Meet the New Characters Joining “Hacks” Season 5 (Including a Shockingly Young Love Interest for Deborah!)

Francesca GarianoThu, April 9, 2026 at 12:00 PM UTC

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Ann Dowd, Christopher Briney, Cherry Jones in 'Hacks' season 5Credit: Courtesy of HBO Max (3) -

Hacks returns for its fifth and final season on April 9 with Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder reprising their roles

Christopher Briney joins the cast as a rockstar and Deborah’s younger love interest in a storyline exploring age-gap romance

Guest stars include Ann Dowd as a "sad blue alien," Cherry Jones, Leslie Bibb and drag queen Katya Zamolodchikova

Hacks is coming to an end, but not before several new stars join its ranks.

The acclaimed HBO Max series returns for its fifth and final season on April 9. As the show enters its final act, Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder are returning as comedy legend Deborah Vance and her collaborator, Ava Daniels, respectively, to navigate Deborah’s career post-late-night television.

Also set to return are longtime stars Paul W. Downs (who is also the show’s co-creator and co-showrunner), Megan Stalter, Kaitlin Olson and Mark Indelicato.

Joining them in the final season of the comedy are new faces, including guest stars Cherry Jones and Katya Zamolodchikova, who appeared in the season 5 trailer, as well as Leslie Bibb, Ann Dowd and Cherry Jones.

Meanwhile, Christopher Briney, who starred as Conrad Fisher in The Summer I Turned Pretty, will also be joining the cast as a younger love interest for Deborah.

Here’s everything to know about the new characters set to appear in season 5 of Hacks.

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Christopher Briney

Jean Smart and Christopher Briney in 'Hacks'Credit: Courtesy of HBO Max

Briney is among the throng of actors joining the Hacks cast for the show’s final season.

In October 2025, HBO Max shared a first look at the The Summer I Turned Pretty star in the comedy. The photo showed Briney and Smart walking with their arms around one another, both with a smile on their faces.

While not much is known about his role yet, including his name, Deadline reported in April 2026 that Briney’s character is a famous rockstar who has a romance with Smart.

“I did think, oh god, I hope he isn’t just cringing," Smart said of the 46-year age-gap romance and her fear of Briney's perception. “He’s thinking, ‘Oh, I’d really like to be on that show, but oh damn, really?’ But he made me feel very comfortable and we had fun.”

Showrunner Jen Statsky divulged more details behind the new storyline during the interview, explaining, “We always want to portray Deborah as the full, dimensional character that she is and show that women don’t stop having sex and being sexy at any age.”

“We also always thought it’d be funny and interesting that she would date this international rockstar that maybe wasn’t exactly her type and dressed a little bit more like her than other people she dated,” Statsky added. “And so that was just always a storyline that excited us.”

Statsky said there were several storylines in season 5 of the series that they had “been really waiting and wanting to do,” but the timing was never right.

She added, “So that was just one of the storylines that we knew would be funny, but also really sexy and real and grounded and important to show that, yeah, why wouldn’t these two get together?”

02 of 05

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Ann Dowd

Ann Dowd in HacksCredit: Courtesy of HBO Max

Ann Dowd is one of the new faces joining the final season of the critically acclaimed series. However, details of her character from her guest appearance are not readily known — apart from the fact that she is a "sad blue alien."

"I was so happy to do it with them and Jean Smart, it doesn't get better than that," Dowd told Entertainment Tonight ahead of the show's premiere. "I had blue skin, blue color ... I had no idea where I was or who I was but I loved it immensely. I had a blast."

03 of 05

Cherry Jones

Cherry Jones in HacksCredit: Courtesy of HBO Max

Cherry Jones will also appear in Hacks season 5, though details of her guest appearance are still under wraps.

Jones appeared briefly in the trailer for the new season, showing the actress standing next to Smart. In the clip, she had a cigar in her mouth before dropping her pants to the ground.

04 of 05

Leslie Bibb

Leslie Bibb in HacksCredit: Courtesy of HBO Max

Leslie Bibb joins Dowd and Jones as a guest star in Hacks for the show’s final season.

While she seemingly didn’t appear in the season’s trailer, one moment showed Ava awing at a certain character’s backside, who happened to have an iconic blonde bob.

It appears Bibbs' character has some sort of relationship with Jones'.

05 of 05

Katya Zamolodchikova

Katya Zamolodchikova in HacksCredit: HBO Max

Drag queen Katya Zamolodchikova will also be joining the Hacks cast for season 5.

The RuPaul’s Drag Race alum spoke about the role on a March 2026 episode of her podcast The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie and Katya alongside longtime friend and collaborator, Trixie Mattel.

“Paul said in a DM, ‘Hey Katya, do you want to be on Hacks?’ I thought it was an April Fool’s joke. It was January,” Katya said of how the role came about. “I was like ‘Okay, yes, yes of course.’ They wrote a part for me, no audition.”

Katya appeared in the season 5 trailer for a brief moment, seemingly wearing Deborah Vance drag, as Smart and Einbinder’s characters rushed the drag queen and started a kerfuffle.

During the episode, Katya divulged more behind-the-scenes details about the cameo, explaining that the clothes worn during the scene were actually part of Deborah Vance’s wardrobe, not clothing of her own.

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