Anna Chlumsky in Veep.HBO Canada
Veep's Anna Chlumsky is a long way from D.C.
Season six of the ribald, increasingly topical HBO comedy begins a year after U.S. president Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) was ousted from office and finds Chlumsky's character Amy Brookheimer in the desert, managing the campaign of fiancé Buddy Calhoun, who's running for governor of Nevada. Like most of Meyer's former staff, Brookheimer is lost, frustrated and attempting to rekindle the passion that came with orbiting the most powerful woman on Earth.
Of course, misery on Veep means terrific television for the rest of us – especially since this season brings a new crop of insults, none of which are appropriate to be printed here. The Globe sat down with Chlumsky at her Toronto hotel on a rainy morning recently to talk about Amy's story arc, the realities of U.S. politics and why no one will ever know if Veep is about Democrats or Republicans.
I can't tell if Amy and Selina need each other or if they need to be apart.
I think – as somebody objective – they obviously do better without each other, but they can't stop.
And their ambition. Everybody knows what Selina's goals are, but Amy's goals are less clear.
I think she achieved the closest to her goal back in the beginning. And it's funny because she keeps not doing it. She wanted the game that was familiar, [and] I think in a lot of ways, Amy is one of those sort-of naive Type-A personalities where she thinks there's a way to have it all figured out and there's nothing different than that. And she just wants what's familiar as opposed to what would be good for her.
Now that Amy's on her own path, have you learned something new about her?
At least during her arc, she's a snake. She does not have ethics. And she carries herself as if she does because she knows that's how people respond, that's what people need to see. But she doesn't actually have scruples, and she doesn't actually have respect for anybody. So I think she wanted to be in love with Buddy, but obviously the desert brought the worst out in her – she grew her hair and started acting like Ann Coulter. So I think if anything, it just solidified that there is a "worse."
[Creator/former showrunner] Armando Iannucci did such a good job of not gendering villains or snakes. He didn't hinge anything on [gender]. Is that something that surprised you about the way politics work? Because they aren't always as gender-specific as the media makes them out to be.
There's a lot about politics that is invented by the greater viewers and voters and even party lines. Even our current President. If he thought he could've won by saying we should only promote rainbows, that's what he would've said. I mean, I don't know the person, but it's all just for self-interest – it's the outside that makes them put on this costume of caring. And you see that in the stuff that happens in our Congress: They compromise themselves to death where they don't know what they're asking for or doing, and that's very much what Selina goes through. So, yeah, I think gender politics is the same thing. They all don't care; it's just, "Oh, well, the person who voted for me cares, so I have to pretend."
Has your own politics been influenced?
No. I was pretty much a liberal going in and still am, but what's interesting [is] I've always kept my politics very close to myself and never been an activist. However, this election just makes you want to tell everybody and talk all the time as much as you possibly can because you want it all on record for when things hit the fan. It's a weird feeling.
And there's been so many pieces in the realm of, 'How will Veep stay relevant now?'
It always fit in. It's bizarre to me that people are asking that, but it's like asking, "How will Mark Twain fit in?" And it's because he always fit in: He saw the human condition and made fun of it. And that's where [Armando] comes in. When he was still our showrunner, that's how he could write about the American political system and it still be completely relevant even though he never lived here and is from the U.K. Because it's a greater condition. This happens everywhere. The stuff we're going through in our country doesn't hold a candle to what other countries have gone through for decades. We've always gone after everyone.
I think there's a reason people who aren't in politics love Veep so much. When television is good it doesn't matter what your job is, you find kernels and relate to them.
And that's what I talk about, too. We've done greater politics, but we also do office politics. So it's about how people behave when one wants power over the other person. That's it. It's relevant no matter what.
The show obliterates the idea of good and bad. And I've read that Republicans think this show is about Democrats, and Democrats think it's a show about Republicans.
Yes, and we've been very careful not to say what the party was. And yeah, we can talk about issues, but once you get into the dangerous world of 'agenda.' And then also the greater statement about somebody such as Selina who's been in politics for so long that she doesn't even know what she stands for anymore.
Is there an outcome you hope to have for the show or for Amy?
Something I don't want to see is Amy wrapped up in a nice bow and some kind of, "The answer to happiness is just to leave politics and have babies." I would hope that we would steer away from pre-bows. I think that it's important that these are still these people's lives and their trajectories and maybe it won't all be okay.
Veep airs Sundays at 10:30 p.m. on HBO Canada.
This interview has been condensed and edited (and, apologies to the Veep faithful, cleaned up in terms of profanity).