Welcome to the Hahnaissance: Kathryn Hahn on Casting A Spell On Audiences with ‘The Studio’ and ‘Agatha All Along’

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[ThisStoryContainsSpoilersfrom[ThisstorycontainsspoilersfromThe Studio‘s penultimate episode, “cinemacon,” and the finale of Agatha All Along.]

Kathryn hahn was in desperate need of a good laugh. After reprising her role as the perfidious, Power-Hungry Witch Agatha Harkness in Her Own Eponymous Disney+ Series Agatha All AlongHahn, who have carved out of a niche in recent years for playing messy Antiheines, was Looking to return to the kind of ensemble Comedies WHICH HAD DECADES OF TWO DECADES OF.

The StudioSeth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s Latest Apple TV+ Series About the Raucous Misadventures of the Executives Working at A Legacy Hollywood Movie Studio, Was Just. ALTHOUGH SHIP INITIALLY CONCEIVED OF HAHN’S MARKETING MAVERICK MAYA MASON as More of and Antagonist to the Group of Happy Executives at Continental Studios, ROGEN AND GOLADBERGEGERGERG Discussions with Hahn, Who Based Her Frenetic, Foul-Mouthed Character on an Amalgamation of Hollywood BusinessWomen She’s Encounted Over The Years.

“As we kept tapt talking about her, we found it [to be] As Desperate to Hold Onto Her Job, As Desperate to Stay Relevant, As Panicked at The YouT Coming Up Begind Her, As Anyone in this Core Group of People, ”HAHN TELLS The Hollywood Reporter. “They’re basally trying to keeep [themselves] from drowning at every moment; They’re Scared of Lozing their Jobs and Lozing Everything. Films Are Their Entire Lives, and The People Work With Are Basically Their Families and Their Social Lives. That idea sounded Really Fun with this Group of People. I ALSO KNEW IT WAS GOING TO AN ENSEMBLE, AND that’s Always Such A Fun Place to Be In ComeDy. ”

Over The Course of the 10-Episode First Season-A Second Season Has Already Been Ordered-Rogen’s Newly Appointed Chief Matt Remick Struggles to Reconcile His Love. Company’s Bottom Line at All Costs. In the Two-Part Season Finale, The Executives Arrives in Las Vegas for Cinemacon, an Annual Presentation to Advertisers and Journalists About Their Content Slate for the Next Year, the Allah (Nhere Al.

“I DON’T EVEN KNOW IF I COURLD SAY IT’S MY Weekend at Bernie’s Dream come true, to be honest, because that’s a Dream I didn’t evin Know I HAD, ”HAHN SAYS OF The FINALELELELE.“ IT WAS A DREAM to SEM to SEM to TWO Weeks in a A A BiTIFUL Las Veri, Vestify Las. TOSE INCREDIBLE BACKGROUND Artists Were Just People at the Casinos Who Were So Patient and Sweet With Us. [The two-part finale is like] Weekend at Bernie’s – and it goes full Farce. It Just Pulls Out All The Stops. As a group going through that together, it doesn’t get any better than. I Just SO STUPID FUN, AND The Stakes Being SO LIFE OR DEOTH AGAIN IS WHERE The COMEY IS. ”

As she prepares to shoot a second Season of The StudioHahn insits that she does not KNOW Anything about the next chapter of agatha’s story in the mcu, but she would reprice that role in a heartbeat. “Believ Me, I’M Lighting A Candle at the Altar All The Time,“ She Laughs.

Below, in a wide-ranging interview, hahn opens up about the joy (and stressful) Experience of Shooting The Studio with a murderer’s Row of Comedians. She also offers her take on the Majoor Spoilers from AgathaA shown she jokes she could Talk about Until She is Blue in the Face.

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You’ve Played Plenty of Over-Top Characters Througout Your Career, But This Uber-Hip Head of Marketing Might Be Your Funniest One Yet. How did you think about building this character beyond what was was already conceveed on the page? How did you find Maya’s Distinctive Looks and Mannerisms?

