Veep Creator Discusses Kamala Harris Comparisons: ‘Inevitable’

Veep creator Armando Iannucci knows that the comparisons between Selina Meyer (Julia Louis Dreyfuss) and Kamala Harris are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean he agrees. When United States President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the election on July 21, Vice President Kamala Harris was quickly thrust into the spotlight. While a democratic nominee to replace Biden has not been announced, it’s speculated that Harris will take that spot. Despite the BIG glaring similarity – Kamala Harris is the first female Vice President, just as Selina Meyer was in Veep – Iannucci wants to be clear that the character was not “modeled on Harris.” Speaking with the Guardian, Iannucci shared:

“I wouldn’t want people to think that Selina was in any way modeled on Harris. But I suppose [the comparisons] are inevitable. They have the same kind of career. Selena was a senator like Harris, and is then plucked from a powerful job into a job that’s frustratingly powerless.”

Veep, which ran for seven seasons from 2012 to 2019, is a political satire that follows the tumultuous career of US Vice President (and later President) Selina Meyer. The show offers a scathing critique of the political landscape, exposing the absurdity and incompetence that often lingers in government.

Selina and her staff navigate dirty politics, mess-ups, and media scrutiny from the Oval Office to the campaign trail. Iannucci, who is best known for his work on political satires like Veep, The Thick of It, and In the Loop, also served as Veep‘s showrunner for four seasons (from 2012 to 2015)

Veep Season 3 Mirrors the 2024 Election Cycle

During Veep‘s third season, Selina Meyer finds herself as the presidential nominee when the president suddenly decides against running for a second term (sound familiar?) Before serving as VP, Harris was a US Senator from 2017 to 2021, which mirrors Selina Meyer’s career trajectory. While those similarities may have some thinking that Iannucci has psychic abilities, the truth, according to him, is much less eerie:

“With fiction, if you’ve got the research right, reality will always shine through. When we made ‘
Veep’
we spent a lot of time talking to the vice-president’s office, the west wing, state departments, senators. The actors met their counterparts in Washington. So you get a rough idea of what the terrain is going to be like.”

To write the series, Iannucci took real-world happenings and pushed them “in as stupid a direction as it could go.”

Veep EP Says Selina Is More Like Trump Than Kamala

For as much as social media users are pushing for the Harris and Selina comparisons, another candidate may have more in common with the fictional character. When examining Selina Meyer, we find an often inept but captivating persona.

Despite a top role in politics, she is a novice at governing. Although she has big ambitions (and desperately clings to power), she is often out of her depth. While speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Veep Executive Producer David Mandel (who also served as showrunner through its last three seasons) shared:

“The Selina-est candidate is Donald Trump. Vain, worried about his looks, has a ridiculously better relationship with his body people than his own children, petty, vindictive, worries about his own money, doesn’t believe what he says, says whatever to get elected. Even Selina supported a woman’s right to chose — on that, she held firm. Somewhere in there, she had a moral compass … or some kind of something. Maybe a gyroscope.”

Veep earned 17 Emmy Awards during its 7-season run, including six consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Dreyfuss and three for Outstanding Comedy Series. Viewership of the series is up by more than 350% since a Kamala Harris presidency run became a probability.