Jean Smart
Appearances
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Oh, it was so much fun. That was the first episode I did as that character, and it was my favorite one.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I think I just assumed that that's what it would be. I have women coming up to me in supermarkets saying, oh, my God, that's me, that's me, oh, my God. I went, oh, dear. People still come up and say, put your brother on the phone.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I had a terrific drama teacher my last year in high school. His name was Earl Kelly. He was kind of locally famous because he put on particularly good shows and musicals and things at our high school. And so then I took the class my senior year, and he was great. He was tough. I mean, he taught us. He treated us like we were a professional acting troupe. He expected a lot from us.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
He hated the fact that I was a cheerleader. He thought that was just appalling. But he liked me. And so I really got bitten by the bug. So I told my parents that I wanted to major in theater in college. And my mother was not too happy with me. But after I started doing some plays at the University of Washington, she became my biggest fan, my biggest supporter.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
You mean after I got out of college?
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I'm embarrassed to say I never had another day job.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Yeah, it wasn't much of a living, but yeah. How did you do that? Well, there's a lot of professional theater in Seattle. And between Seattle and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, where I would do summers, I managed to just get by, you know. You'd always think, oh, geez, I don't know if I have next month's rent, but something would come along.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
The only time that springs to mind that that happened, ironically, was after Fargo. I got great reviews. The show was a big hit. I think I won the Critics' Choice Award for that role. And crickets. Why? I shouldn't say this, but I think it was because of the way I looked. And all of a sudden it was sort of like, oh, dear, now she's an older woman and now what do we do with her? And I don't know.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I mean, literally not a meeting, not an audition, not an offer for a long time. But once it started again, it's just been, you know, a steady climb towards, you know, wonderful roles. I mean, I just can't. I'm extremely grateful.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I finally get an ounce of relevance. I'm this close. They just want to take it away from me again.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
So, anyway, I'm bi. Jesus Christ, I was just wondering why you were dressed like Rachel Maddow's mechanic. Great, so, the jokes? You didn't like any? They're not jokes! I mean... Like, they're like thought poems. I had a horrible nightmare that I got a voicemail. What? It's funny because voicemails are annoying. It's like, just text.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
First of all, if you start a sentence with, it's funny because, then it's probably not. And second, jokes need a punchline.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Oh, he says he needs to appeal to a younger crowd. You've got to do something about this, Jimmy. OK, I will call Morty.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Almost everybody is talking about her. I write my own material. I do not need a writer. I need a manager. Your father would have handled this. He promised me you'd take care of me. Don't make your dead father a liar, Jimmy.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Oh, look who's talking. I just got a TED talk about yours.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Oh, sure. I mean, I don't think of her jokes as bad necessarily. It's just that she's sort of got her stock.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
style of jokes and that she knows she knows her audience were really well and she knows what they expect and what they don't want to hear from her and She gives them what they what they pay for, you know I mean as risque as she gets it was probably the first joke we hear out of her mouth at the very beginning of the show Where you can just kind of hear her before we even see her face where she talks about
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
being in bed with a guy who keeps saying, you know, are you close, are you close? And she says, yeah, I'm close, I'm close. I'm close to getting a buzz cut, a flannel shirt, and finally accepting Melissa Etheridge's dinner invite. I love that joke.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, you know, she thinks I'm a dinosaur, which I am in a way. But Deborah's attitude, I think, is a little bit that Ava's generation has thrown the baby out with the bathwater and that all they want to do is shock people into laughing. And that's much easier to do than to come up with something kind of clever that actually...
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
makes people laugh um not just out of shock and so you know she it's just sort of funny to watch them you know navigate this com they come from completely different worlds Or at least seemingly at first. And Hannah actually is a stand-up comic, so I was a little bit intimidated at first. I'm thinking, because she's playing the writer, I'm playing the comic, and she's an actual stand-up comic.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Yeah, that's been the fun part, is just their conflict, and the fact that I just get to abuse her horribly.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Now, I don't know. Maybe when you look at me, you see an old woman. And I am 61. I've born six children. Had three miscarriages. Two of my sons are here today. Two were stillborn. My firstborn, Elrond, killed in Korea. The sniper took off at his head. The point is... Don't assume just because I'm an old woman that my back is weak and my stomach's not strong.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I make this counter because a deal is always better than war. But no mistake, we'll fight to keep what's ours to the last man.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
No. My husband would have killed you where you stood the first time you met. So I'd be glad you're talking to his wife.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Oh, I did. That was the speech they gave me to audition with for Noah. And I said, that tells me so much about this person.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Well, I mean, it was very much a collaboration. The costume designer and I had great fun coming up with the sort of less than attractive but very practical wardrobe. And then I suggested with the hair that... They give me one of those kind of poodle perms that women of a certain age wore, especially back then. I know my mother did for a while because they're just less maintenance.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
So I said, let's just get the blonde out of my hair and cut it shorter and give it a little – Give it a perm. But the first time I looked at it, my eyes started welling up. I thought, oh, my God. But I said, it's perfect. There she is. There's Floyd. There she is.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Because he might have to go live with his mom.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Otherwise, he'll feel like the ground has just fallen out beneath him. I called Kathy Dryers today. You did what? She works over at the Child and Youth Services.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
She's the mother. She'll get custody. And there's not a damn thing you or I can do about it.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
They offered it to me. It was lovely. And I said, HBO, Kate Winslet, unless I really hate the part, I'll say yes right now. But I love their relationship because even though it's a bit dysfunctional, I hope that it comes across to the audiences that there is still love and respect there between them. They've been through so much.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Well, aren't you a big, brave girl?
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I don't know quite where they were going with some of it, but yes, they called it murder-der-der, murder-daughter. But yes, one of the examples of that accent is the way they say water. It's water, almost like W-O-O-D-E-R. You know, give me a glass of water, water.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Oh, yes. Now, we had a couple of wonderful dialect coaches. Mine was a native from the area, and she was extremely helpful, extremely helpful. And I would put my lines on a loop tape sometimes. and just on my phone, and just fall asleep listening to it.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Sometimes I'd use my right ear so it would get in the left side of my brain, and sometimes I'd listen with my left ear so it would get in the right side of my brain, and I'd listen to it on the way to work, because you want it to be as automatic as possible, because if you're thinking about it while you're doing your lines, then you're not thinking about the right things, which you're supposed to be thinking about, what your character's supposed to be thinking about.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
That's the hard part of doing an accent, but it's always fun to do accents.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I had a wonderful time last night.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
I don't want this to end.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Not me. I wonder what time it is.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
Oh, yeah, I'm always trying to quit, but my weight just balloons up. I mean, trust me, you don't want to see my ass when I'm off these things.