Will Jean Smart take home another Emmy for 'Hacks'?

Jean Smart might get a special birthday present this year: her eighth Primetime Emmy Award.

She already has four for "Hacks," the acclaimed HBO Max show that ended its five-season run in May and scored 24 nominations — the most ever for a comedy series in a single season — in this year's Emmys. NBC and Peacock will carry the award show Monday (the day after Smart's 75th birthday), with "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit's" Mariska Hargitay hosting. If Smart were to win again for her "Hacks" portrayal of personally and professionally challenged stand-up comic Deborah Vance, it would mark the first time an actress has earned the award for each of the multiple years of the same series.

A recent Television Academy Hall of Fame inductee, Smart was joined by fellow "Hacks" star Hannah Einbinder (Emmy-nominated again after winning last year) in headlining a sold-out, "Hacks"-themed performance at Hollywood's Fonda Theatre in mid-August, not coincidentally timed to Emmy voting. Stage productions have been components of Smart's work from the start, and after more than 20 years away from Broadway, she made a much-praised return there last year in "Call Me Izzy."

However, Smart has been a consistently familiar face in other entertainment venues, particularly television. Also a recipient of three Golden Globe Awards and three Actor (formerly Screen Actors Guild) Awards, her other Emmy wins to date have been for NBC's "Frasier" and ABC's "Samantha Who?". Though Smart wasn't an Emmy contender for her well-known work in CBS' "Designing Women," she also was in the running for stints in CBS' "The District," Fox's "24," NBC's "Harry's Law," FX's "Fargo" and HBO's "Watchmen" and "Mare of Easttown."

Reflecting on the life-and-career-rebuilding mode that the final season of "Hacks" thrust Deborah into, Smart told a gathering of TV journalists earlier this year: "I think we're going through a really strange time and upheaval in our industry, where big corporations really are taking over and calling the shots. And it's very scary. I have a producing partner, and we were talking about a project and we had to stop and think, 'Is this going to go over with more conservative powers that be?'

"For Deborah, certainly, she's just been pushed to the limit," Smart added, "and that's it. She goes for it, but I think it's the first time we actually see her, even momentarily, just absolutely defeated. Just like, 'They won.' But then she rallies, and it gets her back up to where she wants to be."

Clearly one of TV's most celebrated performers, Smart has mused, "I can't really explain it, but I'm eternally grateful for the kinds of roles I've had in the last several years. I think things started to change for me when I did '24' and I played first lady Martha Logan. I'd be pretty miserable right now if I'd been an ingenue. Even in high school, I always played the mom in the school play. [Whether it was due to] my height, my deep voice, I don't know.

"I do think there are more interesting roles right now for women who aren't 25 years old," Smart notes. "[The entertainment business is] realizing that older women can be just as three-dimensional and have the same kinds of lives and desires and things that women who are 30 do. And so they're starting to take advantage of that, I think."