On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, in our Cover Story segment, Variety’s Michael Schneider details his reporting and the incredible access he received to cover the fifth and final season of HBO Max’s beloved comedy “Hacks.”
Also: Cindy Lin, executive director of UCLA’s Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports, discusses the big developments in entertainment law as Variety unveils our annual Power of Law issue including this year’s Legal Impact Report honorees.
More from Variety
Listen to the full podcast:
Schneider says that for the “Hacks” story, he got to fly actually to Vegas “and witness in-person the final day of shooting in America for the show.”
“So it was quite a treat to be there and to feel a part of that family in standing and talking to Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder and the rest of the cast and producers, and share in sort of the melancholy feeling that they had as they were winding down and shooting some of their last scenes.”
Smart, the Emmy-winning star of “Hacks,” was “feeling very nostalgic thinking about the last long-running show that she was a part of, which of course was ‘Designing Women,’” says Schneider. But she was at a very different point of her life then in the early 1990s, and this time things hit different.
For the final season of “Hacks,” Schneider says, Smart was “working, living with these folks day-in and day-out. And of course, as I go into detail in my story, there was so much going on personally with both her and with the show and with Los Angeles, all sort of leading to this group of people bonding, like few productions you’ve seen because they’ve gone through so much together. And so I think this is something that will really stand the test of time for everyone involved with this show.”
Also on today’s podcast, Lin says that AI and its impact on Hollywood is again “coming up as a big topic” in the Ziffren Center’s curriculum this year. “Now more than ever, we have to address it,” she says. “It’s hard to ignore, and it’s exciting. It changes so fast.”
Lin cited one example that is “both ever-changing but also not changing that much” in the world of entertainment law is a clinic the Ziffren Center had from 2022-2025 covering name, image and likeness issues that was developed with UCLA’s athletics department. “It was really exciting. Like we had the student athletes as clients. We trained law students to give them advice and counsel about their endorsement and sponsorship deals. And on the one hand, that seems really daunting because the NIL landscape is the Wild West and it just keeps changing and changing and changing.”
(Pictured: “Hacks” star Jean Smart, executive producers/creators Jen Statsky, Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and star Hannah Einbinder)
Listen to Daily Variety on iHeartPodcasts, Apple Podcasts, Variety’s YouTube Podcast channel, Amazon Music, Spotify and other podcast platforms.
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
