Prize-winning actress Jean Smart has played everything from a naive southern belle to a serial killer. But she seems to embody her latest role as the tough but vulnerable comic diva in the hit series “Hacks,” which returns to Max April 10.

Whatever her role, Smart has always kept her cool. That’s not an accident, she says.

“I used to say, especially when my kids were younger, ... ‘I just sort of think of myself as a housewife with a really weird job.’ But I know certainly that's naive to say that, in a way. I know that the outside world, as we put it, the ‘civilian’ world, they look at our job as being very exciting, and God knows it is sometimes. ...”

But she says the glitz is only skin deep. “I think if we have kids and a house that that keeps you grounded. So I was lucky. I was brought up by really wonderful parents. We didn't have much. My dad was a schoolteacher. He worked two jobs, just because he had four kids. And my mom made our clothes. And I didn't feel like I lacked for a thing, but we didn't have extras,” she recalls.

“I'm glad that I was not spoiled. I'm actually very grateful for my childhood. And so, I think everything nice that's happened to me, in my adult life, I don't take for granted.”

Smart was raised in Seattle, the second of four kids. “When I told my mom I was going to major in theater, I think she thought that’s so frivolous because she grew up in the Depression and even getting a chance to go to college was not a guarantee.

“She worked very hard, and her mother was determined that her daughter was going to go to college.”

Smart’s grandmother was orphaned when she was very young. “She was desperately poor, got married when she was still a teenager, raised her kids during the Depression, and ended up getting her doctorate from Columbia,” says Smart.

“They were the Greatest Generation. My dad joined the Navy at 17 to help support his family, and he ended up getting his master’s and teaching history. I always knew my parents would pay for me to go to college. Even on a schoolteacher’s salary, my father was determined to do that,” she remembers.

“So I took that part for granted. So when I announced I was going to major in theater, she thought that was a bit frivolous. She changed her mind as soon as she saw me in plays at the University of Washington — which was her alma mater — (and) she thought that was pretty great.”

As the sophisticated Deborah Vance in “Hacks,” Smart is able to inhabit both sides of the comic’s personality. “I think we've all had that in our own lives — tragedy and comedy. I mean, that's just what life is. And so to be able to do that and to still have the tone of the show be essentially kind of fun and joyous (is rewarding). But then the reality is there's always the flip side of the coin.”

Memorable in films like “The Accountant,” “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Lucky You,” and in TV pastiches like her characters in “Frasier,” “Harry’s Law” and “Fargo,” have kept Smart in the limelight since she first trekked to New York City as a hopeful neophyte.

“I was a little nervous,” she says. “It seemed sort of exciting, and I remember my mother was all for it and was very proud of me. But when she saw a movie a few nights before I left with Jill Clayburgh and she got beaten up in an alley, and when I left, she started crying. It scared her. It didn’t scare me.

“I took the subway at 3 in the morning. I’d walk over to a guy and say, ‘Please stop that!’ If they were beating up the girlfriend. I was sort of a daredevil when I was younger. I’ve gotten to be more of a chicken as I’ve gotten older, which I feel bad about. I was sort of a tomboy and always felt fairly confident.”

Smart’s 16-year-old son just finished taking part in a school musical, she says.“But his teacher is rather, can be verbally abusive, and it's very upsetting as a parent, and I don't agree with it either. As an actor, I've never had that in my experience. Certainly, when I was in school, no one ever spoke to me like that. I don't see how you can possibly get good results out of somebody or have someone be able to work in that environment,” she says.

“Some people, I think, probably don't mind it that much. ... I guess it's sort of the cliche of the crazy directors screaming and yelling, or the drama teachers saying, ‘You need to suffer for your art.’ It's like, ‘Why?’ I don't, I never got that. It's like, ‘Tell us your most private moment, It’ll make you a better actor.’ Really? No, I don't think so. Just tell me what to say, thank you. It'll be fine. Just calm down. So that’s that for me. I like it warm and cozy.”

Those who want to catch up on Season 1 of “Hacks” can find it Thursday on TBS.

Television brings home the Bacon

Kevin Bacon portrays a bounty hunter back from the dead to trap demons who’ve escaped from hell’s prison in the horror thriller “The Bondsman,” alighting on Prime Video Thursday. All eight episodes will be available from the start. The film also stars country singer Jennifer Nettles, Damon Herriman and Beth Grant.

Bacon tells me that he was reluctant at first to do television series. “When I started out the last thing I wanted to do was be on a television series. There was a real difference between being a television actor and being a movie and stage actor,” he says.

“I did the soaps and then I was done. I had no interest in television. I would never audition for television shows. They did a television show of ‘Diner’ and of ‘Animal House,’ both of which I got offered, and both of which I turned down even though I didn’t have a pot to piss in. It wasn’t like I had some other great gig. I was probably a waiter when they did the show of ‘Animal House’ for television. But I was a real snob about it.“

He changed his mind when he saw how professional and successful his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, was in her TV show, “The Closer.”

“And also seeing how I was consuming television, and the fact that so many of my friends would get together and that’s what we were talking about — was television shows. And I looked at someone like the great James Gandolfini and said, ‘Wow, that’s such an amazing character that he got a chance to explore. ... So hand-in-hand with that, I started to see a real shift in the movie business with studios making many less films. ... So even though I was slightly reluctant to do this, I threw my hat into the television ring.”

Jon Hamm entertains 'Friends and Neighbors'

Viewers can take a bite of Apple TV+ when Jon Hamm’s new starrer, “Your Friends and Neighbors,” arrives April 11. Hamm plays a hedge-fund manager after a recent divorce who loses his job and resorts to stealing to maintain his lifestyle. Co-starring are Olivia Munn and Amanda Peet.

The role sounds perfect for Hamm, who knocked it out of the ballpark with “Mad Men.”

Hamm’s mother died when he was 10, but she left a lasting influence on him.

"My mother — it sounds very Dickensian and romantic — but my mother's dying wish was that I go to this particular private school, John Burroughs School in St. Louis, Missouri, because friends had gone there. I have to say it was the single most profound, resonating decision ever made in my life. It wasn't made by me, but it's what every mother should want for her child."

Hamm did finish college with a major in English. It was after he'd resolved that debt that he decided to take the tumble into show biz.

"For me, I think, the idea of not doing this was way more terrifying than doing it. I couldn't imagine the soul-rushing regret of not giving it a shot."

'A Man Inside' is a family affair

Ted Danson is keeping it in the family as his wife of 29 years, Mary Steenburgen, will be joining him in the second season of Netflix’s hit series “A Man Inside.”

Steenburgen is an award-winning actress herself, who earned the Oscar for her impressive supporting role in “Melvin and Howard.” Most recently she’s been performing in a variety of TV shows and the film “Book Club: the Next Chapter.

Steenburgen tells me where her love of acting comes from. “I think the truth is it came from reading. I was a voracious reader, and when I read, I read as though my life depended on it. I think when I was 16 there wasn’t much difference in acting and what I did. My sister said she didn’t have to read a book: She'd watch my face when I was reading it, and she could tell everything about it. I think I just got it up on its feet — started doing little plays in school and went to the Neighborhood Playhouse and studied with Sandy Meisner in New York for two years. I met Jack Nicholson, and he cast me as the leading lady in ‘Goin’ South,’ and I’ve been going ever since.”

While it was not a huge hit, Steenburgen as the resolute virgin in ‘Goin’ South’ was. She went on to appear in such films as “The Help,” “The Proposal,” “Nixon” and “Cross Creek.”

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