How ‘Hacks’ Found Comedy in Every Prop, Light, and Gesture

“I never actually made tooth-to-Emmy-winner contact. I did not bite.”

That’s co-creator and actor Paul W. Downs denying — to the best of his recollection — ever clamping down on Emmy-winner Julianne Nicholson’s hand while lunging to bite her during their “frantic” scene in “Hacks” Season 4.

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“I think that’s the only take where you pretended to [bite her], actually,” co-creator Lucia Aniello said. “She would’ve been fine with it. She’s so game, if Paul bit her hand, she would’ve gone with it. She would not have stopped the scene.”

“She was really holding onto that bag,” Downs said. “She was very committed.”

The scene in question, which you can see in the full video interview above, is from Episode 9, “A Slippery Slope,” which was written by Downs, Aniello, and co-creator Jen Statsky. They were joined by cinematographer Adam Bricker and production designer Rob Tokarz, for a virtual panel discussion as part of Universal Studio Group’s USG University.

Watch the full video above.

Let’s break it down: Jimmy (Downs) and Kayla (Megan Stalter) are helping a sleepy, hungover Dance Mom (Nicholson) into her dressing room, where they have to revitalize the TikTok star so she can perform on Deborah’s (Jean Smart) late-night show. The premise is simple enough. But it’s the details — the performances and props, the lighting and the wallpaper, the cinematography and the blocking — that elevate a funny scene to hysterical heights.

“There were some nicks and cuts. There were some injuries,” Downs said. “That was a very physical scene. She threw herself into a bar cart. There was blood.”

That being said, production designer Rob Tokarz and his team helped to protect the actors as best they could. When Dance Mom first enters the room, yes, she stumbles into a bar cart, which looks and sounds dangerous enough to get a laugh — even though it was perfectly safe.

“We had to make sure the bar cart is something safe for her to bump into multiple times, so we had to replace all the glassware with something that was not going to break apart,” Tokarz said. “I think we replaced the glass on the bar cart itself with tempered glass so if it were to crack it would be safe.”

Another astute touch by Tokarz was making sure any prop used in the scene for comic effect would also be something that would logically be found in a late-night dressing room — like the big metal bucket first glimpsed when the characters enter, when it’s filled with bottles of water, and later seen in close-up as Dance Mom’s getting dunked.

“We had options on what the ice bucket would actually be and what would look best cinematically,” Tokarz said. “Then we kind of back it up and have it make sense to the room. It all has to tie together to be realistic, so it’s not like something that suddenly appeared on the coffee table. It was holding the water bottles at one point, and then they used it for something else.”

“So we take all these elements and just make sure nobody’s going to get hurt, [while giving the actors] the flexibility to do what they did.”

“We definitely scripted a lot of the physical comedy because it was such a frantic scene,” Downs said. “They were essentially going to be dragging an unconscious woman into her dressing room and trying to revive her. There was a lot of opportunity for us to mine moments for physical comedy. […] Megan Stalter, Julianne Nicholson, and myself all had a lot of fun doing it, and I think we’re all people who are open to improvisation and ad-libbing, but that was one that we kind of had to choreograph pretty specifically. There’s so many props, and there’s so much matching, continuity-wise. […] There was the clearing of the cocaine, which is a very common phrase in film and theater.”

Aniello, who also directed the episode, said they don’t often get to “do a lot of rehearsal — some might say none” — but they make the time for more physical scenes like this one. It helps maximize the humor already written into the scripts while identifying unforeseen avenues for additional wit.

“When we reveal she’s on all fours, that’s written into the script,” Aniello said. “They wrestle over the bag, she runs into the bar cart, all those beats are definitely there. In terms of ‘they’re sitting down and this is where they stand up,’ that’s the kind of thing that we work out.”

“It’s a delicate dance of being very direct in the script and then also when we rehearse so we can match continuity and stuff,” Statsky said. “But also, like Paul’s saying — and credit to him — he and Meg and Julianne are so present and such incredible comedians that, in the moment, you also want to give space for them to make choices. One of the funniest moments in the scene to me is when Paul goes over to the door and throws the purse over his shoulder. That was not in the script. That was just something Paul found in the moment — or maybe Lucia, you told him — but it was found on the day, in the moment.”

Then, of course, there’s the act of actually capturing everything written down, designed, and performed.

“What I love about this scene from a camera perspective is just how reactive the camera is,” Adam Bricker, the cinematographer, said. “We have incredible camera operators who are really in the scene, living in the moment. There’s a great energy to the scene, and I think they strike the right tonal balance of not trying to introduce that energy with the camera, but sort of reacting to the performances in a way that keeps it really grounded and real.”

“Then from a lighting perspective, we wanted to keep it naturalistic but also make it feel a little scary, like something bad might happen in here.”

Something bad did happen in that dressing room, but at least no one left with teeth marks — or so they say.

“Hacks” is available on Max.

IndieWire partnered with Universal Studio Group for USG University, a series of virtual panels celebrating the best in television art from the 2024-2025 TV season across NBC Universal’s portfolio of shows. USG University (a Universal Studio Group program) is presented in partnership with Roybal Film & TV Magnet and IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking. Catch up on the latest USG University videos here or directly at the USG University site.

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