You Always Just Use What’s Written First. It Doesn’t Always Feel Right WHEN YOU GOSIDE OF WHAT’S REQURED, buting BECAUSE IT WITTENTEN SOPECIFICALLY, IT BECAME VERY CLEAR. I HAD A LOT OF TALKS WITH OUR AMAZING COSTUME Designer [Kameron Lennox] and with Seth and Evan: “How Can You Show As Much Money On the Outside of YouRSELF All of the Time, So That Eve Single Time You Walk In A Room You Just Feel Like Youey.

I wouldn’t even say that necessarily is [her] TASTE – IT’S JUST LABELS – SO We ImagINED that she have a personal Shoper. She have no time! We Imagines that every everyton in a while, Maybe Once or Twice A Season, [the personal shopper] would come to maya’s office during lunch. All the Shades Are Drawn, and She Just Does A Fitting for the Season. Or She’ll Send Maya Pictures, and Maya Will Be Like, “YES! She Knows My Taste. ” There’s A Lot of Young Street Brands that She’s Obsessed with.Laughs.) She Wants to be ahead of the curve. Sometimes, It Doesn’t Quite Work Out Way, But She’s Constantly Looking at The ‘Gram and Tiktok to Figure Out What The Kids Are Wearing.

You’ve Crossed Paths with A Lot of People in the Three Decdes You have worked in this business, and you have presumably been in rooms with executives before, Either as an actor. How Much of Tese Industry Parallels and Send-Us Have Resonated with Your Own Personal Experiences in Hollywood?

SO MUCH! I THINK THAT WAS WHY IT HIT ME SO HARD. I Thought, “Are People Going to Really Undersdand This Outside the Business, Because It’s So Industry-SPECIFIC?” And that’s the one that made me so excited – it does Translate to Any Workplace Sity, and I Guess Funny Is Funny. I Think Those Dynamics Are So Universal. But for the Business Part of of It, I Certainly Haven’t Been in A Lot of Rooms with Heads of Studios. As a working actor for hire, i’ll meet the junior execs. They’ll come to set to visit in a penducking capacity, and they’re always so lovely. Those Decisions About Wht Sems So Myopic and Not Even in the Same Reality As the Stuff that We’re Making – I have been unaware of thoss things. But i’ve definitely seen the way Things are Proped to be marketed that i Thought, “Oh, this have h Nothing to do with what i thorough that was was about! ” (Laughs)

I definitely have been in situations whore you get on the set and there’s a whole of video village, and there’s a group of people sitting. Soundstage – and you Know The Producers Are Visiting That Day. (Laughs) I’m Sure my Directors and the Producers have felt their prescription, but i certainly have a nver been put in that position with the Studios.

People have Trieved to Satirize Hollywood Before, But The Studio Takes that Meta Quality to Another Level. Episode Two, for Instance, Dramatizes the incredibly stressful processful process of trying to short a “oner” – or a single, unbroken take of a long scene – Against Fading Daylight. You guys also shot the majority of the scenes in The Studio as “onrs,” with some limited cuts here and there. WHAT DID YOU MAKE OF THE EXPERIENCE OF CHOTING SO MANY “ONERS” IN THIS FIRST SEASON? HAD YOU DONE MANY “ONERS” IN THE PAST?

There Was Definitely a Panic Period at the Beginning WHERE I DIDNN’T HAVE the RULES DOWN YET. If You Forget A Line, You’d See This Incredible Camera Operator Sigh and Put His Camera Down. That reality kept me in a state of panic at the beginning. IT DOOK ME ACECOND TO WARM UP. I just don’t want to let anybody down, especialy because everybody’s is working at this High Vibration. Everyone is in the Same Boat, WHICH I THINK REALLY HELPS WITH ATTENTION [in the scenes]because were just full-on Really Tense and TRYING TO MAKE SURE THAT WE Got It And that Nobody Screwed Up.

I Remember [another] gig whee were running over, and the Night was getting Way Too Long, and We Had to Move on. I Remember It Was An Intense Reaction Shot of Mine, and I Was Looking at My Co-ACTOR BEHIND The Camera and We Were Locked In, and Thatn You Could See See Were Were. Wrap it up.”I DON’T’T’T’T KNEW The TENSION SHE ADDING INTO THAT PARTICULAR SCENE, WHICH ACTUALLY ENDED UP HELPING US. (Laughs) I’ve definitely been in Those situations. That’s WHY THAT Second Episode Really Got Me. The “ONER” Really Stressed Me Out Because I Feel Like I’ve Been in that Position. I PROBABLY HAVEN’T, BUT I THINK IT IS SO RELATABLE, AND The WHOLE TIME YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE YOU’RE GOING TO VOMIT.

