‘Veep’ Creator Armando Iannucci on Why His Show Wouldn’t Work Today — and Advice for Kamala Harris
On July 21, President Joe Biden backed out of his re-election campaign to pave the way for his vice president, Kamala Harris, to succeed him in office. Up against former President Donald Trump, if elected, she would make history as the U.S.’ first-ever female president. It’s a story so good, you couldn’t write it — but Armando Iannucci did.
The Scottish writer and producer is the king of political satire. With U.K. sitcom The Thick of It, depicting a bumbling British ministerial Cabinet and the many personalities hindering its success, he became a master of the genre.
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Across the pond only a few years later, Iannucci created HBO’s Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer, the fictional vice president of the United States. Embroiled constantly in what Iannucci dubs political “cock-ups,” Meyer and her team remain steadfast in their hope of making it to the Oval Office. The series, which ran from 2012-19 and lasted seven seasons, landed 17 Emmys — two for Iannucci, including outstanding writing for a comedy series. He bowed out after season four, passing the baton to David Mandel (who also spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about Veep’s viral resurgence).
When Harris’ presidential campaign was announced, Veep‘s viewership surged 350 percent, according to entertainment data company Luminate. Then came the memes: Louis-Dreyfus breathlessly declaring to her team, “I’m not leaving. POTUS is leaving. He’s not going to run for a second term. I’m gonna run. I’m gonna run for president!” It eerily mirrored the current political landscape.
Suddenly, the spotlight is back on Iannucci. In a recent op-ed for The New York Times, he discussed the danger of reducing a U.S. election to a meme. He’s also been making his opinions known on X, formerly Twitter, even though he says he’s “never felt comfortable” on social media: “I used to have good exchanges with people, but now my feed is just full of weirdness.”
Now, Iannucci talks to THR about why Veep couldn’t be made today, what advice he would give to Harris as she embarks on a historic election campaign, and why he’s looking into getting a hold of some unreleased Veep scenes — just to tide us over, united in our electoral woes.
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Everyone’s going crazy for these Veep memes. In particular, where Selina Meyer announces the president is taking his name off the ticket. What was in the air, at the time, when you came up with that?
At the end of every season, we liked to paint ourselves in a corner with a tricky [ending] — not quite knowing what we’d do with it in the next season, just as a task to set ourselves at the end. I always like to keep the final episode not-quite fixed.
Because you find stuff [out] as you’re shooting the show. And I think it was during shooting season two, I remember saying to Julia, “What if she has to run for election? What if the president just says he’s not going to run?” You can see her eyes lighting up, and we just thought, “Yeah, that would be funny.” Because she’s still the vice president, and now she’s having to run a primary while being vice president. We just wanted to throw a curve ball in and see what happened.
And you then, two seasons later, left the show on the plot of an electoral tie. Why?
Well, that was my finale. That was my final episode. I thought that was my ending, simply because the way politics was at the time — and now it’s even more so — both sides were so polarized, and the entire Constitution is predicated on both sides reaching out and compromising across the aisle, having to come to some kind of agreement on things. But when they just refuse to do that, then nothing happens. And so I thought the best way to kind of project that was to end on an Electoral College tie. Also, how silly is it to have an Electoral College with an even number of votes? Because then the tie is a very distinct possibility. Just give one of the Dakotas one more vote or something. (Laughs.)
You joked on X you’re still working on the ending for Veep. What ending would you write for it now?
Oh God. Well, I think I stopped about nine years ago. So it would be less about Selina and more about a whole new cast of characters, I imagine. I think the ending is impossible to write at the moment. I would like an ending in which there’s still democracy. That would be a good start.
What scares you the most about these Veep plots and memes that have resonated?
It doesn’t scare me. We do a lot of research and we try and get the details right. But then we try and push the fiction — the stories we’re bringing into it — as far as it can go in terms of absurdity without it being completely unbelievable. So it’s scary that some of our more unbelievable storylines have started playing out in real life.
When we were doing The Thick of It, I remember a lot of politicians saying, “Well, you’re giving politics a bad name, because there are lots of people who go into politics that really do a good job …” And then, something that we invented goes out, and then someone in government says, “How did you find that out? We thought we’d kept that quiet.” And you think, “Oh God, did that really happen?” So that’s scary, but I hope it’s not scary in that part of the process of what I’m doing is trying to show just how it works. Go behind the closed doors and see how it was. These are just people. They’re not all monsters, they’re not all crazy — although, you have to be slightly mad to think that you, over everyone else, will be best for the country. But they’re just human beings and they make mistakes.
