Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder have created two characters that viewers have enjoyed following over the five seasons. Concluding the series is bittersweet for them.

“I have never asked them how the series was going to end from the day we met until the finale,” Smart told a group of select media. “And I didn’t really have an idea of how it would end. I just I wanted to be surprised.”

Through the five years the characters of stand-up comedian Deborah Vance (Smart) and writer Ava Daniels (Einbinder) have had their ups and downs. Their relationship hit extreme highs and lows.

Last year, Smart says, the storyline was a bit darker than it had been previously. “But season five,” she admits, “we get to get back to being profoundly silly, which is really, really fun.”

“It’s so nice for us to be working towards the same goal,” Einbinder states. Through the years the two characters had been friends at times as well as foes at other times. “Personally, I’m always just so excited about the opportunities and challenges that they present me with dramatically and comedically, like I always know that I’m going to be pushed to like a new height in terms of performance and it is so invigorating and exciting and just the best feeling you can have as a performer.”

Einbinder is pleased with the way her character has evolved over the seasons. “I think every evolution that these characters have undergone has felt warranted and earned. And everything that I would hope for them has been achieved.”

Einbinder was nominated four times for an Emmy for supporting actress in a comedy series and won the coveted award once. And Smart took home the trophy four times for her role of Vance for best actress in a comedy series. The show has been highly rated and acclaimed by critics as well as viewers.

When a popular series comes to an end, it is emotional not only for the fans but also for the actors who have lived the lives of their characters for years, and in this case for five years.

Smart explained her emotions about the final season, “…as the season went on, they started wrapping certain sets, like when we were shooting in Deborah’s house, which I love that house, it’s like running around a big giant dollhouse, I just love it, because they copied a giant mansion in Bel Air and recreated it on stage at Universal. It’s absolutely stunning.

“And so…the first time it happened, they said, ‘Okay, that’s a wrap, that’s a series wrap on Deborah’s bedroom.’ I was like, we’re never gonna sleep in this bedroom again? And then that’s the wrap on the kitchen. I was like oh my god, they let me sneak little souvenirs from each set.”

“I think I had a series of moments throughout the season where it was falling on me and dawning on me that it was the end,” Einbinder added. It is obvious the two actors were touched when the series wrapped.

Smart, who has been acting professionally for almost 40 years, admits she is overjoyed with the roles women over 30 have been getting lately. “I was never an ingenue, thank God. Because I’d be pretty miserable right now if I’d been an ingenue. Even in high school, I always played mom, you know, in the school play,” she said with a hint of humor.

“I do think there are more interesting roles for women who aren’t, you know, 25 years old right now. I mean it used to be, and I’ve said this before, forgive me if you’ve read this or something that I said before, but it used to be that – and men are still dominant in every movie you see, there’s going to be, you know, 10 men for every woman – but it used to be that they only wrote stories about men because men were the ones that were out in the world doing things. Women were not out in world doing things, which is why everything was written about men.

“And pretty soon people started to realize that some women had actually always been out there doing things, and they started writing about women that were more kind of unusual, and rebels, and before their time. But now they’re realizing that women can be just as three-dimensional and older women can have the same kind of lives and desires and things that women who are 30 do.”

“Hacks” has an almost cult-following. This MAX original series combines comedy with drama and characters that have been embraced by fans. For those who have yet to experience the friendship that hit big highs and deep lows between Deborah Vance and Ava Daniels, all seasons are available to stream on HBO/MAX. The actors as well as the series will most likely be nominated for more Emmy Awards in 2026.

The final episode of “Hacks” came out May 28 on HBO MAX.