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Paul W. Downs can\u2019t help it that even on the weekends, his life intersects with \u201cHacks,\u201d the HBO comedy he co-created and co-showruns with his wife, Lucia Aniello, and their friend Jen Statsky. (He also appears on the show as Jimmy LuSaque Jr., the besieged manager of its two stars, played by Emmy winners Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder.) The fifth and final season of \u201cHacks\u201d premiered last week, but on Downs\u2019 days off, he often finds himself at its previous filming locations or hanging out with cast members who have become like family.<\/p>\n
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.<\/p>\n Downs moved to Los Angeles in 2011, but soon after, he and Aniello were hired to write (and for him to act) on the \u00fcber-New York show \u201cBroad City,\u201d keeping them away from the West Coast for years. Now the couple live in Los Feliz, which they enjoy with their young son.<\/p>\n \u201cI love Los Feliz because it\u2019s a real neighborhood with restaurants and bars, but also feels close to nature with Griffith Park,\u201d Downs says. \u201cAlso it\u2019s very central to my Eastside friends and Westside agents.\u201d<\/p>\n And if he had to live at a local mall, like the character Ava Daniels did in the third season of \u201cHacks,\u201d which would he choose?<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be the Americana<\/a>, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how he\u2019d spend a perfect day in L.A.<\/p>\n 10 a.m.: A late rise and a li\u2019l barista<\/p>\n I\u2019m sleeping in if I can, which I can\u2019t because I have a toddler, but let\u2019s say I can sleep \u2019til 10. That would be insane.<\/p>\n Then I\u2019m making coffee at home. I\u2019m making it with my 4-year-old because he likes to make my coffee now. He always wanted to help, now he really wants to do it on his own. I\u2019m still there to supervise, but he does do a lot of it.<\/p>\n I do batch brew. I\u2019m doing Verve Coffee<\/a> that I\u2019m grinding there, and then I\u2019m brewing four cups because I need my coffee. I had a Moccamaster <\/a>for a long time, but I recently got a Simply Good Coffee<\/a>. There\u2019s no plastic \u2014 it\u2019s all glass and metal.<\/p>\n 11 a.m.: Chocolate croissants for everyone<\/p>\n We\u2019re driving to Pasadena and we\u2019re going to [Artisanal Goods by] CAR<\/a>, which is the place to get the best chocolate croissant, I think, in the world. I don\u2019t just think in L.A., I think they\u2019re better than Paris. I\u2019m going there with my wife and my kid and I\u2019m having another coffee and some pastry. We\u2019re ordering three [chocolate croissants]. We\u2019re not doubling up.<\/p>\n 11:45 a.m.: The family business<\/p>\n We\u2019re driving to Fair Oaks in Pasadena. There\u2019s a place called T.L. Gurley<\/a>. We shot \u201cHacks\u201d there, actually. Not only in Season 1, but also full circle in Season 5. We\u2019re going to shmay<\/a> around and look at antiques. My kid is going to want to play a vintage pinball machine. We\u2019re going to find a little piece of art for the house or what have you. It\u2019s not necessarily that I\u2019m on the hunt. It\u2019s to pass the time and to have some fun. If I could do anything and have a leisurely day and take my mind off work, that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n People love to interact with my kid when he\u2019s there. We\u2019re really training him to appraise things at a young age. My parents are part-time dealers of antiques. My grandmother bought and sold antiques. It\u2019s kind of a family business.<\/p>\n 1:30 pm.: Baguettes and books<\/p>\n We\u2019re driving to Larchmont and we\u2019re getting a sandwich at Larchmont Village Wine, Spirits & Cheese<\/a>. I\u2019m doing prosciutto-mozzarella-basil on a baguette.<\/p>\n Then we\u2019re going to Chevalier\u2019s Books<\/a>. What\u2019s sad is that I\u2019m often not looking for leisure material. I\u2019m looking for something that I\u2019m interested in learning more about or writing about, or that they\u2019re turning into a show I want to audition for. But we\u2019re also doing Little Golden Books<\/a> for my son. He\u2019s obsessed. We\u2019re not huge on screen time, so we really encourage the book-buying.<\/p>\n 2:30 p.m.: Cast pool party<\/p>\n We\u2019re having some family fun in the pool and we\u2019re doing that until evening. We invite people over all the time. My sister-in-law is a New Yorker, but she actually wrote last season on \u201cThe Rooster\u201d<\/a> and she\u2019s often writing on shows in L.A., so she\u2019s often here and she\u2019ll have a couple friends come over. I know this sounds like a piece of PR or something, but we\u2019ll really literally have Hannah [Einbinder] and maybe Mark Indelicato from \u201cHacks\u201d come over to swim. Jen, our co-creator of \u201cHacks,\u201d will come over.<\/p>\n 6:00 p.m.: Family dinner<\/p>\n Sometimes we\u2019ll order Gr\u00e1<\/a> to the house, which is a pizza place in Echo Park \u2014 excellent sourdough crust pizza. But if we don\u2019t do that, an ideal evening is an early dinner at All Time<\/a> on Hillhurst in Los Feliz. We\u2019re ordering the ceviche and my son is having all of it and not sharing with anybody at the table.<\/p>\n 8:45 p.m.: A thrilling ending to the day<\/p>\n After putting my kid to bed, my wife and I, in an ideal world (full disclosure: we haven\u2019t done this in two years), we\u2019ll watch something together that we\u2019ve been meaning to watch. We have a long list of movies and we either want to revisit or that we haven\u2019t seen that we need to watch.<\/p>\n![\"Sunday](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767979028_388_.png\")
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