Though the real world’s political similarities to Veep may seem increasingly dramatic, show star Julia Louis-Dreyfus is sure Kamala Harris has it more under control than any fictional counterpart ever did.
Louis-Dreyfus, who played fictional vp Selina Meyer on HBO’s Veep, told London’s Sunday Times this week that comparisons between her character and the current vice president are “inevitable.” But, she said, “If Selina had any advice for Kamala, she had best not take it. I think Kamala is so intelligent she wouldn’t take the call.”
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Though Veep ended in 2019, the show recently celebrated a resurgence in popularity following Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 election (in season three, Meyer became the first female president after the sitting POTUS stepped aside, which prompted many memes comparing the situations to real life).
Louis-Dreyfus met Harris in 2022, where the actress said they talked about “How much Veep got right in terms of the culture of Washington, both behind the curtain and in front of the curtain,” adding that the now-Democratic nominee “was a big fan of the show.”
Now preparing to support Harris in the 2024 general election, Louis-Dreyfus reflected on the similarities between the fictional character and the nonfictional potential future president.
“Female candidates are more scrutinized,” she said. “That is the reality and we played into it and used it to our comedic advantage. There is an episode in which a character suggests Selina open a speech with ‘As a woman’ and she said, ‘I can’t identify as a woman! People can’t know that! Men hate that and women who hate women hate that, which I believe is most women.’ So we used that for a lot of fodder.”
Louis-Dreyfus also spoke about her reaction to Donald Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, who recently came under fire for resurfaced comments in which he referred to Harris as a “childless cat lady.” Harris is stepmother to two adult children with her husband Doug Emhoff, and many on the left responded to Vance’s perspective with outrage.
“I thought, You poor fucking idiot,” Louis-Dreyfus said. “These guys can’t help it. They can’t help it!”
The actress also said she sees similarities between Vance and Veep character Jonah Ryan.
“I think in the last few years the culture of politics has become much more venal,” she said. “So when we started we were pushing against reality, but now less so, certainly in terms of the nastiness of the communication.”
Creator Armando Iannucci recently told The Hollywood Reporter he wasn’t sure if he could make a show like Veep today because “there are no rules anymore. If something happens, you just say, ‘Oh well, it didn’t happen.’ You just flip it around and just say, ‘No. The opposite happened.’ So, there are no rules.”
Showrunner David Mandel echoed part of Iannucci’s comments when he told THR, “We need things to calm down and heal before Veep’s sort of horrible outlook on the world returns. I think it’s funnier when things are going well and we joke about how bad things are, then when things are going badly. But boy, it makes me think a lot about the show in a really good way. I love people taking about the show and sharing it.”
