Hannah Einbinder On Camp Miasma: Finding The Perfect Follow-Up For A Post-Hacks Future

Hannah Einbinder is having a moment.

The comedian, actor, and writer just wrapped up a prolific five-season run on HBO's acclaimed series Hacks, which netted her a Primetime Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy. Now, she stars in one of the most well-reviewed movies of the year from a beloved indie director who is quickly becoming one of the most exciting voices in cinema today. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, at first blush, looks like your typical slasher movie with a meta twist.

Einbinder plays Kris Williams, a young director hired to reboot the Camp Miasma slasher franchise. To unlock the script, Williams travels to the place that inspired it all, where the original final girl from the first Camp Miasma film, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson with a seductive southern drawl), lives in seclusion. From encounters with Little Death, the franchise's spear-wielding killer with a vent for a head, to sexual tension you could cut with a knife, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a bloody, horny good time, with a deeply sentimental heart.

In discussing the film, Einbinder revels in that sentimentality, likening it to her experience of working on Hacks and talking of the bond that grew between her, Anderson, and the film's writer-director, Jane Schoenbrun. "I feel an embarrassment of riches to work with someone I think is so nice and wonderful and amazing, who I've come to love," Einbinder says of her collaboration with Schoenbrun. Below, Einbinder talks her post-Hacks career, working with Anderson and Schoenbrun, and the unique perspective on fandom that Camp Miasma tackles.

ScreenRant: As your first major role post Hacks, what does Camp Miasma mean to you and what do you want the next phase of your career to look like?

Hannah Einbinder: The gift that I was given with Hacks - I can think of a million, but the gift was that I was able to have a highly connected, intimate experience and relationship with my collaborators while also being a part of work that I feel proud of and that I feel is just utterly perfect. I view the scripts that Paul [Downs], Jen [Statsky], and Lucia [Anello] gave me on Hacks as being perfect. And I just think they're so sharp and so funny and so smart. And the marriage of a beautiful, loving collaboration and beautiful material is all I could ever hope for in life as an artist. And getting to read this and getting to know Jane, it made me feel like, oh wow. I feel an embarrassment of riches to, again, work with someone I think is so nice and wonderful and amazing who I've come to love. And to do it around a piece of material that I'm truly to my core proud of, from the first second of the film to the last. So those are the things that I value and that is what I hope to do going forward.

SR: Jane is really talking about fandom a lot [in their films] and the ways in which it shapes our lives. So I was curious how that resonated with you considering Hacks.

Einbinder: It's interesting. I think the film itself deals with the sort of parasociality that exists between fans and the object of fandom when it comes to Kris and Billy and the way that Kris views Billy initially and how that relationship transforms. I think that the film deals with fandom in a really beautiful way. But to me, that just signals that it connects to people. And that's, again, just the most meaningful thing that could ever come of your work as a performer, artist, whatever. I feel really proud if that's going down.

SR: And you mentioned Gillian. You said that you believe chemistry is kind of instant, it's not something that builds up, but I was curious, in your process working with Gillian, was there anything that surprised you the most about meeting her and working with her?

Einbinder: I mean, I just didn't know what to expect. But honestly, I think what you see is what you get. Gillian is who she is. And I only knew her from her work and then also from her visibility as a person in media. And she really is chill and cool and funny and kind of coy and all of the things that I saw her as in real life. And so yeah, it was just so incredible. I mean, I could not be luckier in my life to have worked with the incredible women that I've worked with. It's unreal.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in theaters.