“I wasn’t surprised. We deserved it,” declared Jean Smart of Hacks‘ unexpected — to most — win for best comedy series at last year’s Emmys, as the show’s cast and creatives gathered at PaleyFest LA on Friday.
Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Mark Indelicato, Megan Stalter and Rose Abdoo joined co-creators Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre to unveil the hit show’s upcoming fourth season, while also reflecting on that big Emmy moment for season three.
The series picks up almost immediately where it left off, with Deborah Vance (Smart) landing the late night show of her dreams and comedy writer Ava (Einbinder) having just blackmailed her for the head writer job, after Vance previously promised the role and took it away.
“You leave season three on such a tense moment that it felt like to skip ahead any more than that you’d be leaving so much juice left unsqueezed, so to speak,” Statsky said of the decision to continue season four from that moment. Downs added, “We really did want to go off the runway and just deliver on that feeling, because it was a feeling that people really reacted to.”
That means there’s also a big change in Deborah and Ava’s relationship, as Smart noted that betrayal has been the theme of her character’s life and “the more she thinks about it, probably the more upset she is and definitely she feels incredibly betrayed. Also she’s thinking, ‘I’ve been working for this for 30 years and you’re gonna screw it up for me?’ So she thinks anything that she might do in retaliation is fair game.”
Einbinder teased she came into the season “really looking forward to channeling kind of like all the great mob bosses. I was trying to go Ava Corleone on her.” And when it comes to shooting those tense face-offs, “We have fun with that stuff because we have so much love, so for us to be like fighting, we’re completely playing.” Einbinder added, “There is so much that Ava channels in Deborah this season. But also I like to think that Ava is not actually changing inside. I think she is herself, but she is forced to act in a certain way.”
The season also goes behind the scenes of late night TV, which Smart said “is so much harder than it looks” for the host. Statsky worked for two years as a writer on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and noted, “We really, as we were writing this season, wanted to do a love letter to late night, both in the fact that it is an important American institution but also it is such a grind.”
Los Angeles itself will also be getting some love this season, as Aniello acknowledged they filmed a lot of the show in Altadena, which was heavily impacted by the wildfires in January.
“Not only was it where Deborah’s L.A. house was, but it was just an area that we loved because it felt like such a cool, funky, unique part of L.A. and so we really always gravitated towards it when we were just finding locations,” she continued. “There is — I guess this is a spoiler — an episode dedicated to L.A. this season because we love making a show here, we love having our crew here.”
And although the team has previously spoken about a five-season plan for the series, Downs said with the fourth season now in the books, “We pitched the last scene of the show when we pitched the show, so we know where we’re going. I think sometimes the length of time we tell a certain chapter of the story changes. I don’t know.” Added Aniello, “We are aware of how many turns you can do in a relationship before it starts to feel worn out. We still feel like we have a lot to explore with the Deborah and Ava relationship.”
Both Smart and Einbinder claimed they don’t know how the show will end, but Einbinder mused, “Whenever I get the finale script, my jaw is on the floor; I never, ever have predicted,” promising that this season, “episode 10, you don’t even know. You’re not ready.”
Hacks season four starts streaming April 10 on Max.
