Cast Conversation for ‘The Diplomat’ | Conversations at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation

Thank you all for being here. Congratulations on this pilot and this new season. I'm going to break protocol really quickly. And rather than start with the person behind the elephant, I want to address the elephant in the room, Madam President. I'm the elephant. Sorry, that came out totally wrong. We're going to fix this in post. So when you read this script, how far did you throw it for the pilot when you got to the end? Exactly. I don't think there is a script that isn't a throwable script in this series. And I mean that in the best possible way. Because at the end of this episode you just saw, I didn't see that coming. I saw it, read it, and I was like, what the? We all throw it. I mean this is like something you end a season with, right? And we've just begun. We've only just begun. And it just gets crazier from here. I want to talk about how you played that scene. Because I feel like there were any number of ways that scene could have been choreographed and constructed direction-wise and any way that could have been played acting-wise. And I love how you chose to just emphasize the shock. It's very much a sort of, this just happened. And I want to, anybody else that was involved in that scene, I'd love to hear about filming it and how you played those reactions. Wait until you see the next episode where it really goes crazy. You haven't seen anything yet in terms of the choreography of that post-assassination thing. It gets absolutely crazy. Alex Graves. Nobody is, in my experience, better with both scale and intimacy. And it's such an incredible way to capture the unreality of reality in a moment like that, of the surprise, not the conventional boom boom. Just a simple, like, oh, what is that? And we're talking about feathers and bearskin. Feathers and fur, and all of a sudden there's like, oh, that was weird. The little spark off the car, that's just, that's like really, yeah. Do you guys remember that day, speaking of Alex Graves? He was like, he is so, those days, he is like a real ringmaster. And that man's pulse is never lower than when he has one of those massive scenes to shoot. He's just like so cool under pressure. He's like a general. It's the calmest you see him. Before I start working my way down, since we are talking to Ms. Janney, I love the dialogue in this series. The writing is so amazing, but I also love the fact that there are so many spots that seem to get left for silences. And for you guys to just basically communicate something with a gesture or a look or a raised eyebrow. And I feel like one of the best examples of that is the conversation between the vice president and the president when you're talking about smaller, smarter packages. Not, not the least bit loaded at all. And then there's just this really wonderful pregnant pause. I want to talk a little bit about the relationship between the president and the vice president as this rumor thing starts throwing stuff in there. And then, and then we're going to get to you, Rufus. I mean, you're talking about the scene where we were, I mean, it was just pregnant, excuse me, with wonderful tension and awkwardness. And I mean, the fun thing about the show is how Debra writes these incredibly powerful, capable people who are basically behaving like teenagers, like, well, she said, he has a crush on you and you know, and it's just, it's so, so delightful. To, to, to play and, and the awkwardness of feeling like that I'm being, and Rufus is a drug for, I mean, you know, Hal is a drug for Grace and that just, it's just the scene with Carrie where she sets that up beautifully and it's, I was one of the most fun I've had in a scene and getting to laugh like that in that awkward way and then ending it. He just delights you. I know, it's true, but he's just, he's my work husband. I like how the Freudian slip of Rufus is a drug, sorry, Hal is a drug. Very telling. Truly, both of them are, I don't know. Rufus, I want to hear about your side of that conversation. And I also want to talk about the vice presidency because it's traditionally been a position that is occasionally mocked by people where they say, oh, well, it's a position of power, but not really. It's, it's almost more of a figurehead sort of thing and yet he has the ear of the president, but he doesn't. But what's really interesting about how this character has developed over the last few seasons, and you really get to see it in this one, is he becomes kind of the locus for a central question of the show, which is idealism versus ambition. So let's talk a little bit about that. How much of, in your opinion, how much of Hal is working from idealism and how much of him is working from ambition? Well, that is, that is one of the questions and that is the way it certainly looks from a certain perspective, but I could reframe it as idealism versus practicality. For example, I think he believed very much, and I can see his point, that without access or the power to do anything, ticking all the right boxes morally is meaningless and it's very easy to do from outside the room. They've always been big believers in getting in the room so you can have some kind of sway. And there's many examples in history of people thinking they could go along with dangerous people and at least be in the room to control it at the last moment. Going