Transcript
Hannah Einbinder (0:01)
This is an LA Times Studios podcast.
Sami Roth (0:08)
My name is Sami Roth and I'm the climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times. This is boiling point. Usually when an actor wins an award, they'll use their acceptance speech to thank their family and their agent and their co stars. Once in a while, they might bring up politics or some cause that's especially important to them, but even then, they'll usually keep it pretty sanitized. They'll say something that won't feel too jarring for folks who aren't already singing from the same hymnbook. So when Hannah Einbinder, one of the stars of the HBO series Hacks, won the Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy earlier this year, her acceptance speech was definitely outside the ordinary. She spent the whole thing talking about the climate crisis. She said, and I quote, we are on the brink of a really dark era of climate denial. She called out Chevron specifically for its role in the plastic pollution crisis. She said, fossil fuel companies, and again, I quote, need to pay to clean up the mess that they made. She ended by saying, planet Earth will be fine. It's humanity that's in trouble. So Einbinder doesn't mince word about climate change or about the fossil fuel industry. That's just not who she is. Earlier this year, as the Eaton fire and the Palisades fire were tearing through L A County, Einbinder joined the Sunrise Movement for a rally at a Phillips 66 oil facility in Carson.
Hannah Einbinder (1:46)
And the oil companies depend on that fatigue. They depend on our need to compartmentalize. They depend on our anger to subside so that they can continue their dark work. But oil executives don't understand that it is not just anger that fuels us, but love. Our love for each other and our love for our miraculous planet Earth will never dissipate. We cannot stop this effort. Every single one of us must join this movement for the sake of humanity's survival on this planet. And I am sorry to her, but Mars is ugly. We are not going there. We want a future on Earth. Yeah, we want future on Earth. When do we want it?
Sami Roth (2:40)
Yeah.
Hannah Einbinder (2:41)
And if we don't get it, shut it down. If we don't get it, shut it down. Give it up for Sunrise movie.
Sami Roth (2:53)
I don't know this for a fact, but I've got to think. Einbinder is one of the most outspoken people in Hollywood on climate change. So I wasn't surprised to see her name in a press release that landed in my inbox this summer. Hundreds of actors had joined a campaign led by the environmental group Stand Earth, calling on the actors union SAG AFTRA to divest its $5 billion pension plan from fossil fuel companies. Supporters of the campaign included Mark Ruffalo, Jane Fonda, Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany, Chelsea Handler, Eva Longoria, Mark Ham, and of course, Hannah Einbinder. As it turned out, I had just recently started watching Hacks in which Einbinder stars as a young comedy writer who gets sent to Las Vegas to help an aging stand up comedian played by Jean Smart revive her career. I'm only four seasons behind, but better late than never and it's a super, super funny show. Anyway, after I saw the press release about the SAG AFTRA campaign, I started thinking it would be interesting to ask Einbinder what it's been like taking such a vocal stance on climate in Hollywood and also about the environment storylines that have been featured on her show and there are a bunch of them. She very graciously agreed to an interview with some minor spoiler alerts for hacks. Here's our conversation.
