Hannah Einbinder’s Accidental Road to Acting Stardom

Well-meaning mom tweets aren’t the only things Einbinder has had to confront in the spotlight. As her profile has risen, she’s found herself fielding questions around her identity and gender expression, exploring the way she’d like to present herself to a growing audience. While she tends to dress in jeans and button-downs off duty, she enjoys playing the part of the fashionista at work. “The world’s a stage, doll!” she says, Patti LuPone affect in her voice. “I mean, it’s theater!”

On Hacks, Ava’s uniform of Carhartt jackets and combat boots is often the butt of jokes—in boss Deborah’s words, she dresses “like Rachel Maddow’s mechanic.” In real life, Einbinder has emerged as a red-carpet ingenue, frequently seen in Nicolas Ghesquière’s Louis Vuitton, styled by Jamie Mizrahi—a favorite of superstars like Adele and Jennifer Lawrence.

“You can’t just wear the merch from the fucking comedy club anymore,” she cracks. “I looked like Adam Sandler before—and honestly still do.”

Today, in fact, she’s in full Big Daddy–era Sandler drag, wearing baggy jeans, a white tee, and an unbuttoned pinstripe shirt with black Sambas, and the icing on the cake—two Brat green hair clips holding that now-signature bob in place.

When she first started doing press, Einbinder largely wore suits—it’s just what she felt comfortable in, she explains. But as the years have gone by, she’s embraced a more glamorous, more femme persona on the carpet.

Under scrutiny, Einbinder, who identifies as bisexual, has found herself becoming firmer in her gender expression. “Having eyes on me and having folks demand answers to what I’m doing and what word I am has forced me to accept the liminal space,” she says. “We live in a binary world. People really want to know that red means stop and green means go—and I’m yellow, baby. You know? Go slow or speed up. Whatever.”

That embrace of the liminal bodes well in a role that often tasks her to telegraph complex, nuanced ideas around gender, age, and morality. “There’s been kind of this idea that Deborah can do no wrong for the audience,” says Aniello. “But I think that Hannah showing the pain of Ava changed that story a bit and changed the way people feel about both characters—they now find themselves rooting for Ava over Deborah, which seems like such a crazy reversal.”