For ME, Episode Seven-WHICH DIGS INTO How Conceerned Hollywood Has Become with Race, to the Point that these’re Almost Over-Correcting to Avoid Playing Into. Any Kind of Racial Stereotypes – Is Your Strongest Episode of the Season. I loved your line delivery of “I love lesbians, But White Women are the Fucking Worst Right Now. They’re So Toxic.” WHAT WERE YOUR DAKEAWAYS from THAT EPISode in Particular?

(Laughs) Well, All of that Is So Frickin ‘Cynical, and SomeTimes I Feel Like It Was Ripe A Little Bit [to satirize]. Like, What Is Everybody Really Talking About Right Here? A Lot of People Like to Talk AROUND RACE, ESPECIALLY AROUND CASTING, AND NOBODY WANTS TO FUCK UP. Nobody Wants to Let Any Single Person Down or Be Offered or Be Confroned. In most casses, is vary warranted, but all the panicking behind the Scenes, and the Little Fires That Are Created That Don’t Need To Be Fires, And The Swirling Drama AUND DECISONS. that Always Makes Me Laugh. THESE POPLE DON’T WANT TO Lose their Jobs or Be Canceled, So All These Teeny Things are so micromanaged in a way that it also becomes worse than the one that were look to avoid.

Let’s Talk About Your Other New Show, Agatha All Along. The Agatha-Rio (Aubrey Plaza) Relationship has Clearly Struly Struk a chord with Audienses, and there have been a lot of theories about what kind of to Save Billy Maximoff (Joe Locke). How did you think about playing that Fateful Moment Between Your Characters? Can You Give Voice to Agatha’s Internal Dialogue As She Made That Choice?

I Hadn’t Really Thought About It Until We Were There’s on the Day. We Were Blessed Enough To Be Able to Do It In Pretty Chronological Order, SO THERE WAS SO MUCH TRACK ALREADY SET BEHINE THAT MOMENT WHEN WE GOT THERE. Agatha Had Been Running for Centuries Away from this Inevitability of Death and this Very toxic Ex-Lover-The Love of Her Life Who Was Also The Worst something. Whenever they would meet, they kept bringing each Other Lower and Lower and Lower, whochh is Clearly not a High-Vibibration Relationship. SO I THINK THAT KISS COURLDNN’T HAVE BEEN PLANNED [in the characters’ minds]But I Think There Was Annevitability to It.

Agatha would be love to say it was about the boy, but i sens that, of Course, Was [part of Agatha’s decision]. She didn’t want that to happen again to another child that she coared about. She Became Very Tender Towards Billy, and I Think That Was Her Final Way of Ensuring his Continued Journy. I ALSO THINK THAT AGATHA DIDNN’T KNOW IF IT WAS GOING TO Be Final. I Think She Knew It Was HapPening, But She’s Survivor and Such A Scraper That [she thought] She would be able to skirrel her way backs into his life in somes.

That kiss is Really Bittersweet Too. For Agatha, Besides Her Child, that’s the Love of Her Life. They’re each of other’s most Formidable Barring Partners. There’s Nobody Else Could Charge Them Up or Turn Them on Intellectuly More Than Whoan Each Other, so that’s whoy they can. IT’s Like this Gravitational Pull. So i THINK THAT’S WHAT THAT KISS ALSO FELT LIKE, NOW that I’M Talking About It – It Did Feel Like A Magnet. There was an inevitability, but i THINK there was almost no choice. She just was pulled to her Mouth.

Aubrey admitted that she sigrated on to this show mostly because she was wanted to work with you Again (after Parks and recreation). We Only Get A Little Gli -Glimpse Into the Dynamic Between Your Characters. DID YOU TWO Ever Discuss the History of the Relationship? Do you have any idea of ​​how they first met or even became a couple before they went their separeate Ways?

