<\/p>\n
On today\u2019s episode of \u201cDaily Variety\u201d podcast, in our Cover Story segment, Variety<\/em>\u2019s Michael Schneider details his reporting and the incredible access he received to cover the fifth and final season of HBO Max\u2019s beloved comedy \u201cHacks.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Also: Cindy Lin, executive director of UCLA\u2019s Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports, discusses the big developments in entertainment law as Variety<\/em> unveils our annual Power of Law issue including this year\u2019s Legal Impact Report<\/a> honorees.<\/p>\n More from Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Listen to the full podcast:<\/strong><\/p>\n Schneider says that for the \u201cHacks\u201d story, he got to fly actually to Vegas \u201cand witness in-person the final day of shooting in America for the show.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Smart, the Emmy-winning star of \u201cHacks,\u201d was \u201cfeeling very nostalgic thinking about the last long-running show that she was a part of, which of course was \u2018Designing Women,’\u201d says Schneider. But she was at a very different point of her life then in the early 1990s, and this time things hit different.<\/p>\n For the final season of \u201cHacks,\u201d Schneider says, Smart was \u201cworking, 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\u2019ve seen because they\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Also on today\u2019s podcast, Lin says that AI and its impact on Hollywood is again \u201ccoming up as a big topic\u201d in the Ziffren Center\u2019s curriculum this year. \u201cNow more than ever, we have to address it,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to ignore, and it\u2019s exciting. It changes so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n Lin cited one example that is \u201cboth ever-changing but also not changing that much\u201d 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\u2019s athletics department. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n (Pictured: \u201cHacks\u201d star Jean Smart, executive producers\/creators Jen Statsky, Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and star Hannah Einbinder)<\/em><\/p>\n Listen to Daily Variety<\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0on\u00a0iHeartPodcasts<\/a>,\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Variety\u2019s\u00a0YouTube Podcast<\/a>\u00a0channel,\u00a0Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>\u00a0and other podcast platforms.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Best of Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On today\u2019s episode of \u201cDaily Variety\u201d podcast, in our Cover Story segment, Variety\u2019s Michael Schneider details his reporting and the incredible access he received to cover the fifth and final season of HBO Max\u2019s beloved comedy \u201cHacks.\u201d Also: Cindy Lin, executive director of UCLA\u2019s Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports, discusses the big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2364279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[459382,362548,21741,369688,326905,34136,459381,459383],"class_list":["post-2364278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-cindy-lin","tag-daily-variety","tag-entertainment","tag-entertainment-law","tag-hannah-einbinder","tag-jean-smart","tag-michael-schneider","tag-ziffren-institute-for-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/LISTEN-The-Inside-Scoop-on-the-Farewell-Season-of-\u2018Hacks.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2364278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2364280,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364278\/revisions\/2364280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2364279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2364278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2364278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2364278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}