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Jean Smart has been working for 50 years, earning acclaim and Emmy awards for her work in supporting roles in series like Frasier and Fargo. Most recently she’s wowed audiences as

Kate Winslet’s brittle mother Helen in detective drama Mare Of Easttown and as agent Laurie Blake in superhero series Watchmen.

But it’s the comedy-drama Hacks that has finally provided 70-year-old Smart with the role of a lifetime

(and a fourth Emmy). Back for a second season on Amazon Prime, the show sees her lapping up playing the lead as Deborah Vance, an ageing Las Vegas comedian cracking jokes older than her bouffant stage wig. When her career hits the skids, Vance’s agent teams her with whining, down-on-herluck young comedy writer Ava Daniels (newcomer Hannah Einbinder, above right with Smart as Deborah Vance) to give her punchlines more clout, but the generational chasm between the two women makes sparks fly.

In series one they bicker viciously while trying to forge a tentative working relationship. Underneath her brittle showbiz carapace

Vance is vulnerable, living a lonely existence in her gaudy

Vegas mansion, petrified of losing the career that gives her life meaning. The part allows Smart to play all the subtle notes of this complicated woman, and she recognised it as a game-changing role. ‘I feel like Hacks gave me everything that Mare and Watchmen did, combined,’ she says. ‘On top of that, Deborah is so funny. It was everything I could have hoped for. I still can’t believe it came along when it did.’

What makes her performance even more astonishing is that during filming, her husband of 33 years, actor Richard

Gilliland, died unexpectedly at the age of 71. ‘I know he loved the scripts,’ she says. ‘He thought they were brilliantly written, very funny and it’s hard not to share this with him.’

In the eight-part second series, Vance has officially been let go from her Vegas residency. Forced to relaunch herself and find a more authentic comedy voice, she takes Daniels on a road trip across the US to try out her new jokes in small venues. But Daniels is harbouring a secret that threatens to fracture their relationship irreparably.

Interestingly, although some shooting took place in Las

Vegas for both series, most of it was filmed in Los Angeles locations that cleverly mimic places in the desert city. In series two, however, Deborah’s US tour releases her from the gilded cage of her gaudy mansion and the even gaudier Vegas strip. Her giant tour bus goes gliding through the amazing scenery of the southwest, those stunning red buttes and monoliths of Arizona (above) reminiscent of nearby Monument Valley. In a rare moment of compassion, Deborah even allows Ava to make a pitstop at the Grand Canyon to scatter some of her father’s ashes.

Deep down Vance thinks Daniels is funny, and it’s that dynamic that fuels their love-hate relationship. Hacks is essentially about two selfish, cruel and damaged women left behind by showbiz, but bent on clawing their way back. And in the complicated comedian Deborah Vance, Jean Smart has found a long overdue starmaking part. And that’s no joke. Vicki Power Both series are available on Amazon Prime Video.

The generational chasm between the two women makes sparks fly – they bicker viciously