The Re-Re-Rebirth of Jean Smart

With “Mare of Easttown” and now “Hacks,” an actor that Hollywood undervalued for years continues her career resurgence.

Jean Smart knows how to commit to a bit. Late into the shoot for “Mare of Easttown,” the grim HBO limited series in which Smart plays Helen, a plain-spoken great-grandmother with a Fruit Ninja habit, she had an idea. During a scene in which Helen’s daughter, Mare (Kate Winslet), leaves for a date, Smart thought that Helen should lean over the stair rail to spy on her. The first take went well. So did the next few. Then Smart leaned out too far and tipped over the railing, tumbling down a flight of stairs and landing flat on her back. Winslet rushed to her side. “I thought she’d broken every bone in her body,” Winslet recalled in a recent phone interview. “And all she could say on the floor was: ‘This is a punishment because I’m such a ham. Why do I [expletive] do it every time? Why I won’t learn? Anything for a gag, anything for the laughs.’”