The best political comedy on television returns on April 12.
https://youtu.be/u9qBDFmbkZg
Fans of HBO’s Veep are in for a treat with season four. Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is finally the President of the United States, which means she has more responsibility than ever and also more hilarious snags to deal with. Of course, Selina has a competent staff to help her navigate the presidency … right? Amy (Anna Chlumsky), Mike McClintock (Matt Walsh), Gary (Tony Hale) and secretary Sue (Sufe Bradshaw) will all return and Richard (Sam Richardson) has a bigger role in the administration. Read what some of the cast had to say about season four:
Louis-Dreyfus chatted about her character’s new hairdo. She said, “Female politicians get a lot of crap for their look. If they make a change, if they don’t make a change, they stick to something they know. There’s just a lot of scrutiny about how female politicians present themselves, and so I thought let’s do something about that. So let’s cut her hair and see what happens, and if it doesn’t look good, that’s okay. If it looks good, that’s okay. It turned out not to look so good and that was good. We sort of made that work.” She joked, “When I was in fourth grade I got a shag haircut; that wasn’t a happy day.”
Anna Chlumsky said this season “everyone has different jobs and careful what you wish for…”
Sam Richardson shared, “This season also you’ll see Richard is in it and I’m a regular this year, so you’re going to see a whole lot of Richard … You’ll see Richard really just trying his best to keep up, but he just doesn’t have it. He always falls slightly short while aiming slightly far.” So what will they be up to at the White House now that she’s POTUS? “We’re just gonna be up in there ripping it up from the walls to the windows,” he said.
So how has his character evolved? “Season 3 Richard is introduced. He’s just really eager and that stays with him, but very slowly I think he’s starting to fail upwards. He gets a little bit more and more responsibility, but is equally as competent as he has been … which is incompetent … This season I’m working a lot with Jonah actually, so it’s something to look forward to. Dream team. Batman and smaller Batman.” If there is one role he could play in the White House in real life it would be: “President! Is there an application I can put in somewhere? If I could pick. If it’s like a first come, first served, I’d say president. Called it.”
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Timothy Simons gave a sneak peak of what’s in store for Jonah Ryan. “He is back in the West Wing, which is fantastic for him. When he was the liaison when Selina was Vice President, they never wanted him around … so they kept trying to get him out. They hate me, so now that I’m the new liaison, it means that I’m going to be going out of the building, so they love the fact that I’m the new liaison. I’m working the same job, but they have the exact opposite response to it. His character is working closely with Richard. “I have him doing personal errands. I don’t think they’re errands. I think he gets assigned to me as a staffer. Then I just essentially make him a personal assistant … I have him pick up dry cleaning … He’s happy to have somebody do things.”
This season the scope of show is much larger. “One of the harder things was for so long the show has essentially been a small insider thing and this year with her being the president it just had to get much bigger, so we were kind of used to working with this very small group … once she becomes president, basically every staffer has a staff. You just kind of see less of each other and you see less of that group dynamic that we had sort worked so hard and loved performing in … we’re all in Baltimore, we shoot on location, so we see each other a lot, but days would go by when we’re used to spending all day everyday together, so that was a bit of transition.”
Gary Cole added “Now she’s the leader, and we know she’s going to be the leader at least for a time being, she still has got to get elected. So we’re doing two things: We’re trying to keep the country out of trouble, and get her back sitting in the seat for another term.” On his character’s relationship with Sue he said, “You never know what they want to do with that. Armando sent a great note to me [saying], ‘I want to take these two characters on a journey and have them progress and have it become absolutely nothing.’ He might do that. I don’t know.”
Matt Walsh said this season “Mike is struggling to keep his job, not screw up because he’s on camera every day, he’s on CNN, but he loves the celebrity of that. He likes being the face of the administration, but he also has a personal life he misses. He’s got a wife and two step kids, so he’s constantly trying to decide, do I want to do this for the rest of my life? So, he’s kind of having a midlife crisis. Dan’s a non-issue. Dan will screw up his own life. He’s not worried about Dan. Mike is his own worst enemy.”