From left: Reid Scott, Sufe Bradshaw, Matt Walsh, Timothy Simons, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tony Hale, Gary Cole and Anna Chlumsky in season two.
Did you think that the show would have such a long-lasting cultural impact when you created it?
I mean, we decided not to be topical or reactive. We deliberately didn’t mention the party she was in, we didn’t mention any contemporary politicians because we didn’t want to date it. We wanted to look at the themes that come around again and again and again, the issues that we keep having to look at. So I’m glad people are still watching. I’m glad it doesn’t feel dated. I’m glad it feels current, because we kind of made it that way. I’m glad we got that right.
U.S. politics in 2024 is so much more insane than when Veep came out in 2012. If you started Veep now, how different would it be? How can you satirize a political world that almost now seems beyond satire?
I don’t know if I would start Veep now, because the premise of most episodes of Veep is somebody does something that’s a little bit wrong and they worry that somebody might find out so they do their best to backtrack or turn it around. But nowadays, when Trump says, “I can literally shoot a guy in the face in Fifth Avenue, and still, people would vote for me” … 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.
And I think actually, the people who make more of an impression comedically are the ones who become journalists, like John Oliver and Jon Stewart, who have a big team, resources behind them to go through all the footage, research the issues and then they lay out the facts in front of us. They do it in a funny way, but they lay out the facts because the politicians are covering up the facts, or are pretending the facts don’t exist, or are inventing the facts, or denying the facts, or go into a weird kind of performance politics. It’s crazy. Trump says crazy things, but he knows they’re crazy — but he sort of believes them, but he doesn’t believe them, and he just knows people will pick up on it. But that’s fine. It’s another language he speaks politically, and it’s away from that rules-based structure that we have in the background of Veep, where they’re just worried they’ll be found out or that it won’t go well. With Trump, it’s like, “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll say this, and the next day I’ll say I was joking [or] you’re taking it too seriously.”
It’s almost like comedy or satire is the best way to cut through that political noise. Arguably, The Thick of It and Veep were the first shows of this political era to do that. Do you think that meme-ifying Veep and the election is almost dangerous?
Well, for a start, Selina Meyer is not Kamala Harris. When we were making Veep, we didn’t have anyone in specific in mind. It was more we wanted people — if it was a male VP — not to think, is this meant to be Dan Quayle? Is this meant to be Dick Cheney? Is this meant to be Al Gore? So we thought, “Well, if we make it a female vice president, that feels more like what’s going to happen anyway, rather than looking to the past.” But of course, then people said, “Well, is it Sarah Palin? Is it Hillary Clinton?” It’s not specific. It really is not based on anyone. It’s just our vice president. Plus, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is an amazing comedy talent and, why wouldn’t you have her as the center of your show? So it’s about that. It’s nice that Veep has been watched again, but I wouldn’t want people to think that Kamala Harris is like Selina Meyer.
Is it not a bit risky, that people are taking that comparison too seriously?
Well, yeah, I can imagine some social media people in the Trump campaign standing by with Veep edits ready to go. But, what can you do? Also, there’s a danger that it all becomes a question of who’s got the best social media campaign, which is not really what the average voter is thinking about at the moment. It still all boils down to jobs and finances and safety and all those things. These things might reinforce a perception people already have, but I don’t think they change people’s minds. And I don’t think they drive people to the polling station. I think there’s always a danger that you think what’s on social media is seen by everyone, and then you realize, no, it’s taken seriously by a tiny fraction of the electorate.
Certain people make a lot of noise and we take the noise seriously, and therefore think they must have a wide following. And that’s not necessarily the case. It’s just that they’re very good at being loud. We mustn’t fall for that just because we hear them at full volume.
Based on the the extensive research that you did and what you were told at the time about the VP’s office, what would your prediction be for Kamala Harris? And what would your advice be for her? What would you say if you spoke to her?
Predictions I’m not so good at, despite the record. But my advice would be: Don’t keep going for “Trump is mad.” Everyone knows it and everyone’s decided whether that’s fine or it isn’t fine. I’d go for the policies, because the policies [the Trump team] are talking about are insane. And I don’t think enough people know. They claim to be the party of the working people, but a lot of their policies are geared toward putting prices up in a tariff war, redistributing taxes so that wealth goes back to the wealthy, giving corporations and conglomerates and huge tech monoliths more power and influence. The whole green thing is worrying — they’re still in a climate denial phase, which can only spell disaster for everyone, really.
America was always at the forefront of technology, it was first to do the car, the Hollywood films; it’s always at the front. This weird going back and saying, “No, we’re not going to go for wind power … We’re actually going to go back to digging for coal and drilling for oil,” just seems so behind the curve, rather than ahead of the curve. So I would actually persuade people with your argument, rather than who can come up with the best insults about how weird Trump is, the same way that they come up with insults about what Kamala Harris is like.
