Veep At Paleyfest 2014! Julia Louis-Dreyfus! Tony Hale! Reid Scott! Timothy Simons! Autographs! And More!

Tonight was the final Paleyfest of 2014 for me. Technically, it’s the penultimate evening for the annual television series events of q and a’s that bring together the casts of shows with a reunion or two.

The cast of Veep graced the stage of the Dolby Theater including star Julia Louise-Dreyfus and creator Armando Lannucci. It was a lively discussion for the HBO series, and it was great to see the cast out of character.

Highlights from the panel include:

Finding out that the writing staff pretty much live in England and it’s their view of American politics.

Armando Iannucci saying that there’s a “Ban on politics” in the series.

Selina Meyer will be out and about in season 3 campaigning. “We did two seasons where it was all about D.C. and the D.C. in crowd, this is about Selina meeting the ‘normals’ as she calls them.”

Selina is going to be traveling to Detroit, Silicon Valley and eventually she’ll be going to London. All of the characters will be out of their comfort zone.

Lannucci said, that if a real politician made a cameo on the series, and they’ve have lots of inquiries, it would unravel the world of Veep.

Timothy Simmons, who plays Jonah said that politicians that watch the series don’t think it’s about them, but it really is.

The POTUS will not be making an appearance on the series. Lannucci said that he likes just using the image of the president.

When asked who the cast would like to see as the POTUS names batted around include Gary Busey and Arnold Schwarzenegger. To which the moderator replied, “he can’t, he wasn’t born here.” That’s called casting.

Julia Louis-Dreyfuss said that she is drawn to writing and characters and that’s what made her sign up for Veep.

The panel ended rather abruptly with only a couple audience questions and it was time for the annual rush to the stage. Today, I was with Ace and Suddenly Susan and we all had something to get signed.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus was in a great mood and started off by doing a selfie with the fans looking for autographs. Then she picked up a pen and signed up a storm. I was really impressed. She was really cool. I then got creator Armando Lannucci on the main poster I was doing.

The entire cast was so nice. It was sort of a blur to be honest. But everyone took time and signed to the end until the security forced them to leave. Gary Cole, was really cool. Seriously, everyone couldn’t be nicer.

Susan yelled to me, “Mike, did you get Julia?” I said, “yeah of course on both my items.” Susan said, “But I didn’t!” So I grabbed her photo and I said, “Julia, this is for the young lady, she can’t reach!” Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her publicist looked up and saw Susan waving, they both laughed and Julia Louis-Dreyfus signed for her.
Seriously, everyone did great and had a really nice time. It was a fun event and it always helps when the cast is awesome.

Until next time kids…