In between filming seasons of Hacks, Jean Smart has returned to her homebase: the theater.
Smart, who has won three Emmys for her portrayal of comedian and now late night host Deborah Vance on the HBO Max show, is starring in a one-woman show, Call Me Izzy, at Studio 54 this summer. The production marks her first return to Broadway since 2000, when she starred in The Man Who Came to Dinner with Nathan Lane, but she launched her career in regional and Off-Broadway theaters.
Call Me Izzy, written by Jamie Wax, opens June 12, and sees Smart portray the title character, a woman who lives in rural Louisiana and yearns to write, but is held back by her husband.
Smart has been involved with the play for two years, including doing four readings of the piece. She was a clear choice for the role because of her “incredible vulnerability” and accessibility, as well as her well-honed ability to interact with the audience, whom director Sarna Lapine refers to as her “scene partners” in the play.
“It’s part of what makes her such a powerful conduit for complex characters, because she builds them so precisely, but also opens herself up and lets people into that process and gives an audience such an intimate window into all the nooks and crannies of what that human being is experiencing,” Lapine said.
During the play’s preview process, in which Smart was contending with an evolving script and also making a point to meet with the fans lining up at the stage door, the Hacks star spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about tackling a one-woman show and why she doesn’t know what’s next Deborah Vance.
Had returning to Broadway been on your radar?
Oh absolutely. I talked to the wonderful, late Todd Haimes at the Roundabout about doing a play. I came out a couple years ago and did a reading. Also Stephen Sondheim had offered me a play. I flew out and auditioned for him for one of his musicals. And then he offered it to me, and I said, “No.”
Why did you say no?
That was one of my biggest career regrets. I shouldn’t have auditioned for it unless I was certain I was going to do it. There was just too much family stuff going on, and I think also partly I chickened out. I think it’s one thing to do a Broadway play, it’s another thing to sing.
Are you a singer?
I used to sing quite well, but I have not kept my voice in shape. I’ve started taking some voice lessons again, because I really love to sing. I’d kill to play Adelaide. If anybody wants to do a geriatric version of Guys and Dolls, I’m all over it. World’s longest engagement: Adelaide and Nathan! I always wanted to play Eliza Doolittle. That ain’t gonna happen. So unfortunately, I’ve aged out of so many of the musicals.
So why return with this play?
It’s a character that I just fell in love with. I felt like it was an extraordinary piece of writing. So that was the combination I was looking for, because I just loved this character so much. I first read it a couple years ago when my agent sent it to me, and I’ve just been trying to figure out how I could possibly do it. And finally, the timing was right, and my kids agreed they would come to New York for the summer, and I got a dog sitter and a house sitter back in L.A., and I just said, “If not now, when?”
Were you nervous about it being a one-woman show?
Yes, still nervous. Talk to me in a couple weeks, I’ll be less nervous. That was a little daunting, even though I learn lines very easily, but not as easily as I used to. I called up Holland Taylor [who wrote and starred in a one-woman play], and I was saying, “So, any tricks? What’s the secret?” And she said, “Sleep after your matinee, before the evening show.” I said, “Good advice. That’s what I’m gonna do.”
During the play, your character is looking out into the audience and interacting with them. How did that decision come about?
It’s a wonderful convention about the play. It’s almost like she imagines them, because she has such a lonely, isolated life. She sort of conjures an audience. Because, as she says, if you write something, and no one ever reads it, does it even exist? Do I exist? And so she conjures an audience, partly out of loneliness and partly because she wants to share. She so desperately wants to share her writing, and isn’t allowed to show it in her relationship
You hadn’t done a one-person show before. But beyond that, does it feel different being back on Broadway this time?
Not really. Only in the sense that, yes, I don’t have other castmates to hang out with. But it feels good. I spent a lot of time on stage in my early years of my career, so it always feels kind of like home.
Do you feel any pressure from coming off of Hacks? That people may be expecting Deborah Vance on stage?
Well, people will certainly be disappointed if they’re expecting to see Deborah Vance. She probably couldn’t be further away from Deborah.
You said you haven’t asked the writers about what happens to Deborah in season 5. Why not?
We trust the writers so much. And also it’s interesting, the difference between doing a movie and doing a series, because in a series, you don’t always know what’s coming up, and that’s more like real life. None of us know what’s going to happen tomorrow. But in a movie, you read the script, there’s the beginning, the middle and the end, so you know. Your job is to not play the end of the movie in the beginning of the movie. But with a series, it’s always evolving a little bit. It’s not always the same as your first perception of it. The hardest part of a series is, as an actor, you want to be as specific as possible with your character, but at the same time, you don’t want to lock yourself into something that in six months or a year, you go, “Oh, why did I establish that? It doesn’t work for me at all anymore.” So that’s the danger, and that’s the hard dance of trying to be specific, but maybe still leave yourself open to being able to change.
How do you strike that balance?
I don’t know. But with Deborah Vance, for instance, from the first script, I just felt like it was all there. I knew what I wanted to do with the character. I felt like it had everything I could have hoped for. It had the great humor, and it also had pathos. When I was 12, I idolized Phyllis Diller, so the chance to get to do stand-up seemed irresistible. I just felt like it had everything I could have hoped for.
This season we’ve seen Deborah and Ava very much at odds with each other, maybe more so than before. What was it like to play that?
In earlier seasons, when I would have to say and do awful things to her, it made me feel bad. But now it’s just sort of fun.
We also see Ava directly question Deborah on whether she can be trusted. Do you have an opinion on that?
Deborah tries to mean what she says. It’s not that she’s a pathological liar, it’s that she tries to mean what she says. But then it doesn’t always work out.
Are you thinking ahead to what kind of projects or roles you would want to take on outside of Hacks or beyond that?
I definitely would like to come back here [to Broadway], hopefully in the not too distant future, and I also look forward to just doing nothing, absolutely nothing.
What do you think of the whirlwind of your career in the past several years, with Mare of Easttown, Hacks and now Broadway?
I don’t know what to make of it. It’s been coupled with a couple of the hardest things in my life, so I try not to place any meaning on that. I know it’s unusual, especially for women. I’m extraordinarily grateful and having a great time playing all these wonderful roles I’ve been offered the last several years. It’s just kind of amazing.
I can’t explain it, just, I’m a late bloomer, always have been.