Was there anything you heard or learned while doing your research about the VP’s office that has stayed with you, or you think is quite relevant or topical in this upcoming election?
It’s little things like how important space and real estate is. It’s all about being close to power. It was more when we went around the West Wing and we discovered that people want to say they worked in the West Wing, even though it’s a tiny warren full of small offices and very suffocating corridors. We saw a four-star general sitting on a chair in a corridor with his briefcase on his knees and a laptop on his briefcase. That was his office, because he’d rather tell his friends and his family he worked in the West Wing than have an enormous suite of offices in another building down the road. It was things like that.
And Obama’s [personal aide] Reggie Love was literally in a cupboard. He was in a closet. He just took the door off it and used it because it was right outside the Oval Office. So that, for him, was absolute proximity. It’s the little things like that that still determine what’s going on there.
I want to ask about your tweets. Because with a résumé like yours, people are paying attention. Do you feel that pressure with your platform considering how transformative this November election is?
I’ve never really felt comfortable on social media. All I’ve done is Twitter — I’m not calling it X — but I don’t do Instagram or TikTok. And I have noticed the experience on Twitter, it’s got much less satisfactory. I used to have good exchanges with people, but now my feed is just full of weirdness. So I try not to think about [my influence]. My rule always with something like that is, if you post something, see it as a live mic. What you post is public. So, would you say that if you were on live radio, would you say that if you were on TV? Don’t think you can try things out on social media that you haven’t really thought about. [Think], “Actually, people will be reading this. So what do I really want to say?” Don’t be lazy with it.
HBO has promoted the show. The series reportedly saw a 350 percent surge in viewership. I don’t suppose anyone from HBO or Max has been in touch about residuals?
(Laughs.) I wasn’t expecting anything. I’m in constant conversation with HBO anyway, because I’m in the middle of shooting something else for them, and I’m discussing another project with them, so I’m kind of in touch with them all the time.
And no Veep return on the cards?
Not that I can see. Every now and then, [we] wonder what they’re up to now, what they did in their life outside of power, but it did strike me there was an awful lot of stuff we shot and a lot of stuff we wrote that we didn’t use. So I’m taking a look at that and just seeing if there’s any life in that, as part of the Selina Meyer library.
Have you heard from Kamala Harris’ camp? Because she publicly said she was a fan of Veep and told Julia that.
Yes, Julia, I think that’s where the conversations are. I haven’t heard directly. But, why would I? I’m very much an off-the-radar, across-the-pond person.
As people rewatch Veep, what do you hope that they pay attention to?
Distorted argument. I suppose an awful lot of the episodes I’m proudest of are the ones where we really take an issue and we really focus on how different people will use that issue for different hands. There’s the abortion one in season three, where every particular approach to the issue is examined through the night. I was really proud of how that came together structurally. It’s like a farce, really. But there are big issues being discussed, [I’d want people to pay attention to] how people’s lives are actually just becoming statistics in various political campaigns.
Before Biden dropped out, you said you heard people in the White House were comparing the vibe to The Death of Stalin (Iannucci’s 2017 satire about the Soviet Politburo). Does it bring you hope that the tide has turned with Harris’ announcement?
Yes, I think there is a fresh energy. I think a lot of the dynamic of the election prior to that was people who voted for Biden before, but were just feeling nervous of doing so again. That was suppressing the vote in a way [with] people just deciding they were going to sit out. So I think the change now has actually reenergized that. The huge amount of donations coming mostly from people who’ve never donated before, that indicates there’s still everything to play for. There is a huge crowd within the electorate out there who are still open to persuasion. Harris’ nomination might inject, especially in younger voters now, a fresh burst of energy and commitment. My message is always: Don’t not vote because the fewer people who vote, then the more democracy withers and the more certain politicians can abuse that and exploit it. So getting the voter turnout up is always a healthy thing.
How do you see the U.S. election going?
I think it’ll be very, very tight. I think it won’t become clear right up until the day itself. No one is going to take a five-point lead or anything like that. Some will show Trump ahead, some will show Harris ahead.
What do you hope happens?
What I hope happens is that we get a clear result. Because I just know that if Trump wins, he wins, and if Harris wins, Trump will say he’s won. That’s what will happen. So don’t think it’s over once the vote is over, because there’ll be that whole mess to deal with as well. And don’t be persuaded to vote for him just so that that doesn’t happen. Don’t let him bully you into voting for him because you’re just worried what the consequences might be if you don’t. Because then we get into sinister territory.
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