Jean Smart’s View From the Top: On ‘Hacks’ Season 4, Her Broadway Return, and the Lack of Women in Late-Night TV

This post contains spoilers about the fifth episode of Hacks season four.

In the latest season of Hacks, Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance is warned that her late-night series won’t survive unless it’s a hit by the end of its first year. Head writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) wonders if “hits” even exist anymore. Of course, Hacks itself proves they do. Amid a saturated entertainment landscape, Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky’s award-winning Max series is an unmitigated succcess—earning Smart three best-actress Emmys and finally capturing best comedy series at the awards last September.

At 73, Smart is aware of the rarified air both she and her series occupy. “I don’t stop realizing and appreciating that I am on a show that I absolutely love, that is so brilliantly written and so smart, with such incredibly cool people—and I’m home every night,” she tells Vanity Fair. “I don’t have to be away from my family, in Atlanta or wherever. Well, I probably wouldn’t have done the job if it had been set or shot in Atlanta.”

Julianne Nicholson as “Dance Mom,” a popular TikTok creator. “Being canceled is just absolutely not an option,” Smart says of her character’s perhaps ill-fated efforts. “She thinks she’s getting her dream, and she’s just not going to let anything or anybody screw it up.”

Like Deborah, Smart isn’t content to rest on her laurels. Later this month, she’ll return to Broadway for the first time in 25 years with the one-woman show Call Me Izzy, before returning for the presumed final season of Hacks. Ahead of her busy spring, Smart speaks to VF about the show’s “down and dirty” fourth season, one of the most important decisions of her career, and why women are still absent from late-night TV: “Do you have a couple hours?”

Vanity Fair: This season of Hacks airs amid the premiere of your one-woman Broadway show. How are you feeling in the lead-up?

Jean Smart: I am gearing up. I have the first third of the play recorded on my phone, and I fall asleep listening to it every night, because it’s about 75 to 80 pages of material that I need to learn. I have done a couple readings of the play in Los Angeles and New York, so I do have it in my bones a bit already. People say, “How can you possibly memorize that much?” But it’s sort of like when you have a fun anecdote or funny joke—you don’t usually forget any of the details because you can’t wait to tell somebody. So that’s how it feels, because I love this piece so much.

Ava blackmailing Deborah at the end of season three is still looming large over their relationship. But how much does the act that led to the betrayal—Deborah sleeping with Tony Goldwyn’s media CEO, then getting a show on his network—alter Deborah’s confidence?

Well, I think she has a lot of guilt about that. She knows that Ava’s right about certain things, which makes her even more angry, because she doesn’t want to admit that Ava was right. But at the same time she’s thinking, Why doesn’t she understand that this has been my dream my entire adult life? I am moments from getting and enjoying it. Why can’t you understand that I have to make certain decisions? But she knows she’s going to have to make some compromises, which she’s not used to.

Does Deborah have imposter syndrome, or is her personal doubt tied to something else?

I mean, she has a great deal of confidence in her ability. But at the same time, betrayal is the ultimate sin to her. So when she feels that Ava betrays her, all bets are off. I mean, the gloves are off big time—because all that does is bring up all her personal demons and her past, and everything that has driven her and made her the person she is. She thrives on bitterness and resentment.

You and Hannah Einbinder have built such a rich onscreen dynamic together. Was there a moment this season where you most felt that history?

We have a lot of scenes in season four that get pretty down and dirty. Hannah and I were discussing that yesterday. We concluded that it would probably be much more difficult to do those scenes, and the scenes would not come out as well, if we weren’t good friends—if we had an antagonistic relationship, which I can’t even imagine, being in a work environment like that. That would be so awful. But if indeed we had that, scenes like that would be so excruciatingly uncomfortable. But we actually are able to do them better, I think, because we’re friends. And it gets pretty nasty, season four.

The fifth episode is where outside opinions on Deborah’s late-night show really come into focus. Did this episode make you reflect on any criticism that you’ve received as an actor?

