Jean Smart Had to Get a Triple Bypass Heart Surgery While Filming 'Hacks' Season 3: 'You Start to Feel So Fragile'

Jean Smart had to undergo a triple bypass heart surgery while filming Hacks season 3.

The 74-year-old actress opened up about the health scare during a newly published interview with Variety, providing more details on the undisclosed “heart procedure” shared by HBO Max and Universal TV to the press back in 2023.

She recalled feeling unwell on set. At the time, she chalked it up to not getting enough exercise, thinking, “Jean, you’re in such crappy shape.”

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One particular episode, the one where her character Deborah is at a frat party at UC Berkeley and does a keg stand, made Jean particularly tired and she spent the weekend feeling bad.

By the time Monday rolled around and she still didn’t feel normal, Jean decided to consult a doctor.

“I thought, ‘You haven’t seen your cardiologist in a long time. Don’t be stupid. Your kids just lost their dad!’” she said, her husband Richard Gilliland passed away in 2021, “So I left [my doctor] a message, since it was after hours. I said, ‘I know I probably can’t get in to see you this week, but maybe I should do a stress test or something.’ Her service called back instantly and said, ‘Yeah, you’re gonna go to the nearest emergency room right now!’”

She had another scene to film and finished that before redirecting her driver to the hospital, not telling anyone what was happening.

By sheer coincidence, Hacks co-creator and co-star Paul W. Downs was already at the same hospital with his mother and was able to be there to support Jean.

“I often wonder how much Jean remembers, because it was so stressful,” Paul recalled. “Her children had just lost their father, and I think she didn’t want to scare them, so they weren’t there. Obviously her husband wasn’t there. I think she was waiting for her brother to fly in. And so I was there with her as she was talking to surgeons and hearing them say, ‘You can’t get a stent. You have to get a triple bypass.’”

Jean says she “wasn’t really scared” until she woke up the following day and started thinking about “what they had to do.”

“You start to feel so fragile,” she said.

Her Hacks co-lead Hannah Einbinder was there for her in the hospital room when she woke up. Speaking to Variety, she called Jean “the most durable woman in America.”

“I tell her this all the time,” Hannah added.

Hacks‘ fifth and final season started airing this week. Here’s everything you need to know!