Themes like job loss, death, aging, family dysfunction and generational divide may not sound like comedy material, but the Emmy-winning series “Hacks” manages to find the laughs around life’s roadblocks.
Ahead of the Season 4 premiere next week, star Jean Smart – who plays feisty comedienne-turned-late night host Deborah Vance on the series – talked about how that dichotomy is drawn from real life at a recent press conference.
“We’ve all had that in our own lives. You know, tragedy and comedy. I mean, that’s just what life is,” she shared, emphasizing the value of being able “to do that and to still have the tone of the show be essentially kind of fun and joyous.”
“But then the reality of, there’s always the flip side of the coin,” she added.
The cast and crew of “Hacks” were in production on Season 1 during the Covid pandemic, they navigated the dual strikes that hobbled Hollywood in 2023, and faced the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles earlier this year.
“I think we have been through a lot together,” the show’s co-creator and costar Paul W. Downs said, pointing out that “Hacks” is “a show that was made pre-vaccine.”
“We started out wearing two masks and a shield, and being six feet away from each other. And I think it’s kind of like we’re forged in fire,” he continued. “And I feel like what we’ve experienced as a family, as ‘Hacks’ family, has just made us closer. It’s just made the work better.”
“I think every film and television show, they say is a miracle, and it’s true,” Downs added. “It takes a huge community of people. But I think, weirdly, when you’re on a show or you’re on a set where you do have all of these hurdles, and you can see them tangibly, it just bonds you and brings you closer together.”
Downs plays Deborah and Ava’s overwhelmed agent Jimmy in “Hacks.” Offscreen, he is married to series co-creator Lucia Aniello. (Jen Statsky is the third co-creator and writer on the series).
“Comedy and tragedy exists sometimes simultaneously in life,” Downs said. “It weirdly has reflected, I think, the tone of the show, the things we’ve gone through because we’re making a comedy, but we’ve been through, you know, pandemics and fires and deaths and all kinds of things.”
Wildfires are referenced in Season 4, which sees Deborah and company relocate from Las Vegas to Los Angeles in order for her to start hosting her late-night show. After an episode titled “I Love LA,” a title card appears in tribute to the filming location used for Deborah’s LA abode, a pink mansion built around 1930, according to Smart, that was destroyed in this year’s fires.
“It’s been sitting there and hasn’t been touched by fire in 100 years almost. And it burned. And it was really sad,” Smart shared. “We had just, just finished shooting there, I think the week before or something? And to envision those beautiful rooms and that beautiful fountain and the back, the yard and the couple that lived there and their dog – I mean, they’re safe, thank God – but yeah, that was shocking.”
Einbinder highlighted how these experiences have brought the show team closer, some of whom she said have known each other since high school.
“We have a crew that is such a cohesive group. And every department is so close and there’s so much love,” she said. “We have, as a collective – beyond just us on the stage – we have as a collective come together and really gotten close in a way that I am told is not really the industry standard, frankly.”
“Like we all really go through it side by side. It’s really, really special to be a part of it,” she later added. “Tragedy, in the good times, throughout everything. Like we really have something special.”
Smart echoed the sentiment.
“I think that the crew is as proud of the show as we are, even though they don’t get the accolades and the attention and the acknowledgment,” she observed. “The fact that they virtually – almost to a man – come back every season because they like being on our show is really heartwarming, flattering.”
Season 4 of “Hacks” premieres on Max on April 10 at 6:00 p.m. PT/9:00 p.m. ET. Max, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.