I’ve been very, very fortunate—knock wood—in terms of feedback. I’m the kind of person who could have continued on in this industry if I hadn’t gotten a lot of positive reinforcement. Some people seem to do okay with directors who scream and yell at them, or bad reviews. I couldn’t handle any of that. I don’t function well with that kind of stress.

I’ve learned from an actress who was much older than me at the time, the wonderful late Nancy Marchand. I shared a dressing room with her in an off-Broadway play years ago. And she taught me the wisdom of not reading reviews. I remember there was a poor young man who worked in the theater, and he said to her shortly after we opened, “Oh wow, congratulations on that New York Times review.” It was a love letter like you couldn’t buy, this review that she got. And she just went off on this poor kid. He was so horrified and embarrassed and shocked. And she says, “Why the hell should I care what they think? Do I tell them how to do their job?”

And she had a good point. But at the same time, as much as actors don’t like to admit it, critics do have a place, because they see absolutely everything. They’re not just your average audience member. I learned to not read reviews. Now, if somebody wants to stick a great review under my nose, I will definitely read it.

After her successful stand-up special where she leaned into her real industry experiences, why is Deborah’s gut instinct to pander and revert back to material that isn’t true to who she is?

Same way I found out when I first came to LA after doing nothing but stage for years: If you’re on a TV show, you’re there to sell the products, because that’s what pays for the show. That’s kind of a bitter pill to swallow at first for most actors, especially theater actors. But Deborah’s smart. She’s a good businesswoman; she knows that’s just part of the deal. I still think it’s really, really hard for her, because she’s not used to being told what to do and she writes her own material. But she’s going to do whatever it takes to make sure she’s not canceled.

There is this push and pull between Deborah and Ava regarding artistic integrity vs. appealing to the masses—getting the numbers. Have you felt in any of your past projects like the art was overly compromised for the commerce aspect?

I’ve always tried to be picky about what I’ve done, and I have been extraordinarily lucky, because most actors don’t have that luxury. And it is indeed a luxury in this business to not just say, “Well, I got to pay the rent. I got to take this job.” I was in that position one time—not that it got down to having to pay the rent, but I was married, I had a young child. I hadn’t been working for a little bit. I was committed to a pilot of a TV show. And for some reason, contractually, they were able to drag it out and keep us waiting.

There was a long, long, long break where I really wasn’t allowed to take anything else. We were still committed to the show. I had discussed the role with the producers because I had some real reservations about it. And when they came back with the new rewrite, not only had they not addressed my issues, it seemed like they’d almost gone out of their way to do the opposite. And I thought, I can’t do this. I won’t be able to look at myself in the mirror. My child’s not going to end up starving on the street, so I’m going to have to politely move on. And I did. I’d never done that before, but I felt that I had committed to it for so long, I had done my duty. And it was the next day that my agent called and said that Noah Hawley wanted me to audition for Fargo. I thought that was the universe telling me that I had done the right thing, that I had respected myself.

What a great ending to that story.

I know. That was one of my favorite jobs.

In this episode, Deborah confronts Ava about being in a throuple. I always love seeing them interfere with each other’s personal lives, but it’s particularly delightful this season, as it’s one of their only interactions without a network-mandated HR rep present.

Aren’t those HR scenes screamingly funny? Oh my God, [Michaela Watkins, who plays network HR rep Stacey] is great. You just go, Okay, I’m handing the scene over, because she’s going to steal it anyway.

There are a lot of fun guest stars this season—Carol Burnett in last week’s episode, then Kristen Bell and Jimmy Kimmel this week.

Three incredibly delightful human beings. I’d never met Kristen before—she’s just a doll. What can you say about Carol Burnett? I had worked with Carol very briefly years ago on a TV show [Hot in Cleveland]. I mean, who doesn’t admire and adore Carol Burnett? If I can be like her when I’m her age, I will be one lucky lady. Jimmy, of course, I’ve met, but I thought, How did they mine the nasty side of Jimmy Kimmel, which I don’t think exists? He’s such a great guy. It was so funny to see him do that turn.

