00:01Hello lady. Welcome to Deborah Vance's home on the set of hacks. I'm Jean Smarr.
00:07Shoes off. I'm kidding. I'm not kidding really actually.
00:12Did I do something to offend you? Other than walk those chimney sweep boots on my silk rug?
00:32Deborah loves Las Vegas. I think she loves the glitz and the glamour and the silliness that Vegas can represent.
00:38I think she embraces all of it. Supposedly what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, although that's not true.
00:42He knows, I guess. I think she craves respect so much that I think it was very important to her
00:48to have a house that was very classic.
00:50Not Liberace glam, not bright colors that we see a lot in Vegas desert homes. She's a lot more complicated
00:57than that.
00:57I think she has good taste, although I think if she didn't have the kind of money she has, there
01:02might be a lot more leopard print and gold in here.
01:05This is the room where it all started. Right there on that couch.
01:09Hannah and I had our first scene together and it was the scene that we actually auditioned with.
01:14It turned out to be a brilliant scene that kind of set up the show just perfectly.
01:18By the way, so cool they let you move into a cheesecake factory.
01:22Oh, is that where you wait tables? That seems like a better fit.
01:24Oh, what is this? 50 tassels on one couch? Even Liberace would think it's a bit much.
01:29Oh no, you're incorrect. He actually loved it. He did poppers on that couch in 85.
01:34In designing hacks, a lot of the important rules are that we keep everything grounded rather than play things broad,
01:38which would happen on a lot of comedies.
01:41That gives our world a reality that I think is really important to let the jokes exist in the space
01:45that they're in.
01:46And in season one, John Carlos designed the mansion and Alan Reed was the set decorator.
01:51One of the early lines that Ava says is that she lives in the cheesecake factory and there's something really
01:55interesting about that.
01:56And I think that's less it actually looking visually like a cheesecake factory rather than it being the start of
02:01the generational rift that they have between the two of them, where she's commenting on the fact that this is
02:05ostentatious house that has so many resources put into it.
02:08But in reality, that's the world that Deborah inhabits. That's the world that she's built for herself.
02:13So she has a Diet Coke machine in her kitchen. So she has a microwave from the 90s in her
02:17office. She is who she is.
02:19I mean, a quarter of her kitchen is dedicated to salt and pepper shakers. Like that is an energy that
02:23is throughout the mansion.
02:24But over the years, we've honed in on what she really is because she does have excellent taste in things.
02:29I love these little settees here. And of course, the Deborah Vance pillows that say DV.
02:33I think I might have to make off with. I mean, I can't use them on any other show, right?
02:39You won't tell. Okay, thank you.
02:42We have a fabulous set designer, but our original set designer, he came up with this detail of this over
02:48here. Can I show you?
02:48It is this plaster work. And he pulled me aside when we first started doing the show. And he said,
02:53what do you see?
02:54And I said, well, I'm not sure. He said, it's a tongue. He said, because your character describes herself as
03:00a mouthy broad.
03:01And I thought, this is genius. Because no one but he and I are going to know that. But he
03:09did that for me and for himself.
03:10I mean, he just, he so enjoyed that. And outside my bedroom, there used to be a copy of a
03:16gorgeous painting of a dead matador.
03:17And he said, that's a subtle warning to any man who even gets that far. How great is that? And
03:25now it's at my house.
03:26He leaves his t-shirt on, you know. Oh, that's not true.
03:31When it comes to a lot of the things that make a house feel real, we always lean into family
03:35photos.
03:36And because Dev has had such a long journey, and luckily, Jean has had such a long career,
03:40we're able to find a lot of licensable photos and placing those faces onto these.
03:44A great example of this was season three, where we had to put her in the Weight Watchers ad.
03:48Her and DJ was a feat. It took 54 iterations of the ad before we found the hero one.
03:59One of my favorite rooms of Debra's is her bedroom. It's feminine and classic. Beautiful muted tones of peaches and
04:07pinks and greens.
04:08She obviously has designers that she trusts.
