On June 5, the IndieWire Honors Spring 2025 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for some of the most impressive and engaging work of this TV season. Curated and selected by IndieWire’s editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the creators, artisans, and performers behind television well worth toasting. We’re showcasing their work with new interviews leading up to the Los Angeles event.
In the second episode of “Hacks” Season 4, the audience is introduced to Randi, the new assistant of dysfunctional managing duo Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) and Kayla (Meg Stalter). Even by the standards of the acclaimed Max sitcom, which lightly skewers the egos and neuroses of the Hollywood set, Randi is a capital “C” Character: a Brooklyn-accented former Hasidic-Jew-turned-lesbian-atheist who had never even seen a movie before she arrives at the offices of LuSaque & Schaefer.
It’s a part that could only be played by Robby Hoffman, the restless, sharply chaotic comedian who portrays her — which only makes sense, considering how creators Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky wrote the part with Hoffman in mind.
“It was one of the worst calls I’ve received,” Hoffman told IndieWire about being approached for the role. “They’re like, ‘It’s for you. It’s fine. It’s [an] easy audition.’ But imagine you’re auditioning for something written for you, and you don’t get it. That’s even worse than if I go and audition for something not for me, and I don’t get it. I don’t need to know that I couldn’t do the audition for myself.”
Hoffman did more than manage to nail the audition, though: as a new thorn in the side of the long-suffering Jimmy and a fellow irritant with the cheerful Kayla, the comedian fit the world of the show like a glove, and what was initially a one episode part got expanded into a recurring character through the season.
Hoffman herself found a parallel between her and Randi beyond the expected: just like Randi is finding herself in an unfamiliar Hollywood world, Hoffman herself is venturing beyond stand-up and writing to try acting for the first time.
“Randi, she’s new to her job as an assistant, and Robbie IRL is new to her job as an actor. So we’re both doing our first jobs,” Hoffman said. “We had different jobs. She’s trying to be an assistant, I’m trying to be an actor, but we both have the same stakes: ‘Is this going to work?’”
“Hacks” is only the biggest piece of what’s become an increasingly busy first half of 2025 for Hoffman, a comedian who has been bubbling on the verge of a breakout since around 2020, when she was featured in Vulture’s annual list of comedians “you should and will know.” At the time, Hoffman had a stand-up special out, as well as writing credits on several Canadian TV shows.
2025 has seen her branch out to acting — most notably with “Hacks,” but also in a guest spot for the acclaimed FX on Hulu series “Dying for Sex.” She’s also been a guest on “Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney” and got married this winter to her longtime girlfriend, former “Bachelorette” star Gabby Windey — who herself had a big year after winning Season 3 of “The Traitors.”
Now, Hoffman is taking on yet another new hat: event host, as the performer will host the IndieWire Honors ceremony on June 5 in Los Angeles.
“In terms of my career as a whole, it’s been slow and steady wins the race. We’ve had people slowly but surely jump on,” Hoffman said. “If somebody’s finding me now, they’re thinking like, ‘Whoa, all this stuff.’ But if somebody found me five years ago, seven years ago, they’ve been on that steady ride with me. So wherever you’re joining, welcome to the party, I’m happy to have you here.”
Despite her steadily increasing profile, Hoffman still talks about herself as a Hollywood outsider, one who feels shock and joy when her idols like Sarah Silverman and Howard Stern discuss her on Stern’s famous radio show: “I showed Gabby [Stern’s] movie, ‘Private Parts,’ one of my favorite movies,” Hoffman said. “He’s OG, king of media, I feel like the prince of media coming up.”
“I feel like, because of how I grew up and entering this world of elites in Hollywood, I’m the kid who got in and I’m running back, and I’m telling everyone,” Hoffman said. “Sso anybody who wants to know what’s going on has kind of done it with me, without having to actually be out every night past 8 p.m.”
Despite her outsider perspective, Hoffman finds ways to curb any potential impostor syndrome. In Episode 4 of “Dying for Sex,” which stars Michelle Williams as a woman dying of cancer, she plays G, a woman who instructs Williams’ Molly in the art of BDSM. Hoffman auditioned three times for the role, and once she received it, her first day on set was an intimate scene between the two. The intimacy coordinators helped keep her comfortable, but as Hoffman put it, she never felt an imbalance between her and Williams for one simple reason: she’s an expert at “being a dyke.”
“I wouldn’t recommend being a lesbian nine out of 10 times,” Hoffman joked. “But the one rare time that it worked as an asset, it was like, ‘Oh, I’m the expert in this shit.’ Michelle Williams is Oscar-nominated but I’m, like, the expert in this very niche. So I actually felt like it was equal in the end, because she’s coming in with the Oscar noms and all that. But I’m the dyke. I’m the only one coming in with that, and they needed that.”
Although she’s branched out into acting, Hoffman is still actively performing and rehearsing stand-up, and has writing projects in development. Speaking about how she approaches each medium, she said she believes doing different disciples helps keep her work sharper and smarter.
“I’m just so grateful that I have mediums for everything. For instance, sometimes you have a joke and it’s just a tweet. Sometimes you have a joke, and it’s a bit. Sometimes you have an idea, and it’s a script. Sometimes you have an idea, and it’s a feature script. Sometimes you have an idea and, oh, it’d be great for a character,” Hoffman said. “I really take everything I do seriously. I’m a work hard, try hard, talk a lot, think a lot type of person, and I’ve always felt like there’s like two camps. There’s the Pete Davidson, can kind of just show up, smoke, kill it. And I enjoy watching him so much because he’s the antithesis of me. He’s relaxed and I’m not relaxed. I’ve never relaxed in my life.”
Hoffman related her career to the breathless output of a celebrity like Taylor Swift: “Write a lot, performs a lot, does a lot, tries a lot, and I’m in that camp. You just have to know which camp you are. Both can work. So I’m really of that one, and I find that they all help each other as I do it, slow and steady, and I take everything seriously as it comes. Sometimes when I do stand-up the night before and I’m in a writing room the next day, I’m sharper.”
While Hoffman’s 2025 has already been busy, in some ways it’s just the beginning for her. She teased to IndieWire that she has multiple projects in the pipe right now, although only one she can really talk about — and even then, she’s very reluctant to say much about it beyond the fact that it’s “not for the faint of heart.”
In April, Deadline reported that HBO had bought “Unentitled,” which the outlet described as featuring Hoffman playing a version of herself. Hoffman told IndieWire that she sold the show in the room during her pitch, which happened before she got her gig with “Hacks.” “It was one of those kismet things that all came together,” Hoffman said. “I knew I only wanted HBO or or bust for this. They got that. They jumped on board immediately. We have the perfect team together, and the show is just good.”
First, though, she’s preparing to host Honors, which she sees as an opportunity to “get her feet wet” and test her hosting abilities for the first time.
“You know, first stop IndieWire, next stop Oscars,” Hoffman said. “If I go too far, what’s the worst case? [IndieWire] won’t have me back. But the best case is, I go too far, you guys are a good sport, and I host the next 10 years, if you’re lucky.”
“Hacks” is now streaming on Max. “Dying for Sex” is now streaming on Hulu.
