Paul W. Downs is most persuasive when comedy grows out of people trying to work together. Hacks makes a strong case for his overlapping jobs as writer, director and actor, though its generational arguments sometimes feel prepared in advance.
Fi1m perspective
In Hacks (2021), a discussion about work can quickly become personal. Paul W. Downs, writing alongside Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky, is good at finding comedy in that change. We laughed because the practical business of working together so readily gives way to taking offence. The writing recognises that colleagues do not stop having feelings merely because they are supposed to be doing a job. It is a strong basis for a comedy, and Downs is worth watching for what he helps build around it.
His acting and writing were already intertwined on Broad City (2014), where he played Trey Pucker and also wrote and directed. Rough Night (2017) continued the partnership with Aniello: they co-wrote the film, she directed and he played Peter. Those credits matter because performing has informed his writing and direction, rather than being a separate pursuit. With Hacks, co-created with Aniello and Statsky, the important step is sustaining the characters across seasons. As co-showrunner, writer and occasional director, Downs has more than one way to shape their behaviour.
Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder are excellent together, and the writing is usually alert to what their characters can bring out in each other. The weakness comes when age makes the disagreements too easy to predict. Einbinder then has to make Ava feel like a person when a scene would settle for making her an example of what is wrong with the young. That is a fault in the shared writing, not something we can sensibly assign to Downs alone.
Downs also plays Jimmy, a talent manager, in Hacks. That is an apt place for a performer whose comedy takes a particular interest in manager-and-assistant pairings and the friction of working relationships. His experience of improvising within scripts helps connect the performing and writing, though the strongest evidence for following him remains the conversations he helps write for Smart and Einbinder. Start with Hacks, allowing for the occasional exchange that sounds more like a writing meeting.
Biography
Paul W. Downs is an American actor, writer and director. He is the co-creator and co-showrunner of the Max series Hacks (2021–), on which he also stars as talent manager Jimmy and has written and directed episodes.
Downs first gained attention for his recurring role as Trey Pucker on the Comedy Central series Broad City (2014–2019), for which he also wrote, directed and produced episodes. He co-wrote the 2017 film Rough Night and appeared in Like Father (2018). He trained at Duke University and began creating short-form comedy with collaborator Lucia Aniello, whom he later married.
For his work on Hacks, Downs has received multiple Primetime Emmy Awards, including for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, as well as Golden Globe and Peabody Awards.
