Hey everyone, welcome back to the screenwriting life. I'm Meg Lafourgh.

And I'm Lorian McKenna. And today we're very excited to talk to two-thirds of the creative

team behind hacks, Paul Paul W Downs and Jen Statsky who created the show with Lucia Annie L.

Hacks, which follows the complicated friendship between an established stand-up comedy legend and her younger writing partner has

become one of HBO's most celebrated comedies with six Emmy wins and 48 nominations and this

season the show is nominated for 16 Emmys with Jen Paul and Lucia nominated across four categories

Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for all three of them

plus a supporting actor nod for Paul and a directing nod for Lucia.

Paul, Jen, and Lucia met during improv with the upright Citizens Brigade Theater,

eventually working together on the TV show Broad City.

Outside of their trio, Jen has worked on shows like Parks and Recreation

in The Good Place, while Paul and Lucia co-wrote Sony's Rough Night, starring Scarlet

Johanson with Lucia directing. Hi and welcome to the show.

Hello.

Hello.

Thanks for having us.

And now we can't wait to chat with Paul and Jen,

but before we do, we're going to talk about our weeks or what we like to call

adventures in screenwriting. We'll let Lorian start. Lorian how was your week? My week was full of

lava in terms of like confronting myself and what I'm actually doing and the choices I'm actually making and like what the truth is trying to be compassionate with myself like oh yes I do these awful things but also I'm

noticing and trying to be a little bit growthy I'm really tired of personal growth like at this point I just want to be like fucking done.

Like can I just be done?

...