SHONDA RHIMES (‘SCANDAL’): We had the Hollis Doyle character, who we made up as the craziest person to ever run for president. But now we just look like geniuses or something.Įven before this, all your shows had little elements that presaged some of what we are seeing, right? And that just seemed like that’s about the worst thing you could think of to do, that makes her look horrible, hopefully in a funny way. She ends up in the Republic of Georgia, doing some election monitoring, and two guys offer her money for her library if she’ll see the election in a certain way. And nobody particularly wants a Selina Meyer Library. We have a story line where is now an ex-president and trying to build her library. For us, we spend a tremendous amount of time thinking up the worst things a politician can say or do. It seemed like an impossible possibility, but it wasn’t like we weren’t flirting with it ourselves.įor “Veep,” do you have to worry what happens in the real world as much?ĭAVID MANDEL (‘VEEP’) You do and you don’t. We had this idea of America Works, and it was in the air already.
But even starting Season 3, we were talking a little bit about a notion of some tyrannical force and some populism and what that would mean. (The following are edited excerpts from the conversation.)įRANK PUGLIESE (‘HOUSE OF CARDS’) No, not on Trump winning. There were the scripts that had to be ripped up at the last minute the amazement at how politics, entertainment and journalism have blended together and the challenges of making their fiction outstrip reality.Īnd when all the gabbing was done there was an even more daunting prospect: Next season. But as soon as they convened in a stark conference room here, right near where “Gilligan’s Island” was filmed, they immediately bonded over their shared situations. These professionals had never met one another before. Gathered were Shonda Rhimes, creator of the ABC hit “Scandal,” whose stories seem to be the stuff of a political fever dream Frank Pugliese and Melissa James Gibson, the showrunners of “House of Cards,” whose back-stabbing and bald aggression present a behind-the-curtain view of political machinations that would never take place out in the open Barbara Hall, the creator of “Madam Secretary,” the more optimistic CBS drama, which was able to stay a step ahead of real life and David Mandel, of “Veep,” which came up with such truly absurd scenarios that you couldn’t imagine them happening.
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