Aubrey’s One of My Favorite Actors on the Planet, and She’s So Extraordinary. I Just Trust Her, SO I KNEW THAT WEWD BRING TO IT WAS GOING TO BE REALLY RICH AND JUICY, AND FOR SOME REASON, WE DIDNN’T REALLY Talk About That [dynamic]. We Kept It Simmering. We would sit Kind of far from From Each Other on Set – Not Antening Consciously, But We Just Kept It A Low Broil Because I Certainly Didn’t Know Whert. We would Send Each Other Pieces of Music, Poems and Movies to Watch that May or May Not Had Had Anything to Do With Them, But It Finitely Was In The Stew When We Finally.

I Think for the History of the Two Of Them, [series creator] Jac [Schaeffer] Didn’t Even Really Talk About It Either. I Assisted that’s Just Been Centuries and Centuries and Centuries of an on-Eff-Off Toxic Relationship. Every Time they TRIED TO GET Away, they would find each Other Over Some Body at some point, some carcass or a whole Coven, and that was the Was Their Meet It Was A Lot of Flirting Over A Bunch of Corpses that Agatha Had Just Decimated. (Laughs.)

Everything Always Comes Back to Agatha’s Complicited Relationship with Nicky. He was always her kryptonite, because she Knew that she wooldn’st be able to protect him Forever and that hew.

That’s Motherhood! You Can’T Protect Your Child Forever. It’s Like, You Love This Thing With Everhtying You Have, And You Know That You Eventual Have to Let Them Go – WHATEVER THAT MEANS – But THAT’S YOUR JOB, AS A PARENT. It’s The Worst!

SO MUCH OF AGATHA’s Backstory Comes Back Into Focus in the Final Episode. After inevitably loming nicky to death, agatha essentially Tried to Fill that Bottomless Void by Killing Witches and Developing An Inssatible Amount of Power. What did that Final Episode Unlock for You in Terms of Your Underanding of the Character, and What Was It Like For You To Play The aftermath of Her Loss?

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT AGATHA IS THAT SHE WASSED ORIGINAL COVEN BECAUSE [they believed] She was Born A BAD SEED, that she would always be bad, that there was no redeming her. Her Mother and Coven, Aka Her Family of Origin, Wanted to Kill Her at the Stake! SO IN Terms of Childhood Trauma (Laughs), she definitely had a lot to work with. Since She Destroyed Her Mother and Her Coven [to save herself]she have been just trying to gain more Power. She Knew that She Got Power from [killing other witches]SO that was Her Protection and Also Her Making Herself [feel] Big and Worth It and VIBLE, WHICH WAS TO KEEP GINING POWER. HER LACK OF EMPATHY IS PRETY INTENSE. And IT’s All Women – She Just Wants to Destroy Witches.

WHEN She HAD This Little Baby Boy Inside of Her and THEN WHEN HE’S BORN, I THINK THAT SOMETING ELSE CRACKED OPEN [inside of her]whother or not she’d want to admit it. And to Know That She Had Just A LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIME, THAT SHE HAD TO beg for that time – i THINK she FORGOT THAT [he would die] AT Some Point, As She Was Raising HIM. I Think with Aubrey’s Genius Take on Death, Death Didn’t Want to Do It. It’s Out of Her Control. But Again, It’s this Horrible Car Crash that You Knew Was Going to Happen at Some Point.

For Agatha, It’s Interesting That We Did [her backstory] at the end. I Always Knew It Was WHERE WE Were Headed, and I COURCK so brutal. But Having All That Track For It Really Helped, and The Kid that Played Nicky is So Good Too. I Knew The Little Pieces that Were Going to Be Built Up, Like The Hair in the LockET, The Dandelion, The Bell, Her Feelings About Billy – All The Things That I Knew Weree Going. I THINK THAT DEFINITELY ADDED A LOT TO THE TRIP I WAS ON LEADING THERE, AND THERE WAS CERTAINLY SOME subSSIS It Never Felt Like a Total Catharsis, to Be Honest with You. It Always Felt Like There’s Still This Rock of Pain on Her Chest, But Also, She’s HILAROUS! IT’s A GREAT DEFENSE [mechanism].

