Paul W. Downs has been creating digital shorts with Lucia Aniello since the pair met in 2007 at the Upright Citizens Brigade. In 2012 they made a web series called Paulilu Mixtape for Above Average Productions, a division of Broadway Video.
Paul played "Hot Guy" in an episode of the MTV series The CollegeHumor Show in 2009. Additional appearances on CollegeHumor included parody of the deli scene from When Harry Met Sally....
Since 2014, Paul W. Downs has played the character Trey on the Comedy Central sitcom Broad City. Trey is a fitness instructor and the boss turned romantic interest of Abbi Abrams (played by Abbi Jacobson) at Soulstice. Paul is also one of the Writers and executive producers on the show.
On April 29, 2015, it was announced that Downs and Aniello would be writing a female spin-off of 21 Jump Street. On June 22, 2015, it was announced that the duo sold their script for Move That Body, a feature film acquired by Sony. Retitled Rough Night and released in 2017, Aniello directed, while Downs co-starred in the film.
In 2016 he appeared in a Catfish: The TV Show parody skit on the 36th episode of the Sketch series Inside Amy Schumer.
