AILSA CHANG, HOST:
She is back from the dead, everybody.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HACKS")
JEAN SMART: (As Deborah Vance) Oh, God. Look at this.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, screaming) Ah.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) She has risen.
CHANG: I mean, OK. She was never really dead. We're talking about the character Deborah Vance, the stand-up comedian played by Jean Smart on the hit HBO Max show, "Hacks." The new season is out this week, and when we last saw Deborah, she and her writing partner, Ava Daniels, played by Hannah Einbinder, were trying to get their careers back on track after quitting their late-night show. That's where the show picks back up.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HACKS")
SMART: (As Deborah Vance) I refuse to be remembered on other people's terms, as a quitter or the person who killed late night or some hysterical woman. I have worked too hard, and I have fought far too long. I will be remembered for my accomplishments.
HANNAH EINBINDER: (As Ava Daniels) Yes.
CHANG: And while we have not seen the end of Deborah, it is the beginning of the end for this whole award-winning series because the fifth season will be its very last. And so I talked with both stars about their characters' legacies, starting with whether Ava gets to make her own mark on the comedy world while still in Deborah's shadow.
EINBINDER: I think she does, and I do genuinely believe that Ava sees Deborah's work as her legacy as well. And it does feel as gratifying for her as it does for Deborah, I think - not only because she loves her, but also because, you know, she sees the fruits of her labor. So I think, you know, her proudest legacy to date is her work with Deborah, for sure.
CHANG: Well, can we talk about the interaction between your two characters? - because one of the things that makes this show work so beautifully is the constant intergenerational conflict between the two of you. You know, because so often, that whole boomer versus Gen Z trope, it can be heavy handed. It can be overplayed. It can be cringy. But here in "Hacks," it works. Why do you think that is?
SMART: Obviously, a lot of it is the writing. Our showrunners are so brilliant and our writers' room so talented. Because that's the thing I was afraid that we would lose over the five years. Well, what happens then if they become sort of more friends and work together and things like that? Are we still going to have that kind of conflict? And they managed to maintain it brilliantly till the very, very end.
CHANG: I mean, you talk about how, like, they've managed to keep the conflict alive - the writers have - throughout the five seasons. But what's different a little bit about this last season is the two of you are at peace with each other, right? And it made me want to ask you, like, over the course of the five seasons, which character do you think has forced the other character to evolve more? Like, is it Ava persuading Deborah to take on more progressive ideals, or is it Deborah persuading Ava to be more open to her hard-earned wisdom?
EINBINDER: I think it's so equal. I think - right? Like...
SMART: I think Ava's changed Deborah a little bit more than...
EINBINDER: You think?
SMART: ...Deborah's changed Ava. Yeah.
EINBINDER: I could see an argument for that. I mean, look, she's just been focused on survival. She hasn't really felt like she had the privilege of, like, acting on ethics alone. And I think...
SMART: Oh, Deborah?
EINBINDER: Yeah.
SMART: Yeah, because I think she feels that her wokeness makes her too judgmental, and that it's easy to make snap judgments about things, especially when you're young.
(LAUGHTER)
SMART: But one of my favorite lines is, when we're in the comedy club, and I run into that gal I used to work with. And we're making fun of you 'cause you're asking the waitress in this grungy coffee...
EINBINDER: Oh yeah - if there's oat milk.
SMART: She's asking, do you have oat milk? Do you have almond milk?
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HACKS")
EINBINDER: (As Ava Daniels) Can I get a coffee with - do you guys have oat milk?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As waitress) No.
EINBINDER: (As Ava Daniels) Do you have soy?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As waitress) No. Sorry.
SMART: (As Deborah Vance) Oh, God. The entitled millennial's going to have to drink 2%.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Emergency. Somebody get an EpiPen.
SMART: (As Deborah Vance, laughter).
EINBINDER: I know. It's - I definitely think that it's a shock moving to Vegas for Ava. She's just, like, so thrown and out of her element. But yeah, like, I think, ultimately, there is so much growth on both of their parts, you know?
CHANG: Yeah. You know, one thing I just love when I watch you guys on screen is I feel like I'm watching these two characters who are truly bada** women, but who are also deeply flawed people. And I love that. Like, Deborah Vance has had to internalize so much of the misogynistic system that she's had to work within in order to ascend. And Ava Daniels, I mean, she can come off as over-the-top naive and over idealistic and frankly insufferable sometimes to someone jaded like myself. And it made me wonder, like, do you feel playing these roles has affected the way the two of you just move through your own lives?
EINBINDER: Ava definitely feels like a comrade of mine, you know? Like, I totally get why, you know, people have that view of her of, like, being a little bit over idealistic and, you know, perhaps being a scold at times. But I do think that it comes from a place of genuinely caring. Yeah. I'm like, honored to inhabit her.
SMART: Yeah. No, I think that if I met Deborah in real life, she and I would have fun together.
EINBINDER: (Laughter).
SMART: But I - it's always been hard for me to identify with her anger and her bitterness. But that's what keeps her going, actually.
CHANG: Yeah. That's her fire. Well, how do you think your relationship on screen looks different now? What are the things you're noticing about how you guys interact together on screen that maybe wasn't as evident years ago?
EINBINDER: I just think that all of that is a result of time. But I will say, I mean, we really had a connection from the first day we met.
SMART: Ailsa (ph), too, one thing that's really fun is that now when they insult each other, they're doing it not in a nasty way, but they're doing it in a fun...
EINBINDER: Yeah (laughter).
SMART: ...Way. They know that person is going to - they can say anything...
EINBINDER: Yeah.
SMART: ...And the other person's going to laugh.
EINBINDER: You know I love you.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HACKS")
EINBINDER: (As Ava Daniels) Hey.
SMART: (As Deborah Vance) What's up?
EINBINDER: (As Ava Daniels) Do you have a pair of tweezers I could borrow?
SMART: (As Deborah Vance) I've been waiting for this day. OK. Are we going between the brows, or we start from the ground up with the big toe?
EINBINDER: (As Ava Daniels) I have a splinter.
(LAUGHTER)
CHANG: So I do want to return to the idea of legacy, and we'll have to see by the end of Season 5 what Deborah and Ava's legacies will be. But for Jean and Hannah, what do you think the legacy will be of this show? I mean, besides winning a bunch of Emmys and Golden Globes.
EINBINDER: You know, the way that our crew became close and a family, like, that for me personally, is what I will remember and what I will cherish the most. And in a larger sense, I would say, you know, I get a lot of people coming up to me, and they say this show helped bridge the gap between me and someone in my life of a different generation. And oftentimes...
CHANG: Wow.
EINBINDER: ...It's women who say my mom and I were able to connect. Or my daughter and I were able to connect, and we had a difficult relationship before, but watching the show made me kind of understand her perspective more. I think that's, like, the most valuable thing that...
SMART: That's pretty cool, yeah.
EINBINDER: ...The show you could ever really do. That is kind of the greatest gift to an artist, to hear that you're - you had a hand in something like that...
SMART: Absolutely.
EINBINDER: ...You know.
SMART: And on a slightly lesser level, but it is that I hope that people will remember it as a show that was able to move people and go to some kind of darker places but also be really, really, really, really funny - that we were able to sort of realistically do all of that in the same world.
CHANG: Make people think and make people laugh.
EINBINDER: Yeah.
SMART: Yeah.
CHANG: Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder star in the HBO series "Hacks," Season 5 - the very, very last season. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. This was such a blast. It was awesome.
SMART: Thank you.
EINBINDER: Thank you so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVE BRUBECK'S "UNSQUARE DANCE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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