Reid Scott on How Veep’s Final Season Makes Oval Office Turmoil Fun Again

If you’re a woman casually breaking a glass ceiling in a movie or television show, thereā€™s a good chance that Reid Scott is nearby, spewing vitriol as the voice of the old guard. ā€œIā€™m making a career out of playing the privileged white prick,ā€ he jokes. In this summerā€™s upcoming Late Night, written by The Mindy Projectā€™s Mindy Kaling, he appears as the smug head writer for a late night show anchored by Emma Thompson. Meanwhile, on Veep, he stars as, in his words, a ā€œbackstabbing womanizer bastardā€ opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Americaā€™s once (and future?) commander-in-chief.

For Scott, playing the bad guy in a fresh story is still a net positive experience. ā€œI have the most incredible luck to work with strong women over and over, and I love changing the narrative,ā€ he says. ā€œEven if you didnā€™t want to do the right and important thing and treat human beings like human beings ā€” even if you are the most sexist or racist person in the world ā€” arenā€™t you just bored of seeing the same old shit?ā€

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In conversation, Scott swears only about half as often as Dan Egan, his character on Veep. ā€œI come from a family very steeped in that tradition, so I definitely appreciate the poetry of his profanity. But itā€™s a double-edged sword,ā€ he says. ā€œIt is so fun to spit all of that stuff, and you have to get into it to do the guy justice. But then we wrap, and I realize all over again that heā€™s such a shit.ā€

Turtleneck (Reid’s own).

Nevertheless, Danā€™s a fan favourite ā€” even among the crowd that he satirizes. At a political event a few years ago, Scott was approached by none other than Joe Biden. ā€œHe walks over, arms outstretched, slams his hands down on my shoulders and says, ā€˜I want you to talk to me like you talk to that boss of yours on TV.ā€™ I was already a fan of his, but that brought it all the way home for me.ā€

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Biden aside, the current state of politics gave Scott some reason to pause when he returned to film the seventh and final season of Veep, the first written during the Trump administration. ā€œThe news is eclipsing the absurdity of the show,ā€ he says. ā€œSo many people in government now feel like monsters and robots ā€” and I usually love monsters and robots, but this is scarier somehow. Julia even apologized for it in her last Emmy speech.ā€ He credits Veepā€™s writers for finding a way of addressing ā€œthe elephant in the roomā€ without turning the show into a Saturday Night Live clone.

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So how, exactly, will Selina Meyerā€™s wild ride through Washington conclude? Scott says to look out for an upcoming crossover episode planned with another hit HBO show preparing for its swan song, Game of Thrones. ā€œIt ends right where everyone expects it to go,ā€ he says. ā€œKhaleesi wins the presidency and Dan fucks a dragon.ā€ Monsters indeed.

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