back to Blair and the idea of like, well, yes, I know, but I agree with you. Let me come into this room with you. And that is very much what he believes. And he's always been very, very good at playing that game of how far to go, when to interject, how to be able to influence events to the better. Sometimes with people that you might criticize for talking to at all or being in the room with. And this, for him, is the story of how far can you go? How long can you keep perspective on how you're tracking that? Because it's like when you start to do things to your face, you can't tell when it starts to look weird because it's so incremental and all of your friends are going, yeah. It feels like an attack. It's an intervention. I think it's really what he's saying. You know, this is a show that exalts public service, which I think is really important in this cynical time. And standing on principle is actually easy. And the heroic work of public service is this thorny question of how dirty do your feet have to get without you suffocating in the mud in order to get an inch of what you need to get done. And I think the show is always kind of dealing with that. And we're going for the fuckable truth, I think, is what we're going for. Fuckable public service. Put it on the poster. Carrie, I feel Kate has a real knack for getting herself in really hot water off and on the job and then basically having to get herself out of it. I feel like you probably rarely have to go, well, what's my motivation in this scene? Because your motivation is to get out of the trouble that you've gotten yourself into. Now, this feels like a really rich foundation for a character, especially a character that you're now playing over four seasons. And there are numerous boiling pots of hot water you have to get yourself out of in this. I want to talk a little bit about using that foundation as a character, like developing this character using that foundation over a couple of seasons and then how that plays into going into this season that we're about to see. Yes, everything you said. Being in trouble is where you want to be as an actor. You don't want to be out of trouble. That's boring. She's always in trouble. I love that. She's always embarrassing herself. I love that. A lot of this is based on some true stories. There are these amazing stories of Samantha Power following Obama into bathrooms to try to get her point across. I love these people. But what did you ask? So much is in the writing. We're given this gift of Debra Kahn, and she just keeps... And that's the luxury of getting to be on a show for multiple years. You do get to build on it, and you get more comfortable, and you know that you can push it a little bit far sometimes. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it probably doesn't. But it's just a delicious delight, this character. I mean, it's the most fun I've ever had as an actor by far. Now, I feel like you can look to history, and there have been many first spouses, fictional and non-fictional, who have exhibited grace, poise, dignity. And then there's Todd Penn, which... Yeah. Bradley, can you talk a little bit about finding where to pitch this character? Because even if he's not dealing... The unfuckable truth. Unfuckable civil service. I mean, even if he's not dealing with a plate of shellfish, there's a lot of anger and bitterness and resentment, but he's also a nice guy who does support his spouse. There's just a lot of things there. It's a lot to play with. How are you figuring out where to put him so you don't sand off the rough edges, but you don't lose the audience entirely? Well, it's always modulating that stuff. I think we would all agree that we never quite know what we're doing and what is too much and too little. The thing, the experience of playing Todd is there is this sort of luscious cringe every time he walks in the room. Either he doesn't want to be there, or nobody there wants him there. And I've done the research on that in my life. No, but Debra writes this stuff because he clearly, it is a deep... I always say this about Debra's writing, is that it is fearless in exploring the complexities of long relationships, but ultimately, it's incredibly optimistic. Our love is real, even in the silliness of... Thanks, baby. Support me in public is all I've ever asked. No, but even in the silly oyster scene where I'm being terrible last year, it's because I'm protecting her. And I think you're ultimately optimistic about these relationships. For all of your ups and downs, we look at you, and you need to be together, and you need each other. And I love that kind of optimism amidst all the discomfort. I feel like if you had to pick one character that is the glue that kind of holds this whole thing together, it would probably be Billy. You need an actor that has a really good game face, and Nana, you have a great game face. I mean, the line moves is some first-rate politicking right there. Wait, wait, wait. Okay, so that line came up last night. Did I tell you the update about this? Okay, so last night we had our premiere, and during the Q&A, the moderator asked about that line, and I confess that the first time we did that line, I actually cried. And then I made a big joke about how they never, or a little joke, about how they didn't use that take. Come to find out at the after party, Adam was sitting next to the VFX guy, and when I said that