Senior Planet Talks to…Jean Smart

At 73 years old, six-time Emmy winner Jean Smart is at the peak of her career.  Currently starring as caustic comedienne Deborah Vance in the fourth season of hit comedy show Hacks, she will also make her highly-anticipated return to Broadway in a one-woman show, Call Me Izzy, starting May 24. The Designing Women star tells SENIOR PLANET how she’s aging with attitude:

 

Q: Between Hacks, A Man on the Inside and Only Murders in the Building, we’re seeing more complex and vibrant seniors than ever on the small screen. Are we witnessing a shift in how seniors are depicted on TV? How do you think it impacts the senior community to see themselves portrayed in a new way?

JEAN: I feel like I don’t want to be the poster child for older actresses, but certainly it’s nice to be able to play a character where you show that older people do everything that they do as when they’re 30. So for people to be able to see that and get used to that, because it’s not something we used to see in film and television, so why not? This is part of real life, and so it’s great. And if our show has helped with that a little bit, then bravo.

Q: Its very cool to see your character, Deborah Vance being at the top of her career at 70, continuing to grow and learn and open her heart up. What do you think?

JEAN: I think that that’s been a great thing to see on the show, because she was a person who just hung on to anger and hung on to her bitterness and resentment, and to see her being able to maybe let go, or at least recognize that, is important. Because it’s shocking how long it takes you in life to learn stuff! And it really is true. You think: Oh, God, why didn’t I figure that out 30 years ago?

Q: And just because we’re older, we still have hopes and dreams, right?

JEAN: Yes. I have a girlfriend named Cassandra Robbins who decided to start writing romance novels at 60, I think. So to say they’re steamy is.… It’s like reading a medical journal! Its like: Wow!! And she’s all of a sudden making all this money, and she and her husband, their sex life has gone like through the roof. She was just a housewife with two little kids, and she just went: I’ve always wanted to do that. I’ll try it. She’s self published, and now she’s just exploding.

Q: There’s a cliched notion that women in the workplace always become adversaries, a notion maybe perpetuated by men? Did that cliche come to mind in this new season of Hacks when you’re fighting with your female head writer?

JEAN: I’ve always found it a little bit insulting that people have this idea that women can’t get along and that men do. I found that strange. I remember a million years ago, when I was doing Designing Women, people used to ask us that constantly: ‘Wow, what’s like on the set with four women? Oh, boy, that must have been whoa!’. And I always said: Do you guys ask the Barney Miller cast that? I found that really bizarre.

Q: How does male and female humor differ?

JEAN: I think women can be funny about different things and men are funny about different things, because we’re different. But why was it funny when Milton Berle put on a dress and it wasn’t funny when Judy Garland did her little baggy pants hobo routine? I don’t know, I can’t explain it. It just is. But it doesn’t mean that women aren’t as funny, God knows.

Q: With all the success that Hacks has brought you, how do you stay grounded?

JEAN: I used to say, especially when my kids were younger, that I just sort of think of myself as a housewife with a really weird job. But I also know that’s naive to say that, because I know that the outside world look at our job as being very exciting and, sometimes God knows it is. But I think if you have kids and a house, that keeps you grounded.

Q: And you thank your own childhood for that too?

JEAN: I was lucky. I was brought up by really wonderful parents. We didn’t have much. My dad was a school teacher, he worked two jobs just because he had four kids, and my mom made our clothes. And I didn’t feel like I lacked for a thing, but we didn’t have extras. I’m glad that I was not spoiled. I’m actually very grateful for my childhood, and so I think everything nice that’s happened to me, in my adult life, I don’t take for granted.

Q: In this new season of Hacks, we find Deborah achieving all her dreams and living in a fabulous Los Angeles mansion. But the episode, I Love L.A. actually serves as an obituary for that house which burned down in the fires. How did that feel? 

JEAN: The beautiful mansion was built in 1930 I think – it’s been sitting there untouched by fire for almost 100 years, and it burned, and it was really sad. We had just finished shooting there the week before. And to envision those beautiful rooms and that beautiful fountain and the yard and the couple that lived there and their dog, and, I mean, they’re safe, thank God. But that was shocking.

 

Photos: (left to right) Hacks co-star Hannah Einbinder with Jean Smart; Courtesy of MAX

 

Gill Pringle began her career as a rock columnist for popular British newspapers, traveling the world with Madonna, U2 and Michael Jackson. Moving to Los Angeles 27 years ago, she interviews film and TV personalities for prestigious UK outlets, The Independent, The i-paper and The Sunday Times – and, of course, Senior Planet. A member of Critics Choice Association, BAFTA and AWFJ, she wrote the screenplay for 2016 Netflix family film, The 3 Tails Movie: A Mermaid Adventure. An award-winning writer, in 2021 she was honored by the Los Angeles Press Club with 1st prize at the NAEJ Awards.