Jean Smart on Final Season of Hacks, Possibly Making Emmys History & Getting Hit on in Ireland

You know our first guest as the sharp-tongued, controversy-courting, stand-up comedian Deborah Vance, a character I find very relatable. She's currently nominated for what could be her eighth acting Emmy. If she wins, she'll tie the all-time record. Hacks is streaming now on HBO Max. Please welcome the amazing and powerful, Jean Smarks! How are you, Jean? You have no Deborah Vance merch to hand out. I would, if you gave me some, but I am, and millions of people in the country are so sad that it's over. I know. Were you very sad too? It's bitter, it's definitely bittersweet, yeah. I mean, I knew from the beginning it was a five-year, that was their plan, five years. They had the whole story in their head, the whole five-year story. And when they came and pitched it to you, were you like, I'm in right away? Instantly. Instantly. Yeah. Were you nervous about doing the stand-up part? That was the only thing that scared me. I was, I thought, oh will other comedians buy me, you know, as a comic? That was the thing I was concerned about. And I'm telling you, we bought you as a comic. You were fantastic. Easy thing to do. Many actors have tried to do that, but it's like a skill set, so you were just so wonderful at it. Well, I'm good at monkey see, monkey do, so. Yeah, and you and Hannah have such a beautiful relationship. It's like so loving and special, and I think for some of us, it's like the mother-daughter relationship we wanted to have and didn't maybe get to have, so it's so touching. No, it's funny, because I had no idea the breadth of people in the audience that would respond to the show. I mean, kids, and older straight men, and you know, I mean, and everything in between. There's something about that relationship that people respond to. Yeah, very, very moving. What shows did you love when you were a kid? What were your favorite shows? Oh God, I'm going to date myself. Bonanza. Of course, Bonanza, come on. Purnell Roberts. Oh, that was it for you. Yeah, yeah, that little Joe. Right. No, no, no. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I didn't, this is sacrilegious. I'm going to be stoned for this. I didn't love I Love Lucy. No kidding. Because I remember as a child, I love it now. I love it now when I watch it, but when I was little, I'd watch and I'd think, why is she acting like she's stupid? Why is she doing that? It made me so uncomfortable. No kidding. Just made me cringe. That's so funny, because she was so smart, and what she ended up doing, her own studio with Desi. Oh God, yeah. Yeah, and that's funny that that character back then, I guess they couldn't come off with a strong feminist woman, because there wasn't feminism yet, you know. You invented it, Rosie. No, I didn't. That was Gloria Steinem, not me. It's so funny, I have to tell you, you reminded me of my oldest son when he was about four or five, and we'd been in London. I was working on something, and we were there for about a month, and he came home, and for weeks, it was like, mommy, I'm going upstairs. It was so funny. He just went away. Now, you were recently in Ireland, I hear. Did not phone me. I didn't have your number, Rosie. No, I was in Italy for a friend's wedding, and so I thought, well, let's go to London and Ireland. We have some friends in Dublin, and I was with my two sons, and I love Dublin. I just love it. I love it, love it, love it. Where'd you stay? What was it called? I don't remember. Okay, who cares? I don't remember. It wasn't your house, that's all I know. Well, it could have been if you would have called. That would have been fun. Yeah. No, but I was watching your monologue from last night when you were talking about the pharmacist that you hit on. Yes, Joan. Yeah. It was the short hair. Short hair, yeah. Yeah, because I thought, oh, okay, now it makes sense. We were in a bar the night of the soccer finals. Oh, the World Cup. Yeah, the World Cup, and I was standing at the back with my two sons, and this guy comes up to me. It was very loud in there, and he looked like he was maybe, I don't know, mid-30s, something like that, and he said, are you all right? And I said, I'm sorry, what? And he said, are you all right? And I said, yeah, and then he said something else, and he turned to my son, and he shook his head, my oldest, and he shook his head, and he goes, she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. Wow, wow. Trust me, he was drunk. Trust me. And I thought, well, the poor guy with all those lesbians over there, he can't get a date. He's hitting on women who could be his mother, and of course, he walked away, and I said, well, thank you, and my son's like, oh, my God, he must be drunk, and then the other one said, well, he must like cougars, but then I was vindicated. 30 minutes later, he comes back. Wow. He points to my sons, and he goes, he hands me his phone number. And did you phone him? No, I immediately called my boyfriend. I said, guess what happened to me? With Hacks, if you win this Emmy Award, you make Emmy Award history, and you're aware of that, right? You've been nominated a lot of times, but for this show, every year you've been nominated, every year you've won. Do you feel pressure? Do you feel pressure, or do you just feel like, what a gift, right? No, but in terms of that record, being nominated or winning for every year your show is on, I still kind of think that's a technicality. I've got to give it to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, because her show ran eight years, and she won seven times. Right. So, I mean, if my show had only run four years, and I'd won every time, that wouldn't have been, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I get what you mean, but do you get nervous for the Emmys, or is it more like work for you? Do you worry about your outfit? That's the only thing I worry about, yeah. Yeah. It's like, oh my God, I have to put on a corset, and God knows what else. Right, right. Steel belt and radial. It's so hard. For me, like, the worst thing, I think what they should do to prisoners is send them to the Met Ball, because, like, that's like the worst thing you could say to me, you have to go to the Met Ball. I'd be like, no! Oh no, someone told me that, who helps dress people for the Met, she goes, oh God, don't ever go if you're going to fight it. She said, it's torture. You're in a crazy outfit, and you literally will stand in line, it doesn't matter how big a celebrity you are, you will stand in line for, like, over two hours in incredibly painful shoes, waiting to walk out of the carpet