yesterday, the VFX guy tapped Adam and was like, I actually took the tear out. We did use that take. I know. Isn't that crazy? I forgot to tell you that. Yeah, so that line moves. When I first said it, I don't know where it came from, but just this emotion kind of bubbled up, and I cried, and I teared up. That's where the post-production budget goes. That's it. To eradicate the tears. To preserve Billy's game face. Yeah, exactly. That's where all the money goes. Equal shout out to you and the VFX team. Yeah, I know. Props to the VFX guy, man. Okay, so emotional outbursts that are fixed in post notwithstanding, I do feel like there are numerous times where your character has to play, like you can't show what you're feeling. You have to be the neutral. You have to be the beige in the room, like the pH 7 in the room that balances the acids and the alkalines. I'm going to use a couple more metaphors here before I go. Keep it coming. I'm just curious though, as an actor, when you have to really lock everything down, what's the challenge there when you have to play a scene and be like, I can't show that I'm angry. I can't show that I'm being duplicitous. I can't show that I'm actually really happy that someone's making this decision. Yeah, I think it's like, I'm a terrible poker player, but this is my chance to try. And I think it's in the language. Definitely, it all comes back to Deb Khan. And then I think also in the directing. I think sometimes I do get the version where I am a little bit more emotional out. And then by the time we get to the second or third take, it's like, okay, I've been able to deliver the way that she would, which is just so much is at stake. That's usually the key, is to remember what the stakes are geopolitically and also in terms of the relationship. If I am popping off, she going to fire me. You know what I mean? I need to be able to handle it and just soldier on and be very resolute. So I just kind of remember that sometimes. It usually requires a stillness of the face that I do not practice in my real life. But yeah, that's usually the key. Someone had pointed out to me, I can't remember whether it was last season or when I'd watched this season with someone, let's call her my wife, had said that it's interesting how you get a different steward depending on who he's talking to. It makes sense that you would get a different steward talking to the CIA officer that he's in a romance with, but it's different when he's talking to Kate. It's different when he's talking to Billy. It's different when he's talking to the guy from the British Embassy, I believe, that has issues with the wording of stuff. Otto, when you're going into these scenes, regardless of who the scene partner is, are you trying to figure out which steward is going to show up for these sequences? I mean, I think they're all the same steward. What I mean by that is I think steward, because of his job, he understands what relationship he's in at all times. He thinks those are solvable problems with behavior. With Kate, that's his boss. He also understands his proximity to that power. He also wants to be a little bit obsequious with her so that she can be the thing that we're all looking at, not him. Do you know what I mean? But when he's with the woman, he's schtuping in the CIA office. When they're schtuping, that's right. They're definitely schtuping. I threw that word out there because I love that word. That's an incredible word. I mean, who doesn't love schtuping? There's a balance he has to have with Idra as well because there's a romantic interest here, obviously, but there's also, they are a lot of times at odds because they're in different offices with different agendas. And so he's trying to figure that out. And so I think that Stewart becomes really good at negotiating who he's talking to, and it's a problem to be solved every time. Can we talk about Idra for a second? I don't want to use the phrase fan favorite, but I think that, Ali, you probably have a pretty big fan base. I think people really love this character and it's easy to see why. I'm so uncomfortable now. Okay. She's in the intelligence world, and so she's usually one or two steps ahead of people at any given moment. And I don't think it's giving too much away to say that she finds herself on the back foot, certainly in this pilot, but in a couple of times as the season goes on. I'm just curious how that affected the performance for season four going in, knowing that she's going to have to give up some of that control, knowing that she is going to be surprised by a couple of things, knowing that she is going to have to recalibrate. Yeah, I mean, I feel like the whole trajectory of Idra is chipping away at her control. And I think all of these characters, they're all chess players. I mean, that's what's so fun is who's withholding what. I feel like this season, she's kind of out on a limb. Last season, already professionally, it's her first failure. And I think dealing with that when a character's whole identity is about her competence. And I think similar to what Nana was saying about Billy, there's such a small range of expression that's allowed when you are constantly having to withhold and strategize and be kind of a vault. And I feel like the way I think about it is I allow my genetics to come forward and my resting bitch face to take over and sort of like just relaxing my face translates in a certain kind of toughness that I can't really take credit for. But it's just my face. But but I think this is not while shipping. Some people like that while shipping. