Yahoo News ‘Hacks’ Guest Star, Kaitlin Olson, on Royally Trashing Jean Smart as Her Mom
When The Good Place creator Mike Schur called Kaitlin Olson to convince her to take a guest role on an upcoming comedy series back in 2020 — the passion project he was producing from a trio of showrunners about a legendary female comedian staging a career resurgence — the actress says she was a little hesitant.
“I don’t like being a guest star on other people’s shows,” admits Olson. “It’s like being at a party where you don’t know anyone.”
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But the role — as DJ, the troubled daughter of Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance on Max’s Hacks — was, as Schur promised, small but juicy. “The writing was so good and so smart,” says Olson of the first script she read, written by co-creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky (the latter was a writer on The Good Place, while all three worked together on Broad City). “It’s very uncommon to find a smart, funny show that organically weaves in real emotion. It’s done badly a lot. I just couldn’t say no to it.”
As Deborah’s star continues to rise in the comedy’s third season — she has found renewed success with a new comedy special and is now campaigning for a prime late night hosting gig — DJ’s life changes for the better. She’s in recovery and expecting a child, all while keeping distance between herself and her mother, who can’t help but pull focus from DJ at every opportunity — like at a support group meeting, when Deborah’s chance to celebrate her daughter’s sobriety turns into a humiliating DJ-centric comedy set.
But the tables turn in episode three, when Deborah gets the star-studded roast treatment and asks DJ to deliver her own routine. What begins as a low-energy list of jokes poking fun at Deborah’s bad parenting, each ending with a recurring line in which DJ calls her mom the C-word, morphs into a star-making performance for the amateur stand-up comic — with her crass refrain becoming a crowd-pleasing catchword.
Getting that catchphrase right — first as an awkwardly jarring obscenity when DJ practices the material with Hannah Einbinder’s Ava — brought to mind Olson’s other major TV role: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Dee Reynolds, whom she has played for 16 seasons. “I have to say ‘goddammit’ all the time,” Olson says of Dee’s go-to curse. “I’ve probably said ‘goddammit’ 7,000 times in the last 16 years.
I don’t want to bore myself.”
But Hacks brings depth to a character who could otherwise be one-note — and Olson points to DJ’s pregnancy as a new obstacle in her fractured relationship with her mom. “Her first thought was: How is she going to protect her child from Deborah?” says Olson. “A great thing that happens when you become pregnant is [suddenly you have] these responsibilities — even before the baby comes, you have to eat well and exercise. There’s a very protective thing built in.” That means keeping up boundaries with Deborah — but within reason for a comedy series. “She now has this added layer, a more well-rounded personality, while still keeping that annoying teenager energy,” she adds.
Olson earned an Emmy nomination for best guest actress in a comedy for Hacks’ second season in 2022; it was her second honor from the Television Academy (her first being for Flipped), which has ignored It’s Always Sunny through its entire 16-year run. While her co-star — and real-life husband — Rob McElhenney is the first It’s Always Sunny player to win an Emmy since the comedy premiered (for FX’s Welcome to Wrexham, which earned best unstructured reality program this year), Olson says there’s no Emmy competition among co-stars and EPs Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton. “I was nominated first, so in my head I’ve decided I already won — no matter what happened,” she says with a laugh. (Just don’t tell her about co-star Danny DeVito’s 1981 win for Taxi.)
This story first appeared in a June standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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