After Jean Smart underwent a successful heart procedure last year, the Emmy-winning actor returned to the set of Hacks for her most physically grueling season yet. Granted, her character, Deborah Vance, is a legendary comedian and QVC queen—so it wasn’t like the now 72-year-old was performing a marathon so much as a strange medley of activities the character undertakes in her latest power grab.

These activities include driving a bulldozer (for a late-night prank Deborah pulls on Carrot Top), playing golf, hiking, and dancing the tango. And she had to do most of those shortly after injuring herself in a fall. “I just creamed my knee really bad,” Smart says on this week’s Little Gold Men, though that the injury didn’t stop her. The five-time Emmy winner just marched on. “That was right before we had to do two days of golf,” she adds.

This season of Hacks also required Smart to face a few unpleasant emotional truths about Deborah—about what she’s willing to do to get ahead, the jokes she used to tell, and the savage ways she sometimes treats the people she loves. Listen or read below for more on Deborah’s season-three journey, the character’s blindness to boundaries, and the real-life comedians who’ve endorsed her onscreen stand-up act.

Vanity Fair: When Deborah and Ava reunite in the first episode of the season, we realize that Deborah hasn’t reached out to Ava in a year. Were you surprised to hear that’s how Deborah handled the relationship?

Jean Smart: My gut reaction was sort of surprised, but then I thought, No, that’s kind of like her. Because she waits for people to reach out to her. And also she’s been on a whirlwind of positive things that’s been occupying her mind. But I have the feeling she probably had an ear out for what was going on with Ava. I think she knew that Ava was doing well and probably patted herself on the back for it.

It’s great to see Deborah at this place in her life. She’s on the Time 100 list. She’s Supreme streetwear royalty. She’s getting Tom Cruise cakes. What was it like to see her reclaim her pop-culture relevance?

It was wonderful, because when she decided to do a special, it was do or die time. It was like, “If this doesn’t work, this is the end. I am not going to go crawling back to Las Vegas and do a second-rate casino [show] off the strip.” To her, there was no plan B. It was going to work, come hell or high water.

But Deborah is not finished. She suddenly has a new goal this season that has to do with the late show. Were you surprised to learn that the special didn’t satisfy her ambitions?

Well, it made sense to me because when she got the chance to guest host The Late Show, it brought up all of that craving she’d had all those years ago that she’d tried to put away, but it came roaring back because she was in her element. That’s when she realized how much she regretted the fact that she never got that shot. So when she thinks there might be a shot, she goes into overdrive ambition.

We see her guest host in the second episode of the new season. For the show, she also films a prank with Carrot Top, who I didn’t realize was such a good actor.

Oh, wasn’t he great?

I didn’t expect to see Deborah operate construction equipment this season, as she does for the segment.

Yes. I had to get a little lesson in driving a bulldozer. That was fun. [Carrot Top] was such a good sport. And I’ve told everybody this, but it’s true: you look past the makeup and the crazy hair. . .that is a really good-looking guy, really handsome.

Can we talk a little bit about the power dynamic between Deborah and Ava? Their relationship is complicated and gets messier this season. Ava is a bit more powerful than she was the past two seasons, but Deborah has a hard time taking her out of the subservient box.

There’s definitely a change this season. If you haven’t seen the last episode [of the new season], there’s a real shocker. But it’s fun because, even in the scene where Ava is really standing up for herself and saying, “Look, we need some guidelines if we’re going to work together again. I need this, this, and no more jokes about my personal appearance.” And Deborah goes, “The joke about your hands was grandfathered in” She goes, “No.” So I finally go, “Okay, fine.” Then the rest of the scene, Deborah’s texting her housekeeper a joke about Ava's hands. And the housekeeper comes in and reads it. And it’s perfect because you know Deborah’s not going to follow the rules that she just agreed to. At least not all of them.

It doesn’t seem like she does well with boundaries.

I just think she thinks she’s always right about everything. She thinks that everybody wants her opinion.

It becomes clearer this season that Deborah has a habit of just cutting people out of her life, like she did with Ava for a year and she did with her sister. Have you given much thought to that part of the character? Is that just her self-defense?

She’s never gotten over that betrayal, or what she considers betrayal, by her little sister and her husband having an affair and then marrying. I mean, that would be brutal, no matter how bad your
marriage had been. That would be very hard to get over. And she not only doesn’t get over it, she lets it fester and flower into some huge part of her life. She can’t let it go.

Do you think that Deborah views Ava as a younger version of herself?

I think she definitely recognizes things in her that she respects and sees as a kindred spirit, but I do think there a maternal thing as well. She does deep down feel like a failure as a mother. I think Ava’s a bit of a do-over.

Ava moves into Deborah’s house, and it’s hilarious seeing some of the artwork hung in the guest room where Ava lives—there’s a picture of Deborah with Saddam Hussein, one with Dick Cheney. . .