What was it like watching Julianne Nicholson, your Mare of Easttown costar, transform into “Dance Mom”?

Oh my God, isn’t she fab? She was having a blast. She said, “Nobody lets me play parts like this. People are going to go, Oh, she smiles?” She was just amazing. The only time I got to see it live was the little bit she does with Deborah on the show. Oh, and then of course when she comes in and auditions. But I don’t think I ever got to see the TikTok scene that they shot.

It’s incredible to see her truly commit to the TikTok-style dancing.

And like me, she has a teenager. She said when she first showed the dance to her daughter, her daughter went, “Oh God, no, don’t do that. That’s not funny.” But then she just got over it and said it was kind of cool. Then pretty soon the two of them were doing it together.

In her rebrand, Deborah really leans into what are thought of as daytime gimmicks. Why does late-night still feel like such a boys’ club, and daytime the spot where women actually get to host shows?

Oh boy. Do you have a couple hours? I don’t know. It may be something that we never get over completely. Hannah would hate to hear me say this; I think there are inherent things that people are more comfortable hearing from men than from women. Lord, it may even come down to a subconscious reaction of a woman doing a show at 11:30 at night: “Well, why isn’t she home with her kids?” Even if you don’t think that consciously, you know what I mean?

There’s also a feeling that no matter what Deborah does, she was set up to fail—and may have only gotten the show because late night as a medium is arguably in its last gasps. Is there a part of Deborah that recognizes this?

Well, I think that’s shocking and disheartening to her when she’s basically told that by Helen Hunt’s character. She’s sort of just ignoring all that because she’s wanted [late night] for too long. She doesn’t have anything else to wish for. It’s like, Who am I if not bitter and angry about that and about my ex-husband? It’s so much a part of her identity. She doesn’t even know how to feel about herself without that. Paul referred to it as her white whale. And it could almost end up destroying her. It’s kind of like, be careful what you wish for.

This episode is very much about outside validation and how it can impact the creative process. You’ve won many accolades for your performance. I won’t ask if it gets old winning—

[Smart shakes her head and mouths “No” with a smile.]

But does each win feel different, in the same way each season feels a bit distinct?

A little bit, yes. And you’re right, because the overall tone of the show is similar, but there’s definitely thematic differences in each year. It’s the cherry on top of the Tom Cruise coconut cake. No, it never gets old, being honored by your industry.

Earlier this year, in the aftermath of the LA fires, you urged TV networks to “seriously consider” not airing any award shows and instead donating the revenue to first responders and fire victims. How do you think the awards shows landed?

Well, one of the shows was postponed for quite a while. Some time went by where people were able to understand that [awards shows] employ so many people. I actually said not that the shows shouldn’t be done and that people should not have their work recognized, but that they didn’t need to air them. Because they would still be employing almost the same number of people by putting on the shows, but not necessarily airing them. Then, of course, somebody pointed out, “Well, yes, but if they air them, they’re going to get a lot of money from sponsors that could be donated.” And in essence, that is what happened. So it turned out to be a good thing.

It was really moving to see that the season’s fourth episode, “I Love L.A.,” is dedicated to the city’s first responders.

When Deborah’s LA mansion burned in Altadena, that was so shocking. It really brought it home, because we had just finished shooting there days before. I can see it so clearly—the beautiful fountain in the front, the beautiful roses in the backyard, the pond. To think of that beautiful house that had been there for almost 100 years and had never been touched by fire, I mean, it’s just shocking to think that’s gone.

The creators have discussed a five-season plan for the show. With that in mind, what else do you want to explore with Deborah?

I would like to sing one more time. Last time I needed a lot of prep time. It was embarrassing, but it was fun. I would want a lot of warning. I’m actually going to start taking voice lessons next week, because I want to get my apparatus in shape for my Broadway play. And also, I want to see what happens with her relationship with Marty (Christopher McDonald). I’m very curious as to what they have in mind for him.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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