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Some people are into that. But I think of it as like she's she doesn't waste any energy because and there's so much that you have to be calculating and thinking about while not moving your face. So then when things surprise her, I think I approached it more as like a diffusion of energy. If that makes like if it's like if everything is like laser focused, when something shakes that up, it's almost like it's like the there's no she doesn't know which direction to put her energy. So I kind of approached it more like that, that it's it's a loss of focus rather that that is actually how she understands not having control. I know it's so interesting because I think so much of the show is about these like highly functional, brilliant people who are just idiots in love, you know, hacking through the jungle of a relationship with their little dull machetes, you know. I thought you had a Oracle. Yes. You're a fountain of allegories today, for starters. But you actually anticipated my next question, which is that and I know I'm not the first person to think this, but the idea that this show is as much about relationships as it is diplomacy and politics. I mean, it's one of the things that makes this show such a such a rich, rewarding watch and rewatch. And since I have the three main couples that I think this season in particular, like really gets into some interesting territory with them, I want to do a speed round, speed-ish round where we talk about each of these relationships real quick in the time that we've got. So Carrie and Rufus, I'm going to start with you. First off, the splinter scene and then the oath, like the renewal of vows in the church. What about it? Okay. Good question. Thank you for asking. Next. Now that we got that out of the way. I want to talk about playing the splinter scene and how that is exemplary of the fact that like there really is a nurturing foundation for this relationship, despite all the power plays and the kind of jockeying for position. Speed round. We always say that even if these two characters were divorced, they would still be this connected. So I feel like even if they were divorced, yeah, he would still suck the splinter out of her finger. Exactly. You know what I mean? That is who these people are forever. It's dead out of her finance, that writing. It's a perfect crystallization. You have this thing that's about, then suddenly a bit of reality comes in and you can think these two people are apart until another person walks in the room and you realize they're together. That is always there. Even I believe that would survive other partnerships, et cetera, et cetera. So we're very happy to have anything thrown at us in terms of our future, if we have a future, fingers crossed. Because I think the DNA of what makes it special just kind of survives that. And the renewal of vows. How did you guys figure out where to put that scene? In several different countries. Yeah, that's true. It was actually a much longer written scene. I said quite a bit of flowery language to you. And I listened to it. In the rehearsal and Debra watched and she said, come here. And she took my sides and put a big X over all of it and said, just say this. And I said, great, thank you. And also, but it was great. She's like, that's all we need. Because again, that's what is amazing about her. In the moment she can say, you don't need that. Even if you spent ages learning it. So fuck you, Debra. Yeah. Bradley and Allison, this obviously is not your first rodeo together in terms of shows about relationships and politics. Congratulations on the promotion, by the way. Thank you very much. You guys made it into the center of the Oval Office. Very good. How much does your shared history, both as scene partners and just knowing each other for so long, how does that play into the relationship between the president and the first husband? Well, I love that. We just have that natural history baked in to just stepping in front of a camera together. We just have that. That's just there. And it's for free. And I love that with Brad. And what was the rest of the question? Just how your shared history together, decades of working together. You know, I think when it first came up, you're like, oh, wow, that's my sister. But immediately. There's not going to be any stripping scenes, are there? What? No, I was just using the word stripping. We don't have to do that because we've been married for far too long. To strip? I mean, no, but we're not going to be having romantic stripping scenes in The Diplomat. I would be throwing that script so far. We couldn't do that. We couldn't do it. I couldn't do that. She did say to a reporter that kissing me was like kissing her brother. And I said, it turns out her brother's a fucking great kisser. But, no, all of that, it is so fun to be able to just judo all of our, this is one of my favorite people on the planet who I've spent more time with than my siblings, truly. Yeah, me too, me too. And to bring all that history into a really complicated relationship is a real privilege. Ali, your character basically lives in a world of secrecy. Otto, your character wants openness and transparency. I know opposites attract. But can you guys