Jean Smart Talks Family, Grief and Aging: ‘Every Day Is Precious Now’

What’s the best advice you gave your sons as they were growing up?

I always told both my sons, especially when they were little, to always be kind. Don’t ever get your pleasure from somebody else’s pain or your entertainment from someone else’s discomfort. I can say absolutely without hesitation that they are both 100 percent like that. They are both incredibly, incredibly kind human beings. 

What’s your perspective on aging?

That feeling — that sense of every day is precious now, or certainly more precious than it used to be. It’s that whole thing of your mortality — and certainly when you lose your partner of 35 years — suddenly, your mortality becomes very real. Physical aches and pains are the things I hate most about it. … I told a friend the other day, “I feel like an antique car that just needs constant parts and polishing.”

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When you get some free time, what’s on your to-do list?

I would like to do some traveling. I haven’t done much traveling for years. And I really, really want to do that. I want to go back to the British Isles. I love the British Isles. I would like to go to Portugal. For some reason, that’s someplace I’ve always wanted to go. I would like to go back to Asia. We were in China for two weeks when we adopted our youngest. And also Japan. I loved Japan when I was there. I was there briefly during my first marriage. My then-husband was stationed there, and I fell in love with Japan.

Any travel strategies when you hit the road?

I make sure that I bring something so that I’m warm enough, because airplanes are always like meat lockers and I hate that. I just make sure I wear really comfortable clothes, slip-on shoes, and try to bring something to read. Or just plan on catching up on some sleep.

What are you reading?

One book I recently read that I absolutely loved was The Boys in the Boat [by Daniel James Brown]. They made it into a movie, which George Clooney directed. The book is just phenomenal. And what was fun for me to read was that it took place at my alma mater, the University of Washington. It’s a true story and set in the 1930s. It’s just incredible.

You haven’t written a book yet. Do you want to?

No. People have asked me that a few times. I said the problem is the parts of my life that people would find interesting are not the parts of my life that I would be willing to share. So no, I don’t think I’ll do that.

Smart stars as seasoned comedian Deborah Vance in the Max series "Hacks."

Courtesy MAX

Now that Hacks production has wrapped, what’s next for you?

I’m working on a one-woman show [for summer 2025]. We finally did [a reading] yesterday. It was exhausting, but it was really, really, really fun. Oh my gosh, it is such a gorgeous script. It’s about this woman who lives in a trailer park in Louisiana, and she got married when she was 17 right out of high school, and poetry just pours out of her, and she’s learned that she has to hide it. She has a husband who is very abusive and he hates this part of her. The thing that she most treasures about herself, he hates. Some of it’s very funny, some of it’s very painful.

You’re still getting offered juicy parts. I guess you won’t be retiring anytime soon?

Apparently not. Actors don’t retire, they just go until they drop. We figure they’ll always need old people in movies and TV shows. That’s the only profession you can say that about, really.