For Gene Smart, starring hacks It’s about more than just receiving awards – she’s won four Emmys for her role as Deborah Vance – but also about redefining her position in Hollywood.
“I can’t really explain it, but I’m forever grateful for the roles I’ve had in the last decade,” she explains in an interview with the Boston Globe.
The actress further adds, “When I did ’24’ and played the role of the first lady, things started changing for me. But thank God, I was never sensible. Because I would have been very sad right now.”
Smart recalls Hollywood: stories focused mostly on men, often leaving side characters for women.
She explains, “Even in high school sports, I always played the mom. I don’t know if it was my height or my deep voice.”
“Now, I think there are more interesting roles for women who are under 25. It used to be that if every movie you watched had a male lead, it was because they only wrote stories about men.”
The 74-year-old said that over time the reality began to set in in the industry that women have a voice and a story to tell.
“Because men were the ones who were working in the world. Women weren’t working in the world, which is why everything was written about men.”
“Pretty soon people realized that some women actually worked all the time. And they started writing about women.”
Smart now shares that women are cast in bold, complex roles with depth and drama.
“Now they’re realizing that women can be three-dimensional and that older women can have the same kind of lives and desires and things that 30-year-old women do.”
The final season of Hacks is scheduled to drop on April 9 on HBO Max.
