Interview: Christopher Briney Talks About His Guest Role on ‘Hacks’

After his breakout performance in The Summer I Turned Pretty, Christopher Briney is showing his comedic skills in the fifth and final season of Max’s Hacks. He guest stars as Nico Hayes, a rock star who develops a short-lived romantic relationship with Deborah Vance (Jean Smart).

Read Awards Radar’s full interview with the actor below, where he opens up about building his character, how Nico’s past plays into his present, stepping into a new genre, and much more.

Chris, I’m a huge fan of you and your work. Thank you for taking the time. I know you’re extremely busy filming, and I’m so grateful to talk to you.
Christopher Briney: No, please. Thank you for taking the time. I appreciate that.

Of course. To start off, how did you approach creating a background for Nico and who he is as a character? Are there any small details that you may have come up with yourself that weren’t originally in the script, but helped you get into character?
Yeah, I mean, I think often, especially when I feel a little lost, I do my typical homework and the things that I consider the first steps, like reading the script a few times and sort of getting into, you know, I do a lot of work in notebooks and stuff, but I don’t know. It’s then another step to find out how this person moves through the world, and it helps a lot, I find, to really find something specific in the way I feel the way they walk in their body. It really helps me to sort of ground within that character when I feel that walk, and that helped a lot for Nico.

It was funny, I think it sort of really happened in a costume fitting where he wears these pretty insane boots. I was walking around, and I was like, ‘Oh, I see it. I see it now. I feel it.’ Then, you could sort of put those on, and just the way that makes you want to walk, I don’t know. There’s some legendary actor, I forget who it is, but who talks a lot about, like, the first thing I do is find out what shoes my character wears, and I think there’s a lot to that because, especially when you’re wearing heels, basically, like platform heels, it changes the way you walk. Thinking of that being the first thing you put on before you walk out the door, I think, says a lot. So, there’s probably other things, too, but the shoes for that guy really helped.

Did you get to keep the shoes?
No, no, no. They’re in a costume warehouse or the back of the rack somewhere.

I love that that was your answer, though, because I always feel like there has to be some sort of small object that helps immediately get you into character.
Yeah, sometimes it’s a prop, but it was the shoes, I think, for sure.

When it came to his tattoos, did you help pick any of them out? If not, did you have one that felt really embodied him or who he was at that point in his life?
I won’t take credit for most, if really any, of the tattoos. I mean, the makeup [department], they had like four sheets of tattoos, and there were a few where I was like, “That’s sick, that’s sick,” and a few where I was like, “That’s really funny.” Like, empathy is tatted like right there [on his wrist], which no shade to anyone who has that tattoo, but that also did a lot of explaining for me, I was like, oh, yeah. I think it’s very sincere to him that he has that tattoo, and for me, and building that character, the tattoos helped a lot in sort of picking that. There were some really cute ones. I wish I had a picture somewhere of all of them because it was like the chest, you can see, and the forearms, you can see, but it was up and down, and I have sensitive skin, so I was broken out for the next couple of weeks. It was worth it.

He does share that he got emancipated from his parents at 15. How do you think that informed the way he reacted to Deborah calling the paparazzi, just in terms of maybe his trust issues with relationships?
I think that’s sort of the rub right there, really, is the fact that he has built his world from that perspective, like something that pivotal happens to him at such a formative age and I think of myself, my own life and the things that happened to me around then, and the way that they’ve shaped me and I’m like, that’s huge, you know? Losing trust in your father, I mean, it doesn’t get all that much bigger than that. I think that since then, he’s built up these walls — not even walls so much as these sort of decisions in the way he walks through the world, the way he trusts people, and the way he just sort of does it. I think he puts his trust in Deborah, and from his sort of limits, she crossed the line, and I don’t know, I never looked at it as Deborah really doing anything wrong or Nico not giving her enough chances. I think it’s just sort of like, well, that’s not okay with me. But I think that has everything to do with that.

At the end, he encourages his fans to go to Central Park to hear Deborah’s side. Why do you think it was so necessary to have that be the last time we see him, and indirectly his relationship with Deborah?
Well, it’s sort of, at least personally for me and my thing with Nico, I think that says what I was just saying, where I’m like, it was never that deep. It’s not like he was like, ‘Oh, she’s a horrible person. I was completely wrong about her character.’ I think it’s more just like you did something to me that I can’t get over, and so I’m going to remove myself from the situation. But all the things I think he says to her when they meet are true, where she and her career path were important to Nico.

How did this show kind of give you a new perspective on the comedy genre?
Oh, that’s a cool one, man. I have so much respect for what Hacks has done for the past, God, how many years is it now? I mean, like all in, I don’t know, seven years or something, if we count strikes, but however long it’s been, they’ve been really changing the landscape for comedy. That was definitely my first sort of step in that world, and it was scary, but it’s cool to be in the room because it does feel like something that’s important.

Paul [W. Downs], Lucia [Aniello], Jen [Statsky], and that whole team, watching them work, you’re like, wow, these are really smart, really witty, really talented people telling a story they want to tell. I think that it’s just them having a platform to tell this story, to be as funny as they want to be, and to still be able to write their own material and get it out there; I think that’s what it’s all about.

Even though you were playing a rock star, there are obviously similarities between being an actor and being in the public eye. Did playing him teach you anything personally about yourself that you hadn’t unlocked in terms of your career or how you’re handling your career?
That’s a good question. I don’t know. I think that part of my sort of exploration with him was like, how does he treat being someone that people watch and are interested in his life, and how does he create privacy within that? I think that’s also a question that I have to keep asking myself every day, and that changes. I’ve been very lucky with work the past five years, but my relationship to my privacy and my relationship to keeping the important things to me, that always changes. I think that it was fun to have that discussion within that character and be like, I’m figuring out me, but what does he do, and what is he about?

Well, selfishly, I want you in more comedies. You know I love The Summer I Turned Pretty, but…
I’d love to, man. It’s a fun thing. If people invite me to do more comedies, I’m happy to do them.

Thank you so much, Chris. I really appreciate it. I can’t wait to see the movie and everything else you’re doing, just in general, with your career.
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for your questions; these were great.

All episodes of Hacks are now streaming.