‘Hacks’ Season 3: How Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs & Jen Statsky Navigated Strikes & Setbacks To Bring Back A Beloved Show
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: It’s late January on the Las Vegas Strip, and a woman with a tall beehive hairdo, and dressed head to toe in a pink, sequined pantsuit, steps in front of the fountain outside Caesar’s Palace clutching multiple bags of high-end designer shopping.
This is Jean Smart, in the guise of her Hacks headliner Deborah Vance, preparing to shoot among the last of her scenes for the much-delayed third season of the Max and Universal Television comedy series.
It has taken a long time to get here, “and part of that was my fault,” Smart tells Deadline self-deprecatingly, referring to the season’s first significant pause in production, on February 14 2023, when Smart went in for what she later described as a successful heart procedure.
She announced the news on Instagram, a little under two years after her beloved husband, actor Richard Gilliland, had passed away suddenly following heart complications. “Please listen to your body and talk to your doctor,” Smart wrote. “I’m very glad I did.” It was a major surgery, Smart says, and her path to recovery took many weeks, but her colleagues on the show didn’t hesitate to give her the time she needed.
Read more on deadline.com