She probably dated him. Those always cracks me up. And in fact, I have to text my old high school boyfriend Marty again, because there’s a picture of him and me and the girl he was dating after we dated together. I met him when I was 15 years old. And there’s a picture of him that’s been [on the show] since season one.

Has he seen it?

Yeah, he did. He got a kick out of it. He also cheated on me with a girl named Kathy when we were in high school. And he immediately confessed. So the fact that my husband in the show cheated on me with my sister Kathy, and the fact that my boyfriend in the show is named Marty, which is my old high school boyfriend's name. . .I said, “You’re not going to believe me, but those are complete coincidences. I swear I did not tell producers.” But it makes me laugh.

This season, we see what Deborah is willing to do for power. Did it surprise you to find out how cutthroat she really is?

It kind of bothered me at first, but I think it’s right. I think it comes at a perfect time in the life of the show. But yes, her ambition is pretty extreme and it’s not kind. It’s not gentle.

You’ve said you didn’t watch a lot of stand-up before performing stand-up as Deborah. Did you study any real-life late-night monologues in preparation for Deborah’s?

The monologues I got in the script I just loved so much, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them. I didn’t want to try to copy somebody’s style. Like, I could never do Joan Rivers’s style—that machine gun, brilliant delivery she had, especially when she was younger. Elayne Boosler I always thought was great. Roseanne Barr’s early stuff I just loved. But didn’t want to copy anybody because then I knew it would just feel false. It had to come from me.

You must have heard from comedians who’ve had flattering things to say about your stand-up. Who have you heard from?

I have and it was very gratifying. I think Brad Garrett, who I just love, was one of them. She’s not a comedian, but I got fabulous messages from Candice Bergen and from Sally Fields, which was just a thrill. Sally had played a stand-up comedian [in Punchline]. I’m friends with George Lopez’s ex wife, and she told me that George loved it. He said he couldn’t believe that I had never done stand up. That made me feel good. ‘Cause that was my only concern doing the show.

In addition to being a great stand up, we also learn that Deborah is an incredible golfer this season. Do you golf?

I don’t golf. No. No. . .I got a lesson from Chris McDonald [who plays Marty]. And then I got a lesson from Joe Pacheco, who’s on The Morning Show. When we were shooting, they had a professional female golfer who did a couple of the long shots where you can’t see her face. . .but my body hurt so bad after that those couple of few days. I thought, “My body’s never done that motion in my life. What the hell are you doing?”

I love seeing Deborah and Ava in new environments. This season we see them hiking and at a frat party. Can you tell us about the circumstances that get them to the latter?

Oh my god, the fraternity party was hilarious. Deborah’s getting an honorary degree at Berkeley and she’s very excited. Then she finds out that there’s a student group on campus that cobbled together a video of some of her most politically incorrect jokes over the years, and they’re going to protest her getting her degree. So she’s very upset. She tries to curry favor with the rest of the students on campus, and so she decides to go to a frat party. And of course I’m dancing and drinking and carrying on like a fool.

When I spoke to Hacks’ creators, they said that they knew the entire scope of the show when you signed on to play Deborah, but that you didn’t ask to know what happened to her. Why not?

I guess I didn’t want to play any of the end too early if I had it in my head. Because it’s not like real life. In real life, we don’t know what’s going to happen the next hour, the next year. That’s the fun part of doing a series, because it’s more lifelike than doing a movie. When you do a movie, you’ve read the whole script. You know the beginning, middle, and the end, and you try not to play
the end result. But with a series, it’s constantly unfolding and developing.

The only problem with that is you have to be very careful in the beginning of a series not to establish things that, later you’re going to think, “Oh my God, this is so wrong. This doesn’t work for what we’re trying to do now. I should never have established that habit or that thing.” To be a good actor you want to be as specific as possible, but at the same time, like I said, you don’t want to tie yourself to something, even something like a physical gesture or a vocal thing or a relationship with the other character that then is going to keep you from being able to do what you really want to do later. It’s just a real interesting balancing act.

We see J. Smith Cameron play Deborah’s sister, which was another incredible surprise. Can you talk about working with her?

Oh, we had a really good time. We kept saying, “I want to work with you again. Let’s do a play or something.” Because she’s a fabulous theater actor. We worked easily together. We have similar styles, I think, both come from the theater, and know a lot of people in common. I’ve admired her for a long time and Succession is one of my all-time favorite shows. And I think she looks like me, I mean she looks like more more than my sister did.

Your chemistry with Hannah is so great. What’s your relationship with her like off screen?

I just adore her. You know, we’re both busy with our lives but we try to get together occasionally and we text a lot. Whenever I see a silly joke or hear something crazy, I text it to her too because I want to see that big “LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO
LOLOLOLOLOL” on my phone. That from her always makes me feel good.

This interview has been edited and condensed.