(audience cheering)
- [Kelly] How are you? You look beautiful!
- Well, it takes a village.
- I'm just saying, like, I love this color on you.
Oh my God, the shoes.
Look at those shoes!
(audience cheers)
Those shoes are so good, and the ring.
I like everything that's happening.
- I think this glows in the dark,
but I'm not sure.
- I know. You would be a hit at cosmic bowling at night.
(Jean laughs)
That's when they turn off all the lights.
That'd be amazing.
So, we were just talking about giving back.
So you actually did,
was it a "Designing Women" table read for charity?
Is that what I, that's amazing.
- We actually got together last year
and we read the pilot script.
- [Kelly] How fun was that?
- Yeah.
From 35 years ago, something like that.
(Jean laughs)
- Yeah, that's crazy!
- And it was weird 'cause it felt like we'd just done it.
- [Kelly] Oh, really?
- I mean, I could hear everybody's,
I could just hear everybody in my head and how,
what used to be 'cause unfortunately of course,
we didn't have Dixie.
- [Kelly] Didn't have Dixie. Yeah.
- And Delta couldn't do it, so we, you know, so.
But it was just like we'd just been doing it,
it was crazy.
- Is there an episode from "Designing Women"
that still kind of sticks out for you?
I have so many.
- Oh gosh, there was five years of them.
- [Kelly] Do you wanna know mine? Fine.
(audience laughs)
- Yeah, I'm dying to know what your favorite is.
- Mine is when y'all were snowed in.
- Oh, "Reservations for Eight," I think it was called.
- [Kelly And the guys and the girls were, yeah.
I loved that one.
- And we all got in big fights,
the women against the men.
- I know, 'cause I love it.
- Yeah.
- And of course the one where I met my husband,
of course, stands out.
- Aww.
- That was the fifth episode of the season,
we hadn't even aired yet.
- [Kelly] Oh, wow!
- The show had never aired
and we were shooting episode number five
and he played Annie's boyfriend and-
- Did you know right away when you first met?
- We were never apart after that day.
(Jean laughs)
- Oh, my gosh, really?
- [Audience Members] Aww.
- [Jean] Yeah.
I don't mean we moved in together the next day,
I don't mean that.
(Kelly laughs)
(audience laughs)
I don't mean that.
- This is happening.
- Yeah, no, and he invited me
to come and see a play that he was doing.
Of course I went 17 times.
- [Kelly] Aww.
- And then, you know,
we lived about 15 minutes apart
but we would talk every night on the phone
for about two hours.
- I love that!
That's rare to find that, wow!
But speaking of family,
so we both did that show,
"Who Do You Think You Are?"
- Yes.
- I loved it, but I heard yours was really rad.
What was the coolest thing that you found out?
- Well, my cousin, Darlene,
on my mom's side of the family,
has researched my mother's maternal side of the family
to death.
So I thought,
how could they have found something interesting enough
to make an episode about?
- Yeah. They did.
- You know, it's a reality show,
that Darlene didn't already dig up, you know?
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And they went all the way back
to my eight times great-grandmother.
She had an unfortunate name.
Her first name was Dorcas and her last name was Hoar.
(audience laughs)
(Kelly laughs)
- Like, how do you spell Hoar?
- Yeah, well it was spelled H-O-A-R,
but in some of the documents,
one of the documents I read,
I actually got to hold original documents from the 1600s.
- [Kelly] What?
- And they wrote it
as if they thought that was her profession.
Dorcas, comma, Hoar.
- Oh my gosh.
- But no, she was accused of witchcraft in 1692
in Salem, Massachusetts.
She lived in Beverly, which is right next door.
And she was convicted and sentenced to hang.
And, she missed being hanged by one day.
She confessed and that bought her some time.
And in that time,
the public kinda lost its taste for these hangings.
And so they thought,
maybe we're killing some innocent people,
I don't know if we should be doing this.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- But I called my husband that night and I said,
"You're not gonna believe it.
You're not gonna believe what they found out."
And I told him,
and there was this long pause and he said,
"Well, that explains a lot."
(Kelly cracks up)
(audience laughs)
- I totally would've gone through a whole thing like,
well, I'm totally a witch.
I would've been so excited about it.
- Are you a good witch?
Or a bad witch?
- [Kelly] I would've been a good witch.
I'd have used my power for good.
(audience applauding)
So that was look at her show, "Hacks."
Season Two is on HBO Max now.
It's such an incredible show,
so congrats on all the love for "Hacks."
"Hacks" is so good.
- Oh, thank you. Thank you.
(audience cheers)
- Honestly, I started watching it because I love you.
I started watching it just 'cause I'm a huge fan of yours.
And then, it's such a good show.
- Yeah.
- It's funny, it's intense,
it can be really sad,
it covers all the emotional realms.
- Yeah, that's why I had to do it.
- [Kelly] I know, the character.
You go all over the place.
- Yeah.
- Is that exhausting?
- No, 'cause it's so satisfying.
- [Kelly] Okay, and it breaks up the monotony.
- And it's so much fun, you know.
It's sort of like,
you know when you have a great story to tell
or a great joke to tell and you can't wait to tell it?
- Yeah.
- That kind of energy?
