Behind the scenes of one of the most powerful clubs in America.
Former Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, stopped by the “campaign headquarters” of President Selina Meyer (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) of HBO’s hit comedy series, Veep. The meeting was followed up by a Twitter exchange between the former and “current” candidate.
.@MittRomney @AnnDRomney We were thrilled to have you guys drop by our campaign headquarters!!
— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) August 22, 2015
HBO has announced that “The Brink” starring Jack Black and Tim Robbins will be renewed for a second season.
Kim and Roberto Benabib created the series, which was helmed by HBO go-to Jay Roach.
Tammy Haddad is a consultant to the show (shown here with cast member Maribeth Monroe).
Read more on hollywoodreporter.com: HBO Renews ‘The Brink’ for Season 2
HBO’s DC-themed comedy series, Veep, was nominated in 9 categories during Emmy Awards announcements on Thursday.
The list of categories in which the show has been nominated include:
Andy Samberg will host the 2015 Primetime Emmy Awards on September 20. Fox will broadcast the show live from the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
Go Veeples!
In a review of HBO’s new series “The Brink,” Nukes of Hazard Blog explores the “frighteningly realistic” nature of the pilot episode.
“The show kicks off with a nightmarish scenario in which the fraying threads of Pakistani political control officially unravel, leaving the country’s hundred-some nuclear warheads dangerously unsupervised.”
“The writers of Brink cooked up an entertaining story, but the best—and perhaps most disturbing—part about any satire is that somewhere buried beneath all the hilarity, there’s always a shred of truth.”
Read the full review at nukesofhazzardblog.com: HBO’s Newest Satire Brink Hits Close to Home
HBO’s The Brink premieres June 21 on HBO. This new half-hour dark comedy series focuses on a geopolitical crisis and its effect on three disparate and desperate men.
Tim Robbins recently sat down with Huff Post Live to preview the series.
More coverage:
Aasif Mandvi spoke with Newsday about his transition from The Daily Show to The Brink.
Jack Black, Aasif Mandvi on Balancing Geopolitics and Comedy in HBO’s ‘The Brink’
Tammy Haddad (consultant to HBO’s The Brink) with Aasif Mandvi (The Brink co-producer, writer and cast member) at the 2015 White House Correspondents Brunch
The Brink’s Carla Gugino with Alfre Woodard at the 2015 White House Correspondents Brunch
Haddad with Roberto Benabib and Kim Benabib, creators of HBO’s The Brink
Photo: Tammy Haddad and Timothy Simons (Veep’s ‘Jonah Ryan’) at the 2015 White House Correspondents Brunch
HBO’s Veep heads into its fourth season finale this Sunday. The insults are flying as President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and her administration are under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee for illegal lobbying and data breaches. From the Jonad Files to the cast’s favorite put downs, this season’s finale promises to not pull any punches.
Simons made DRUDGE REPORT headlines at the 2015 White House Correspondents Dinner when he announced his endorsement of Martin O’Malley while walking the red carpet.
Tune in Sunday, June 14 on HBO.
In the season finale, Selina anxiously awaits the results of the closest election in history.
A new half-hour dark comedy series, The Brink focuses on a geopolitical crisis and its effect on three disparate and desperate men: Walter Larson (played by Tim Robbins), the US Secretary of State; Alex Talbot (Jack Black), a lowly Foreign Service officer; and Zeke Tilson (Pablo Schreiber), an ace Navy fighter pilot. These three compromised souls must pull through the chaos around them to save the planet from World War Three. The show also features Aasif Mandvi, Maribeth Monroe, Carla Gugino and Eric Ladin. The Brink premieres June 21 on HBO.
“With her students, she (Katie Cappiello) wrote SLUT: The Play — about a 16-year-old girl who’s sexually assaulted by three guy friends, and the backlash that follows. Slut debuted in New York in February 2013, with the same teenage girls who helped develop the project as its actresses.
“After getting attention from the likes of Hillary Clinton and Amy Poehler, Cappiello is preparing for Slut’s Washington premiere. On May 19 at the Warner Theatre, theatergoers will catch a glimpse of Beau Willimon, the creator of House of Cards and a big supporter of the project, who will be speaking alongside US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Glamour Editor-in-Chief Cindi Leive, and others.”
Read more via Washingtonian: House of Cards Creator Beau Willimon Wants to Put an End to Sexual Assault
For the inaugural episode of Trail Talk, Tammy Haddad and Betsy Fischer Martin spoke with Beau Willimon, screenwriter and show runner of the Netflix hit political thriller, HOUSE OF CARDS. Following are excerpts of his interview where he discusses why there are currently so many DC-based political TV shows, shares his perspective on the evolution of TV, and explains how House of Cards prevents leaks.
WHY SO MANY DC-BASED POLITICAL TV SHOWS
“I would say that really over the past 15 years or so, the American public seems to be more politically conscious than it was in the decade or two prior to that, and that’s largely because of 9/11, of the War on Terror, number of wars overseas, an election in 2000 that was highly disputed. Politics became a big part of everyone’s life because there were real stakes, attached to it, in ways that there hadn’t been to the same degree in years previous and maybe that heightened political consciousness has led to a deeper interest in these sort of stories.”
EVOLUTION OF TV/NETFLIX
“I don’t think you can really draw a distinction between Internet television and other forms of television at this point. I would say you can’t even really draw a distinction between television and film. You have so many types of distribution, so many different types of networks and broadcasters. Formal differences between film and TV are falling away in terms of the way that they’re filmed, the sort of talent that TV is drawing to it. You’ve got a bunch of limited series which seems to be the new fad now. They used to be called miniseries. There might be four or six episodes, which are essentially just long movies.
“I think that what’s most exciting is that you have a technological and a cultural paradigmatic shift happening at the same time and they’re intertwined. Netflix has expanded at a speed that you really haven’t seen in Hollywood before, at least not for a very long time. It was only three-and-a-half years ago that Netflix got into the game, and now they have dozens of shows that they are launching and are in development, major franchises, a huge diverse slate. Other competitors are getting into the game in a serious way like Amazon, Hulu. I don’t think that Netflix or Amazon, for instance, is going to replace all of the hundreds of networks that we have on cable but I do think that those networks may adapt to the new environment. HBO is a good example. They now have their own streaming service, specific to their network. And I think things are just changing very fast. It’s difficult to predict what it will be. I think what it is now, in ten years will probably seem antiquated to what it will be, and we can’t even imagine what it will be. I think the only thing we can count on that it’s going to continue to evolve at a very fast pace.”
SEASON 4 OF HOUSE OF CARDS – NO LEAKS
WILLIMON: There’s plenty of leaks in Washington but we’re pretty good at “House of Cards” keeping leaks from happening, and I’m certainly not going to be the one who breaks ranks.
HADDAD: Do you lock up that writers’ room at night?
WILLIMON: Oh, yeah, we do lock it up.
MARTIN: Do you have your own e-mail server?
WILLIMON: There are a lot of security precautions. I mean, we don’t know how well we can protect ourselves from PRISM, but they haven’t let the cat out of the bag yet so…
MARTIN: You haven’t done anything to upset the North Koreans, then, too. Right?
WILLIMON: Well, see, like you’re trying to ask sneaky questions. You’re thinking that in a dispositive way of however I answer that might say something about Season 4, so, no comment.