‘Hacks’ Guest Star Kaitlin Olson Says Goodbye To DJ and Milks a Goat For the First Time

The Contending sits down with Emmy nominee Kaitlin Olson to discuss her hilarious guest work on Hacks‘ final season.

It has been a long journey for Kaitlin Olson on HBO MAX’s Hacks. Her character as DJ, the wayward daughter of Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance, survived a lot of heavy drama as well as some truly hilarious moments. With the show coming to an end, the goodbye was what we expected from her.  She gets a wonderful emotional send-off with the added bonus of a ridiculous Mexican clown dance. She has enjoyed the journey with DJ as much as we have enjoyed watching her. Here, in an interview with The Contending, she describes her experience with Hacks‘ final season.

The Contending: DJ is in constant motion for the main episode you’re in with being in The Amazing Race. Was that hard to keep that energy going the whole time?

Kaitlin Olson: It was just hot. That’s what I remember most about it. It was just, it was very hot and sweaty. But you know, it’s my favorite kind of comedy when everything is frantic and physical and loud. So I think we were having too much fun to be exhausted.

The Contending: Did you actually milk the goat?

Kaitlin Olson: I did milk the goat! I learned how to milk the goat, but I didn’t get to practice.  So I milked the goat for the first time as the cameras were rolling.

When you see DJ proud of herself, that is absolutely 100% Kaitlin being proud of herself. I couldn’t believe there was milk coming out. It was making a great sound in that metal bucket. It was a real home run for me.

The Contending: I love the Mexican dance sequence at the end that you guys had to do over and over. And that it ends on the final moment where, you know, traditionally that’s where they get it.  And instead DJ screws it up right away and just yells f*** and walks off. The comedic timing was perfect. What was it like to kind of go through that so many times?

Kaitlin Olson: You know, my main concern was not making it predictable. Everyone’s going to know she’s not going to be able to do it. So I just wanted the moment leading up to it to be so emotional and sentimental so you think that DJ is going to get a win, and she and Deborah are going to have this special moment since they’re wrapping up this mother-daughter storyline.

I really wanted it to look like it was going to be this silly dumb clown dance that they finally got right together. Then, of course, she doesn’t get it right. So hopefully it was a little bit of a surprise.

The Contending: Well, the episode does end on probably one of the biggest emotional moments of the entire series where DJ gets to finally be on QVC selling her jewelry. And the look on your face showing the nervousness that she’s feeling, but also how proud that she’s done this. She’s looking at the camera and we can’t tell if she’s looking at Deborah, who’s also looking so proud of her. What was it like to try to get across all that emotion?

Kaitlin Olson: I just felt a huge responsibility to pull that off because it was so important. One of the things I love about this show is that the absurdity just so seamlessly mixes well with the emotion. The fact that their full circle moment was her selling earrings called Detachables on QVC, and that’s a  huge emotion-provoking moment that is perfect for Hacks, and it was perfect for this mother-daughter duo. As an actor, I was just so proud of these two characters for finding a really nice way to forgive each other.

The Contending: The journey that DJ has taken as a character in this show has just been remarkable. She starts as a drug addict, and she is not close to her mother. Now she is married, has a child and a successful career, and is in a better place with her mom.  What did you think about the journey of the character yourself, and her relationship with the people around her?

Kaitlin Olson: I was thrilled and pleasantly surprised because you know, when I took this role, I took it because it was funny and I was so excited to be working with Jean, and quickly became huge fans of Jen and Paul and Lucia. They’re writing, directing, and they’re showrunners.  Since it is a streaming series they are able to write all the episodes first, before you shoot them.

So as an actor it gives you the opportunity to have your showrunners on set, which is just invaluable. They are always there and the scripts are amazing, but they’re also yelling stuff out over a bullhorn and yelling for you to just do whatever you want. It’s such a lovely playground and such a wonderful opportunity.

When I started reading scripts where DJ was truly hurt, and she had real emotions and issues and things to be actually very angry and upset and resentful about, I was so grateful.  Because people don’t normally write that stuff for me, because I’m the one who screams and falls down all the time, which by the way, I love, but I don’t really get an opportunity to do that very often. So once those scripts started rolling in we never really talked about it. They never said, hey, can you be vulnerable and emotional? They just wrote it for me and believed in me, and I’ll be forever grateful to them for that because I think it changed the trajectory of my career a little bit. It also made this character a human being and still very funny and still very broken, but a real person. So I was delighted.

The Contending: So what is it like now being at the end with her?

Kaitlin Olson: I’m so proud of her. She never backed down. She stood up to her mom in a way that worked for her. She proved herself in the most ridiculous ways, in that dumb roast where she wins because she has the most ludicrous catch phrase of all time and it actually works.

It’s just perfect and absurd yet it’s still a true valuable emotional win. So I love that DJ got a chance to have her mom apologize to her and show her that she believed that DJ is going to be okay in the world without her.  That should happen in her teen years, and the fact that it took this long just makes it all the funnier and all the more beautiful.

The Contending: Is there anything else you want to leave our readers with?

Kaitlin Olson: Just what a monumental, historical project this was. I’m just so grateful to have been a part of it, and I’m just so proud of the team for making it.

Hacks streams exclusively on HBO MAX.