Jean Smart has been working steadily for more than forty years, from her first onscreen appearance, a small walk-on part as “Woman Bather” in the 1979 made-for-television movie “Before and After,” to her starring role as a millionaire standup comedian on HBO Max’s “Hacks.” In that sense, the current chatter about a Jean Smart renaissance (Jeanaissance?) is a bit surprising—she never went away. But it must be said that Smart is having a remarkable year. The “Hacks” season premièred less than a month after the release of the hit HBO drama “Mare of Easttown,” in which Smart had a starring role as Helen Fahey, the wizened mother to Kate Winslet’s melancholic detective. Starring in two shows on the same network at the same time is unusual enough. What made Smart’s performances stand out all the more was how dramatically different they were from one another, even if the two characters have in common a spiky sense of humor and acid tongues. As Helen, Smart wore butt padding and a shaggy wig, and occupied herself playing games of Fruit Ninja on her iPad and hiding pints of ice cream in bags of frozen veggies so the rest of the family wouldn’t find it. As Deborah Vance, in “Hacks,” Smart looks impossibly glamorous in drapey cashmere and gold lamé, and delivers bawdy one-liners at sold-out Las Vegas standup shows.
Smart grew up in Seattle and got her start doing Shakespeare plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She went on to have a robust stage career before transitioning to roles onscreen, including television movies (her first big job was a made-for-TV bio-pic of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos) and plenty of quippy sitcoms. In 1986, she was cast as Charlene Frazier-Stillfield, the sweet, affable office manager on the beloved CBS sitcom “Designing Women.” Along with “Murphy Brown,” it was one of the first sitcoms to focus on the trials and tribulations of working women, and it became a cultural phenomenon. For Smart, the show ushered in new career opportunities: work in films (“The Brady Bunch Movie,” “Homeward Bound”), appearances on “Frasier,” “24” and “Hawaii Five-0,” and a handful of leading sitcom roles. It had a more personal effect as well. During filming, Smart met her husband, the actor Richard Gilliland, who played J. D. Shackleford, the onscreen boyfriend of Smart’s castmate Annie Potts. On March 18th of this year, Gilliland died suddenly, of a heart condition. Smart wasn’t sure she was ready to discuss the loss, but our conversation, which has been edited and condensed, ultimately turned to the love of her life.
You’ve never really had a down period in your career. How did you know how to make good choices along the way? Where did that internal compass come from?
I think I got a sense of that from my mom—not about acting but just about trying to be classy. I used to joke that I would never do a nude scene as long as my parents were alive, but then they lived to be so old that no one ever asked me.
What was your mother like?
Elegant. I mean, she grew up very poor during the Depression. She never even thought she could afford to go to college. And she finally did. It took her six years to get through school, because she’d keep dropping out to work. She was always on the dean’s list, and she wanted to study architecture, but she said, “Good girls take home ec.” So she actually majored in the history of clothing. Years later, I took her to Italy because I knew that she would really love it. And she did, except she got sick there and almost died from an allergic reaction. Other than that, it was a great trip.
Do you feel like being from the Pacific Northwest really informs who you are?
It was a great place to grow up. It had, you know, a world-class opera, world-class symphony, lots of theatre, lots of comedy clubs. It just has everything.
Did you have an acting teacher who encouraged you?
Earl Kelly. He was well known around town for putting on really spectacular productions. My dad taught at that high school, not when I was there but before, so we would go see all the plays. I just was wowed. I just remember looking up at these sixteen-year-olds, and they just seemed like such exotic grownups and doing these fabulous things, and that made an impression on me as well. My sister and I used to put on little plays in the neighbor’s garage, and we’d charge admission and sell popcorn.
You started being a working actor right away, and then you were just a working actor forever. That’s very rare.
I know. I always feel guilty when I tell other actors that I never had a civilian job after college.
My mother insisted that I stay in Seattle for college. I had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when I was thirteen, and she still hadn’t gotten over that by the time I was getting ready to graduate high school. She was afraid, I think, for me to go out of state to school. My big sister went to Washington State, on the other side of the state, so I thought, Oh, I’ll go there. But my mother discouraged that. I got into the University of Washington and thank God I did, because they had a phenomenal theatre program. Washington State had almost no theatre program. I don’t know what would have become of me if I had gone to school there. So I have my mother and my diabetes to thank.
What would you say was the point at which you were “discovered” for the Hollywood life?
Well, I finally moved to New York. Part of me thinks that I should’ve moved to New York sooner. I was in my very late twenties when I moved there. But I have to say all the work that I’d done in the local theatre gave me an enormous amount of confidence. So I didn’t really feel intimidated by going to New York. I had that actor-snob thing of doing New York before you do Hollywood. You get your Equity card before you get your SAG card.
I stayed with a friend for a while on the Upper West Side, and I would look in the trade papers for little auditions. I would sometimes pick the auditions based on whether or not I thought I could get there, because I was so unfamiliar with Manhattan. There was an audition at this woman’s apartment and I thought, Oh, that’s close to here. And it sounds like it’s got a lot of great women’s parts in it. So I’ll go to that one.
It was a wonderful play written by the late playwright Jane Chambers. And it was called “A Late Snow.” I got cast in the lead in that, but, about a week later, the playwright’s manager called the woman who was directing it, who had never directed a play before. She just decided to direct this play without getting any permission; I don’t think she knew she was supposed to. The playwright’s manager called her up and said, “Who are you? And why are you doing my client’s play? You can’t do that one, but I’ll tell you what, I’ve got one that’s been sitting in a drawer for years. Jane says you can do that one.” And so the woman recast all of us, and cast me in the lead again. And that play started my entire career.
It was called “Last Summer at Bluefish Cove.” It was about a gay woman who met the love of her life the summer she was dying. We used to compare it to “The Boys In the Band.” We called it “The Girls in the Sand.” No one had ever seen a play like that. It was considered very cutting edge. Now it would be considered extremely tame, but it meant a great deal to our audiences. I mean, women would come six, eight, ten times. They’d never had themselves represented like that, as normal, charming people.
Did your parents see it?
They did. I was a little bit nervous about my dad seeing it because I did kiss a woman, but he couldn’t stop raving about it. He just thought it was fantastic. I knew my mother would love it. She’s very well read.
This was in the eighties. You also did an HBO series, “Maximum Security,” about a supermax prison, a few years later. What else were you doing at that time?
I did four very short-lived series before “Designing Women.” It was the first one that actually had a hold. That was the scary thing about signing on to “Designing Women,” as good as it was. I thought, Yikes, I have to sign a five-year contract.
You had anxiety about committing.
I did. I cried. Not because of the show, because I think the show was wonderful. I loved that role. I have to say, I know people don’t see me that way, particularly, but I often feel I’m more like that character than I’m some of the other characters I’ve played.
What do you mean that people don’t see you that way?
My character, Charlene, was very gullible. A good Baptist girl. Not that I was a good Baptist girl. I was brought up Unitarian. But a sweet optimistic person.