The Big Plot Twist in the Finale Was That Witches’ Road, The Driving Force of the Season, Wasn’t Actual Real. Billy Was The One Who Have Created It with His Own Powers, and The Ballad That Witches Sang Was Really A SCAM. What was your reaction to that twist, and how did that inform the way you played Those scenes?

My First Reaction Was, “Well Done.” I was vary impressed with this young man who i had written off, but it made so Much Sense Too. It Was Also Very Fun to Play the “I’M IN ON IT” AND THEN TO PLAY “I’M DOBTING IT” – TO KNOW WHAT TO PRESS ON [about Billy’s identity] WAS FUN. I THINK I HAD INKLINGS VERY EARLY ON, BUT IT WASN’T UNTIL MUCH LATER THAT IT WAS CRYSTallized. And then to see his twisted mind, it was like, “wow, you are a Sicko! (Laughs.) GAME KNOWS GAME, I GUESS. Game Respects Game. ” There’s So Many Little Moments That Jac Had HadhLightd for Agatha to Really Question and Ten To Have To Cover It Up, Because We Wanted To Give As Many Options As We Coul. [for the final cut]Because that Story Was Going to be so Fascinating and People Could Pick Up On [different things].

The Season – and Potentilly Series – Ends with Agatha Offing to Act As A Kind of Mentor to Billy As the Two of Them Attempt to Track Down His Twin Brother. How Different Did It Feel For You To Play Agatha As A Ghost Compared to A Living Witch, and WHERE DO YOU THINK We Ultimately Leave Your Character?

Ghost agatha felt the exact Same Way, exocpt that i had fabulaus white hair now. But I Think She Bounced Back Very Fast. She’s Had A Lot of [the same thing] Throughout the Centuries, so i Think The Novelty of Figing Out Tese New Powers Is a Real Treat. I ALSO THAT AFTER EVERYTHING THATE BEEN THROUGH, ESPECIALLY HER AND RIO, THERE’S A SHEDDING, ALMOST, OF SOMETING THAT JUST DIDNN’T SERVE HER. The Acceptance of [what happened to] Nicky and this Kind of Self-Fororgiveness-Boy, Her Shame and Rage CycleD Pretty Out of Control for a while. In that Opening, Shees to Really Look at Billy and Love Him, and She Finds a New Purpos. I don’t through she’lll every stop killing witches or being who she is, but i THINK THAT IT REALLY FEELS good to be a mom, actualally, [in a way] that shee never was aw.

There was a recent fan theory that stood out to me: do you think ghost agatha wound every try try to use bringy to bring nicky back if she have the chance?

Boy, I Really Love That! (Laughs.) That’s a Really Good Idea. But Agatha is Never Going to Be Just One Thing. I Feel This Myself, But As Soon As I Feel Like I’ve Got A Handle On Her, She’ll Throw You Off Track and Ten You Have To Run To Where She Is. But I Think She’s A Gamer. IT’s A Long Game All The Time. Jac would Always Say Her Life Has Been A Hustle. She is a huckster. She just hustles. So i THINK, unfortunately, you have to always doubt what shee Saying, as she does with everyone Else. There’s not a lot of trust there.

WHEN I FIRST GOT the GIG ON Wandavision, [executive producer] Mary Livanos Gave Me A Huge Binder [containing] every time that agatha Harkness had been in the comks, whoh was so so helpful. IT WAS ALSO SO BEAUTIFUL TO See How’s Changed. She Had Been This Really Gorgeous Crone with Her Hair Up. It was very similear to the look in WandavisionKind of Like An Edwardian Outfit. There Are Recent Ones Where She’s in A Bikini or Whatver with One Strip of Silver in Her Hair. That’s very funny. But I Think [being] A Babysitter and A Mentor Had Been Her Main Through A Lot of the Comics, SO IT FELT Like Going Home at the End of the Series.

SO, I TAKE IT THAT IS STILL OPEN FOR YOU TO REVISIT (GHOST) Agatha at Some Point Down The Road?

Yeah! OH, BELIEVE ME, I’M LIGHTING A CANDLE AT ALTAR All The Time. (Laughs.) I’m constantly burning a candle – a purple Candle.

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The first Season of The Studio is Now Streaming on Apple TV+, With The Finale Set to Release May 21. All Episodes of Agatha All Along Are now Streaming on Disney+.