So, I love the scenes where I get to actually do standup.
- [Kelly] Oh, yeah.
- You know, 'cause I get to do the fun part of standup
without the scary part.
(audience clapping)
- Yeah.
This relationship is so interesting
and then, obviously the second season, it gets
(laughs)
even more interesting and so nerve wracking.
I was sweating watching the first part.
- Poor Ava, oh my God.
Torturing her is my favorite thing in the world.
(audience laughs)
- It is, I know, but your relationship is just,
I mean it's like,
the writers are incredible.
- [Jean] Oh my god.
- It's like, what they come up with
and you try and make normal?
- I couldn't imagine that they could top Season One.
You know,
I just would be happy if they matched Season One.
- Well, good job with the start of Season Two
from what I've seen, yeah.
- It's incredible, yeah, they're incredible.
- It's incredible.
So what can we expect from more from Season Two?
'Cause I've already seen some of it.
- We'll let's see, episodes three and four start tonight.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- Is it episode four?
We go on a cruise, which is really funny.
- [Kelly] Okay.
- Yeah, we go on a cruise.
- I love your character so much, I just pictured it.
(Kelly laughs)
I just realized I pictured your character on a cruise.
So, wait,
I have to ask you about this picture that you posted.
So, yep.
- [Jean] Isn't it cute?
(audience cheers)
- [Kelly] That's a wax Simon Cowell.
(Jean cracks up)
(audience clapping)
So, are you a fan? Like, what-
- I couldn't resist.
- Like, where were you when this,
like, what happened?
How did this happen?
And I wanna find this wax figure.
- We were shooting a scene
where Ava is trying to
(laughs)
she's trying to open my phone,
and the code is face recognition.
And so, she can't tell me what she's doing.
So, Poppy recommends that she goes
to the wax museum in Las Vegas
and holds my phone up to my wax figure.
- 'Cause you get it done, that's right.
- [Jean] It opens the phone.
- That's right.
- I had to play the wax figure.
(Kelly laughs)
(audience clapping)
- [Kelly] I remember you doing that in the first season.
So what was that like, doing that?
- Well, it would've been fine except that
Ava was doing all this stuff in my face.
- [Kelly] Like, making you laugh?
- Yes, 'cause she's flipping me off.
(Kelly laughs)
And then she just spontaneously did a cartwheel
into the splits.
And I'm trying not to guffaw, you know,
so that I can get through this scene.
- So wait, the show takes place in Vegas.
So are you much of a gambler?
Do you like gambling?
- Well, it's a good thing I don't live there, because-
- [Kelly] Okay that means you do.
- Hit me, baby!
- [Kelly] Yeah, wait, do you like blackjack?
- Yeah, blackjack.
- But, I hear not only gamble though,
but you've hit up a few interesting strip clubs.
Is this true?
(audience whoops)
- Oh, oh.
- [Kelly] I've only been to Thunder From Down Under, myself.
(Kelly laughs)
- Oh.
- I took my sister there, embarrassed the hell out of her.
- Oh my God.
When we were shooting "Watchmen" in Atlanta,
Tim Blake Nelson,
who's just brilliant on the show,
he decided he wanted to take me to this,
there's a famous strip club in Atlanta called The Clermont.
- Oh.
- Lounge, I think it's lounge, The Clermont.
And it's in the basement of an old hotel.
And it's famous because all the strippers,
with one or two exceptions,
are in their seventies.
(audience groans)
And they, careful, I'm close.
(audience laughs)
- I must go.
- I mean, like, one of 'em would just
(laughs)
I mean, bless their hearts.
- Oh my God, you're getting up.
I'm so excited.
(audience cheers)
(Kelly laughs)
- This one gal, she'd just kind of go like this.
She was, like this.
- Oh.
- She looked like she was late seventies,
with a really short skirt.
And then she'd just kind of like,
put her top down for a second and then put it back up.
(audience laughs)
(audience clapping)
- I have so many questions, but my first question is,
why was he like,
this is where I'll take Jean Smart?
(Kelly laughs)
(audience laughs)
What does that say about him or you?
Like maybe, she's gonna love this.
- No, he was a very bad influence on me,
very bad influence on me.
- Oh my god, that's hysterical that that even exists.
- And then this giant guy came
and knocked me off my bar stool.
And then a woman came over,
one of the dancers,
a younger one, like 50 something.
(Kelly cracks up)
And she came over and she asked me, she said,
"Do you wanna dance?"
And I was like-
- [Kelly] Please say you said yes.
"No, thanks. That's okay, I'm just, no.
But thanks for asking," you know.
But then I realized, she wasn't saying,
do you want to dance?
Do you want a dance?
(audience laughs)
And then, 'cause then I saw her across the room
and I'm going, ohh!
Giving lap dances.
- Oh my gosh.
- [Jean] And I'm going, ohh.
- Wouldn't that story have been amazing though?
- Oh, yeah, me on TMZ, getting a lap dance!
- I'm just saying, I'm just saying.
It would be a funny story.
It would be very funny.
(Jean laughs)
We need another break.
Season Two of "Hacks" is streaming now on HBO Max.
And Jean will also be honoring Gold Star families
at the National Memorial Day Concert on PBS,
May 29th, which is really cool.