All about Jimmy Kimmel's profane 'Hacks' cameo (he wrote the jokes himself)

USA Today

02-05-2025

All about Jimmy Kimmel's profane 'Hacks' cameo (he wrote the jokes himself)
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Jimmy Kimmel's 'Hacks' cameo: Watch host lay down late-night law
Jimmy Kimmel plays himself in an episode of "Hacks" in whichDeborah is desperate to lift her plummeting ratings.
Deborah Vance is only a fictional late-night talk-show host, but on the most recent episode of 'Hacks,' she sparred with one of late-night's actual jesters, Jimmy Kimmel.
In Season 4 of the Max comedy (streaming weekly on Thursdays), Deborah (Jean Smart) is struggling to find her ground amid a merciless feud with head writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder). At the start of Episode 5, Deborah learns her talk show has plummeted to fourth place. To connect with women ages 25 to 45, she stalks Kristen Bell at a gourmet grocery store and pressures her to agree to appearing on the spot. But Bell is a friend of Kimmel's, who doesn't take too kindly to the infringement.
'My hat is off to him (Kimmel),' Smart tells USA TODAY, 'because he kept saying, 'I'm not an actor, you guys. Don't expect much.' He was kind of nervous, and then he was just a riot.'
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Kimmel approaches Deborah in the studio parking lot and unleashes on her.
'K.B.'s not doing your show,' he says sternly, laying down the late-night law. 'Everyone knows that when she has a new project she does my show first. I got full custody when Conan (O'Brien) died.'
'Oh, you own her?' Deborah asks.
'Let's just say I put in my time,' Kimmel says. 'I switched to a Samsung phone so she wouldn't be the only one with green bubbles. I invested $38,000 in her gluten-free energy bars for Africa or something. I wore a K. Bell-brand organic diaper on a billboard. You think I did that because I'm proud of my body? No, I did it for bookings.' Kimmel suggests Deborah target 'Tonight Show' host Jimmy Fallon instead, and tells her she's messed 'with the wrong Jimmy.'
When Deborah accuses Kimmel of bullying, he responds, 'I just don't want to see you end up like James Corden. Did you hear what happened? They found a whole bunch of horse porn on his computer. Happened right after he got a little too friendly with Jennifer Aniston. He had to move back to England.'
Deborah, who needs to get back to her show, exits the tense exchange, and Kimmel ominously tells her to 'break a leg.'
The abrasive version of Kimmel doesn't align with the real one, who's 'the sweetest guy in the world' offscreen, Smart says. 'He's so adorable and kind, and it was just so much fun.' So much that Smart's 16-year-old son Forrest Gilliland, who was on set the day of filming, 'memorized the entire scene at home that night,' Smart says. 'He did both our parts. He thought it was so funny.'
Kimmel brought his own jokes, says series co-creator, Paul W. Downs, who portrays Deborah's manager Jimmy.
'He came up with, 'I got full custody of Kristen Bell after Conan died,'' Downs says. Kimmel also thought of the expletive-laden threat involving Fallon. 'We would never,' Downs says playfully.
Kimmel hosted Smart on his talk show in April. 'I was really very nervous,' he told her, 'and I didn't memorize any of my lines beforehand, which you're supposed to do, it turns out.'
Smart acknowledged her acting partner showed up nervous, but said, 'By the end of the scene, he's, like, padding his part, he's ad-libbing. He's adding lines.'
'That wasn't ad-libbing,' Kimmel responded. 'That was forgetting the lines.'