Well-intentioned mother tweets aren’t the only things Einbinder has had to deal with in the spotlight. As her profile grew, she found herself answering questions about gender identity and expression, exploring how she would like to present herself to a growing audience. Although she tends to dress in jeans and button-ups outside of work, she likes to play fashionista at work. “The world’s a stage, doll!” she says, Patti LuPone affects her voice. “I mean, it’s theater!”

On hacks, Ava’s uniform of Carhartt jackets and combat boots is often the subject of jokes – in the words of boss Deborah, she dresses “like Rachel Maddow’s mechanic”. In real life, Einbinder appeared as a red-carpet ingenuity, frequently spotted in Nicolas Ghesquière’s Louis Vuitton, styled by Jamie Mizrahi—a favorite of superstars like Adele and Jennifer Lawrence.

“You can’t just wear comedy club merchandise anymore,” she shouts. “I used to look like Adam Sandler – and honestly I still do.”

Today, in fact, it’s full Big Daddy– was Sandler dear, wearing baggy jeans, a white t-shirt and a striped shirt unbuttoned with black Sambas and the icing on the cake – two Arm green hair clips holding that signature bob in place now.

When she first started doing press, Einbinder mostly wore suits—that’s what she felt comfortable in, she explains. But as the years passed, she embraced a more glamorous, more feminine persona on the carpet.

Under supervision, Einbinder, who identifies as bisexual, found herself growing more assertive in her gender expression. “Having eyes on me and people demanding answers to what I’m doing and what I’m saying has forced me to embrace the liminal space,” she says. “We live in a binary world. People really want to know that red means stop and green means go – and I’m yellow, baby. do you know Go slow or speed up. What ever.”

That embrace of the liminal bodes well for a role that often requires her to telegraph complex and nuanced ideas about gender, age and morality. “There was a kind of idea that Deborah could do no harm to the public,” says Aniello. “But I think Hannah showing Ava’s pain changed that story a little bit and changed the way people feel about both characters — now they find Ava rooting for Deborah, which feels like such a crazy reversal.”