'Hacks' Star Paul W. Downs Unpacks Jimmy & Kayla's Winning Comedic Dynamic (2024)

Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) may be the headliners of Max‘s award-winning comedy Hacks, but their manager Jimmy (played by co-creator and co-showrunner Paul W. Downs) made his biggest impression yet with the show’s Emmy-nominated third season.

Already recognized for his contribution to the show as a writer, Downs was bestowed with a coveted nomination on behalf of his performance as the fan-favorite character Jimmy, one half of the not-so-dynamic duo that also includes Megan Stalter‘s Kayla. Nominated in the category Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, Downs is finally being recognized for his underrated performance onscreen.

“I was so surprised but so happy,” Downs tells TV Insider, adding, “It was really cool” to learn about his acting nomination. Downs previously won an Emmy alongside co-showrunners Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.

While Downs was the only one nominated out of the Jimmy-Kayla duo, he acknowledges that the performance wouldn’t be the same without Stalter. “I think we really have a similar sense of humor, so we make each other laugh. And I think you can feel that in the scenes,” Downs shares. “Megan is so funny, and she cracks me up. So both of us are sort of on the verge of laughing almost the whole time, which I think you can sense.”

As Downs puts it, “Jimmy plays more of the straight man in the scenes. But when we get into Season 3, we kind of get to flip the script a little bit. And so Kayla gets to show some more emotional moments and… play the more grounded person. I got to do some of the harder comedy character work. So it’s really nice that we have yin and yang. We are a pretty classic comedic duo in terms of the odd couple of Jimmy and Kayla.”

But in a show where Downs is penning portions of the scripts, the question of whether he’s ever been surprised by his primary scene partner looms. “She surprises me all the time and I try and surprise her,” he reveals. “I think it’s so much more fun in your work to surprise yourself and to be surprised by the people you’re with. So yeah, we do. Megan and I have probably the most amount of improv in our scenes [out] of anybody.”

One particular occasion Downs recalls is from the Season 3 finale sequence which sees Jimmy chase after Kayla, who plans to flee California. “There’s a scene where Jimmy comes onto the plane and in this sort of romantic comedy gesture asks Kayla to stay with him and be his partner. Initially, the scene ended with the doors closing, the plane pushing back, us having to go to Greece, and Jimmy saying, ‘Oh no, I left my car in a loading zone and I don’t have any luggage.'”

“And the line for Kayla was, ‘Oh, you can borrow my bikini bottoms.’ And so in the scene, she said, ‘You can borrow my bikini bottoms. They’re cheeky cut!’… which surprised me.” Ultimately, Downs enjoyed the finale’s moments for Jimmy and Kayla most, adding, “In that last episode, you did get to see that shift in gears.”

So, does that mean it’s time for a Jimmy-Kayla spinoff series as some fans have wondered in the latest run? “We are very focused on Hacks because it is very all-consuming in terms of writing it and shooting it, so we haven’t had a lot of time. But I will say there are always storylines every single season that we have for Jimmy and Kayla that seem so fun, and then it occurs to us, ‘Well, actually, maybe that’s more of a spinoff scene because it’s not connected enough to the Deborah and Ava story.'”

Although Downs hasn’t had too long to consider the idea, he says the concept of “a workplace comedy with the two of them does make us laugh.”

In terms of looking ahead, Jimmy is now the manager of a late-night TV host with Deborah’s new network gig. “The biggest challenge of Deborah’s career is launching the show and getting it off the ground. Getting the job was hard, but this is way harder. And I think for Jimmy and for Kayla, they now have a client that’s very much in the center of the cultural conversation,” Downs points out. “It is a high-risk, high-reward [job], but the potential for failure is there, too. So I think it’s going to be a fun season for all of them to be hitting the ground running.”

And when it comes to Ava’s blackmailing of her creative partner Deborah after her potentially damaging one-night stand with the network’s CEO, Bob Lipka (Tony Goldwyn), Downs removed his writing cap to weigh in on how Jimmy might feel about the situation: “I think it would make him very nervous… He wants his girls to have harmony, and… it would really pull the rug out from under him.”

Only time will tell what will ensue between Deborah and Ava, and by proxy, Jimmy and Kayla, but until then, Downs will have the Emmys to look forward to as his performance puts him in the running for the big comedy prize. See more from Downs in the full video interview, above.

Hacks, Seasons 1-3, Streaming now, Max