04:10In season one, a lot of what John Carlos' intention was, was to create public spaces on the first floor
04:15of the mansion.
04:15Once we get into Deb's bedroom, we're in a private space.
04:19A lot of that is conveyed through everything having softness and curves and being more delicate.
04:25I mean, the mirrors are even curved. There's a lot of curves throughout the space.
04:27A lot less of the hard angular space that you get in the rest of the mansion.
04:30Shall we retire to my office?
04:36I think this room is absolutely beautiful.
04:39It's really a mix of interesting styles that I think work perfectly,
04:44that I would never have the guts to do in real life.
04:46And we do see some little hints of Leopard, which is one of Debra's favorite things.
04:50I have to show you over here.
04:52This is a picture of me when I was in my 20s with my high school boyfriend, Marty, and his
04:58future wife.
04:59They wanted pictures of me when I was younger on the set and I grabbed that.
05:01And I didn't know that Chris McDonald, who was going to be playing my boyfriend in this show,
05:06the character was named Marty.
05:07And I told Marty, I said, it's just a coincidence. It's not based on you.
05:12Over here, this is an interesting detail.
05:14Her microwave oven is from the 80s.
05:18I mean, look at it.
05:19It's funny because she's one of those people who really has a lot of disposable income,
05:23but on certain things, she just cheaps out.
05:26And she's thinking, if it still works, why the hell would I replace it?
05:29So she has this atrocious microwave.
05:34Oh, that looks dangerous.
05:41One of the original inspirations for Deb's mansion was a French Chateau in specifically the enclaves in Las Vegas.
05:47She wanted to bring Europe to Las Vegas.
05:50Architecturally, what was designed when the mansion was designed as a set,
05:53all the doorways line up with the other doorways,
05:55which gives you the opportunity to shoot across the hallway and creating frames within frames.
05:59We've used that a lot on this show.
06:00And that's part of the architecture of the French Chateau that was the inspiration,
06:03that everything is symmetrical.
06:04So the staircase was a remarkable build.
06:07It's kind of an oblong oval.
06:09So all of this tracery had to be made so that it followed the curve.
06:13So this is metal.
06:16This is plastic.
06:18And then if you look over here at the staircase, which I love,
06:20in the French Chateau fashion, there's a trompe l'oeil staircase painted
06:24that is not actually stairs to the basement, and it'll ruin the illusion for you.
06:27But this is painted.
06:31You don't go anywhere.
06:32Set design is everything.
06:34It makes an actor's job so much easier.
06:36It's sort of like putting on the right costume.
06:38It suddenly makes you feel like the character.
06:40And that's what this does as a home.
06:42This is almost an exact copy of a home in Bel-Air
06:45that they completely recreated on the soundstage.
06:48We use the house in Bel-Air for the front entryway.
06:51And that's it.
06:58Welcome to my kitchen, my little tiny kitchenette.
07:01The real house that this is modeled after in Bel-Air.
07:04And I am told that this replica of their kitchen is actually only about two thirds the size of the
07:11real kitchen, if you can imagine.
07:13But this is my dream kitchen.
07:15This, I could definitely live with.
07:17I mean, this island, you just want to go,
07:19Oh God, I'll make cookies and pies here and pizza and flatbread.
07:25Oh God, it's so...
07:27You can take naps on this.
07:28It feels really good.
07:30Okay, I'm done.
07:31But this is where she keeps her antique salt and pepper shaker collection.
07:35Which I think I'm going to have to swipe a pair at the end of the show.
07:40You know, for sentimental reasons.
07:42Actually, I do like this pair here. Look.
07:44I mean, they're so small no one would notice that they were going, right?
07:47And you won't tell, right?
07:50He might. I don't trust him.
07:52Oh my gosh, you have to see my coke machine.
07:55One of my favorite scenes, she has to change the gas canister that is underneath the coke machine.
08:02She's in her high heels and she's changing this thing.
08:04And giant canisters.
08:07And they'd let me just do it for like three minutes.