and probably trip and fall in front of, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't sound like fun to me. No. Listen, was there a comedian that you based your character on? Because people talk a lot about maybe it was Joan, maybe it was Phyllis, maybe it was, was there one that you based it on, or not really? No, because I knew that it had to be my style, or it wouldn't, it wouldn't really work. Right. And, and I could never do Joan's thing, I mean, she was, she was brilliant, that, that machine gun. Quick, quick, quick, quick, yes. But she certainly, yeah, but she certainly, I think, was, was one of their inspirations for their, for their role. They started writing this in 2015, before they ever, ever met me, but I did, I did love Phyllis Diller when I was a kid, when I was in middle school, I thought, my God, that woman looks like she's having so much fun, you know. Right. And I, I dressed up as her at a costume party, and I just thought she was the best. And for my wrap gift, for Hacks, the producers got me a piece of Phyllis's artwork. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. She was lovely. I got to know her well at the end, and she used to send me mementos from her career, like, here's the pocketbook I wore on my first Ed Sullivan, you know. Oh, God, that's so nice. Yes, I still have them. Yeah, I'll send you one. Really? I really will. Witnesses. Witnesses, exactly. We'll be back with Jean Smart right after this. By the way, Kelly Kilpatrick thinks I'm gay, and you're my secret wife, so we have to spend the weekend pretending to be lesbian lovers, so I can get that Carol Burnett jumpsuit. What? Welcome, girls. Who's ready for a naughty little weekend? Me. We can't count Paris, because those were extraordinary, but that was my favorite Hacks episode ever. Oh, my God. Come on, Cherry Jones. And Leslie. Oh, my God. It was so much fun. We had so much fun. I've always been a fan of Cherry's, and she wasn't going to do it. I think she said no twice, because she was going to have a little shoulder surgery. She'd hurt her shoulder. She said, I can't even pick up a pencil. They said, we don't care. We don't care. Please, please, please. She finally said yes, and she had a blast. Yeah, so much fun. Absolutely. Now, what was it I saw on TikTok recently that you were handing out pizzas to people in a very big crowd on a street? What was that? Girls got to make a living, Rosie. The show's done. Yeah, no, we did a show at the local theater here at the Fondo Theater. We did a live Debra Bantz show. Wow. And it was so much fun. Everyone stayed in character? Yeah, exactly, and they were handing out pizza to the audience before the show, and when I walked through the kitchen back to the green room after the show, I saw stacks and stacks of full pizza boxes, and I thought, oh my God, they can't throw these away. What are we going to do? So I just grabbed a stack of them, and we went outside and started tossing out pizzas. Yeah, you handed out boxes of pizzas to people. My Scottish grandmother would not let me throw out pizza. Yeah, exactly. Good food should not go to waste. That's right, Lassie. Now, what's in the future for you? Can you tell us? Is there anything in the pipe for you to do, or are you going to take a little break? Part of me wants to take a big break, but I'm going to be doing a movie this winter. I don't know if I'm supposed to say or not. Okay, that's all right, but you're going to be doing a movie. Yes, and I've actually got my producer hat on. I have a producing partner who's just amazing, and she's been doing all the heavy lifting for the last five years, and so now that I'm not working full-time, I'm trying to get back into that full-time, and it's really fun. Yeah, did you start out in theater? I read that you did. Oh, yeah. Really, and you were on Broadway. You were in New York, or where were you? Yeah, years ago in New York, and then again last summer, I did a Broadway one-woman show. And how was that? It was absolutely terrifying, but just a blast. Yeah, that's a lot of work. Well, yeah, eight times a week. You kind of feel like you're running a marathon. Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, I broke my leg halfway through it. On stage? No. Good. That would be good. They said break a leg, so I had to do the second half of it just sitting in a chair with my foot up on a stool. Really? Yeah, but it worked okay. People understood. Yeah, I mean, because also, I mean, one person shows. Sometimes that's all they do is just sit and talk. That's true. So, yeah. Now, when you started out in theater, and then what was your first Hollywood gig that you had? Oh, it was a show called Teachers Only with Lynn Redgrave, that's right, and Norman Fell, the wonderful Norman Fell. Oh, wow. He was great. Adorable. And, yeah, I was living in New York, and they came out to New York to audition actors, and they brought me back to LA to read with Lynn. And I thought, well, I don't know anything about camera, so I guess I better stay and figure all this out. But in some ways, doing a sitcom is kind of like doing a theater, because you've got a live audience, and you come out, and it's like doing a little one-act play every week, except that they can see you standing there waiting to make your entrance, and stuff like that. But, yeah, that was an adjustment. I remember I called my agent the first night after we shot the very first episode, and I said, oh, my God. I said, that was insane. I made such a fool of myself, because we were waiting to go on, and the audience was filing in, and everything. And someone said, oh, who's doing the warm-up? And so, I thought we were all going to get together and do a vocal warm-up. Right, right. Stretch a little bit. A little Tai Chi, you know. And they said, oh, no, no, no. It's a stand-up comic, and he comes in, and he goes out of the house, and he warms up the audience, and he tells jokes. I said, why? Are we not going to be funny? I thought that was the weirdest thing, and I went, oh, okay. And then, a few minutes later, they said, okay, everybody, everybody, everybody, line up for intros. I said, what's that? And they said, well, they're going to introduce the cast, you know, one at a time, and when they call your name, you just, you know, run out, and wave, or bow, or, you know, something. I said, before the show? Like a basketball team? You know, at center, we've got Jesus. It was crazy. It was fun, but it was weird. You obviously learned, because you're killing it on Axe, and I wish you the best of luck at the Emmy Awards. You deserve everything. Lovely to see you. All right. Gene Smart. Wonderful.