, shouting to the heavens, “This one’s for you, Dad.” It just made me feel so good. My dad is 6-foot-1 and his name is Chad, but he’s the most fragile person I know.

And we know from the special he can hit the high notes in The Sound of Music.

It all comes back to duality.

This story first appeared in a November stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.