talk a little bit about how those two things cause the friction, the pleasurable friction and the kind of conflict, the conflicting friction between these two characters as they figure out where this romance is going to go? Well, I think Idris keeps being like, hey, man, this is going to be a train wreck. And Stuart keeps saying, no, I think it'll be fine. And she's like, OK, I warned you. And she's just, she's like, all right. And I feel like that's the inevitable, like, you know, she feels like he's never going to really understand what it is to be with her. And that as soon as he finds out, then he's going to leave. And Stuart keeps insisting, no, I'm right here. And she keeps softening because everyone else is betraying her confidence. And the one person that she's like, I'm not going to invest in that keeps showing up for her. Yeah, I feel like Stuart is like the glacier over the valley and he's slowly carving himself into her. Wow. Let's get that stripping. My apologies for stripping, by the way. But I think that Stuart is fascinated with her in a beautiful way. And the warts and all are the part of the fascination and part of the adventure. If it was easy or if it was if he understood her completely, there's no reason to have a relationship, I don't think, with anybody. And I also love acting with Ali and I find her as a person, just a fascinating human being to watch on set or just in life. And so it's just fun to explore that and to not know what's going to happen. And I think that's the part of just acting that I love. And it's the part of just being in a relationship, whatever the level of the relationship is. But being with somebody who's fascinating, it's it's becomes your project in a great way. Well, I just I got to say that I really feel like half of my performance is Idra is really just Otto's performance of Stuart. I don't think. No, because they don't exist without each other. And his performance allows me to push her in this direction because that is immediately a counterbalance. And that's what's so beautiful about Deborah's writing, too, because you don't have to protect the character because inherently in being related to each other, it provides humanity to Idra's autism. So at the premiere last night during the Q&A, the moderator asked about, you know, ending ending this episode the way that the way that the show did. And your showrunner said, well, I thought the best thing we could do for the country was to up the anxiety level quite a bit. Slightly paraphrasing, but not by much. This show starts off in April of twenty twenty three. It's when it first hits Netflix. And now the fourth season is coming out. And what I think it's safe to say is a very different world politically. I'm just curious. I want to hear from as many people on the panel as I can before we all take off for the day. What it's like to make politically informed entertainment in this current moment. The only thing I'm going to add is where this the arc of this season and what it means to the show and to the people, the groups of people we're representing, the Foreign Service groups like USAID. Where it goes, that full arc is just like the biggest wish. And it's everything like I think so many of us wish for. And I love where it goes towards the end. I'm someone who in twenty sixteen, a bunch of friends and I, we actually started started a rewatch of the West Wing to self-soothe. And so just to remind ourselves like what it is like to have just like dutiful, like unglamorous, just like there to get the job. I mean, you are glamorous in real life, but but like, you know, just there to like process oriented. Exactly. Like so I have that in me like I need that. And so then to be able to get to do this now, it feels it feels really good. It feels really, really good. It's a dream job. It's an absolute dream job. And especially in this moment, to be able to do that where expertise has been poo pooed or discounted, you know, and now everyone just gets to wing it. And it's like, no, actually, there are like to be a wonk. I remember this during twenty sixteen. They would always say, oh, she's such a wonk like as a as a as a like a disparaging. And it's like, actually, no, we want wonks. That's what we want. We want a wonky person in that position to just like grind it out. And suddenly that's been just, yeah, granular, granular knowledge of things. I think it's really radical in this in a great way. I think that this show and I think West Wing, it's it was profoundly, radically optimistic and reminding us that in this world where it's not even the values of show business, where the values of vaudeville have put us in a very, very dangerous place where the most vulnerable people on the planet are suffering terrible things. We're in our country. We have 60 some thousand people in internment camps. And I think it's really important to exalt the heroic daily grind of of of of public service that is not about attention getting or grifting. I'm happy to be a part of a show like that at this moment. I think there's something about seeing is believing. And that's part of the optimism is if we can project sort of what Carrie was mentioning, like a wish fulfillment of and see people who are trying their best to do the right thing in complicated circumstances. It helps us also project that out into the world, too. Thank you guys so much for being here. Thank you guys for sticking around.