08:09Just in total silence.
08:10While Ava just stands there and watches her, amazed.
08:13Get me a diet coke.
08:17From the fountain.
08:18Okay.
08:19One of the loveliest moments in this room was in the pilot.
08:24Where we see Deborah, she's on stage, glitz and glamour and telling jokes.
08:28And then we see her come home and she puts two plates of food in the oven.
08:33And you're thinking, oh, she's come home and she's having dinner with her husband or something.
08:37And she calls her two dogs.
08:39She serves them right down here.
08:41It's a very expensive steak.
08:43And then she just sits here by herself and has a little bite to eat.
08:46And you see how incredibly alone she is.
08:50It's just a complete flip side of the person you were introduced to, you know, ten minutes before.
08:55I loved that.
08:56And then, of course, outside the windows, you see my patio with the plants, which of course are all artificial.
09:05But a lot of times what they do is they'll turn on a fan.
09:07Just in the background, you'll see just the gentlest movement of leaves and stuff.
09:11And it just immediately makes it seem much more real.
09:14Hannah and I did a funny scene in the kitchen the other day.
09:17She caught Deborah in a rare, rare mode of indulgence.
09:21We raided the freezer and grabbed about four pints of ice cream.
09:26Oh, there they are.
09:27Yeah.
09:29I'm probably not supposed to do an ad for Ben and Jerry's.
09:32What are you gonna do?
09:33Maybe they'll send me a case of free ice cream.
09:35You think?
09:36There you go.
09:37Champagne.
09:39Eggs.
09:40What more do you need?
09:46One of the most fun sets I've gotten to design in my career was Deb's Late Night.
09:50And it needed to be grounded in the reality of Late Night.
09:52But it also did want to show her journey from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.
09:56Her journey through life.
09:57And then just a testament to what Late Night is.
09:59So with her set, we wanted to create these elements that are very Los Angeles.
10:03In the Art Deco, we looked at the Eastern Building downtown.
10:06We looked at the Griffith Observatory for finishes for her columns.
10:09We also looked to Vegas for the splashiness of the marquee bulbs that are above her head.
10:13There are arches there that are arches from Johnny Carson's 1972 set when he moved from New York to Burbank.
10:19And then in that whole season, there was a color story about her private spaces versus her public spaces.
10:24Deborah is this world of icy blues, pinks, and smoky pinks.
10:29The public space was Late Night.
10:31She has this beautiful framed arch around her.
10:33She knows how to be the performer, Deborah Vance.
10:35And we get a little bit of a nod as we go deeper into the state.
10:38So that soft pink curtain is, again, a color story that we love to play with her.
10:41And then behind that, the sequins.
10:43The sequins are pink, which is the color we're trying to use for private spaces.
10:46But the sequins are also what she wears.
10:47She's all flash, really exciting, really sparkly.
10:50We even had a nod to the Palmetto season one, which had a star drop.
10:53So we had a star drop behind her.
10:54So we had the twinkling lights of where we first see her in the opening shot of season one, episode
11:00one.
11:05In season four, during the wildfires in Los Angeles, one of the locations that we shot in quite a bit,
11:10the L.A. mansion, was lost to the fires.
11:13When we heard that the homeowners were okay, that was a huge sigh of relief.
11:15One of the things that a lot of location managers and organizations did is they tried to gather resources that
11:20we create with film.
11:22And we'll photograph whatever people have on their counters down to their knick-knacks.
11:25Because when we redress a set, we remove things and then we want to put everything back in its place
11:29exactly where it belongs.
11:30So if you had filming, you now have a record of everything that you lost in the fire, as well
11:34as a floor plan for your house.
11:36Which is something that a lot of insurance companies were requiring and needing to start to make yourself whole.
11:40So we were able to provide that for the L.A. mansion.
11:49Thank you so much for coming by.
11:51I hope you've enjoyed seeing Deborah's Home as much as I've enjoyed playing in it for the last five years.
11:57Thanks again.
11:58And don't come back!
Comments