Jean Smart Wins Fifth Straight Hacks Emmy, Ties All-Time Acting Record

Jean Smart closed the book on Hacks the way Deborah Vance would want it: with another Emmy and a place in awards history. At the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday night in Los Angeles, Smart won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the fifth and final season of the Max series, becoming the first woman to win an acting Emmy for every eligible season of a show, according to The Hollywood Reporter and the Los Angeles Times.

The victory brought Smart’s career acting Emmy total to eight, tying Cloris Leachman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus for the all-time record among performers, THR reported. She previously won guest actress Emmys for Frasier (2000 and 2001) and a supporting actress Emmy for Samantha Who? (2008), then dominated comedy lead actress for Hacks across its five-season run.

Louis-Dreyfus still holds the mark for wins in a single role with six for Veep, but she did not sweep every season of that series. Variety and Deadline likewise framed Smart as the first female performer to win for every season of a series, contrasting the run with Bill Cosby’s three consecutive I Spy wins in the 1960s.

Smart received a standing ovation as she took the Peacock Theater stage. She opened with a joke aimed at the crowd’s discomfort—asking men to stay standing while women sat, citing Spanx, corsets, fashion tape and shoes that “are cutting your toes off,” and suggesting people stood because she is old rather than because of the performance—before thanking Hacks co-creators Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky and Paul W. Downs, saying “it all begins and ends with them,” per the Los Angeles Times. THR also noted thanks to her representatives and to her children, whom she called her “anchor.”

She beat Quinta Brunson (Abbott Elementary), Ayo Edebiri (The Bear), Elle Fanning (Margo’s Got Money Troubles) and Lisa Kudrow (The Comeback). Hacks ended in May after a final season that followed Deborah Vance rebuilding after quitting a late-night talk show and chasing a dream of headlining Madison Square Garden—only to land a Central Park finale instead, according to the Times. For Hollywood desks already covering other Monday Emmy headlines, Smart’s sweep is the structural landmark: five seasons of the same character, the same category, and no gaps.

Related: Matthew Rhys makes Emmy history with double lead acting wins.