There’s a scene in series two of Hacks that Hannah Einbinder can’t bear to watch. In it, her character Ava is in the crowd as her boss – storied, old-school comedian Deborah – performs a standup show aboard a lesbian cruise. Deborah arrives on the stage dad dancing to Pharrell’s Happy (“Oh no, she’s doing Ellen,” Ava sighs), before proceeding to comprehensively bomb, offending everyone in the audience and riling the captain’s wife (who she assumes is married not to a woman but a man, because of course only a man can captain a ship). “God, it’s painful – it’s really cringe to watch,” says Einbinder. “So tough. I feel for her because I know just how it feels.”
