Oval Office follies

Last Updated: 12:47 AM, April 22, 2012

In the third episode of HBO’s new political comedy “Veep,” Vice President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis- Dreyfus) greets a long line of people as her assistant, Gary (Tony Hale), whispers facts about these people into her ear such as, “He’s got a glass eye,” and, “pro-gambling, loves to kill.”

This hilarious scene was rooted in real life.

“Vice presidents have to do a lot of the fund-raising and handshaking,” says the show’s English creator Armando Iannucci, who was nominated for an Oscar for the gut-bustingly funny screenplay for “In the Loop,” a 2009 political satire that co-starred James Gandolfini as an American general.

“That came about because there was one week before Christmas where Joe Biden had about three parties a night, and at each party had to shake hands and smile and say a few words with about 300 people. That went on for five nights. That must be some kind of living hell.”

“Veep” takes a comedic look at life in the vice president’s office. In Meyer’s world, a minor misstatement can require days of negotiations to correct, and the line between pathetic irrelevance and ultimate power is always razor thin. She relies heavily on her team, including chief of staff Amy Brookheimer (Anna Chlumsky), her press secretary, Mike McClintock (Matt Walsh), her secretary, Sue (Sufe Bradshaw) and Hale as Gary, her right-hand man, or “body man,” as they’re known in Washington.

Real life political horror stories — what Iannucci considers a revealing, warts and all, “Larry Sanders” approach to politics — comprise much of the show’s DNA. In one scene, after the president (who will never be seen on the show, in order to keep the focus on Meyer) signs a condolence card, Amy is supposed to sign Meyer’s name. Instead, she absent-mindedly signs her own, and then has to retrieve the card from the president. This incident was taken from the real-life experience of someone “high up in the communications area.”

To make their satire as accurate as possible, Iannucci and the cast talked to a bevy of Washington insiders. Many of their sources requested confidentiality, but Louis-Dreyfus did speak with two actual vice presidents, one of whom was Al Gore.

“A lot of those conversations are confidential, because otherwise people won’t talk,” says Iannucci, who mentions Gore because Gore himself has spoken about it publicly, saying that Louis-Dreyfus questioned him for an hour over coffee about the nature of the vice-president’s life.

“I know she picked up on the fact that proximity is always important,” says Iannucci. “Vice presidents are always keen to be identified with the president if that president is successful, so making sure they’re there for photo opportunities and speeches and stuff [is important].”

Conversations with politicos on all levels lend “Veep” a bristling reality.

“I have some friends who are DC folk, and we had late night drinks with them and got how things really happen. I think we learned the phase ‘pencil-f- - - ed’ in one of those late night sessions,” says Walsh, referring to the term for when a speech is censored to the point of uselessness.

In one episode. we see Meyer get “pencil-f- - - ed” in episode one when the president sends a flunky to edit a speech, at the very last minute, so thoroughly that it leaves Meyer little she can say short of “Hello.” The result is a fumbling bit of comedy that finds Meyer making several bad jokes about the president wearing heels, and accidentally uttering the word “retard.”

That speech, in all its pained glory, shows why Louis-Dreyfus was an obvious choice for the role, which she accepted after an introductory meeting with Iannucci scheduled for 20 minutes lasted more than three hours. They created plot lines on the spot.

Louis-Dreyfus’ comedic skills are on display throughout “Veep” in moments as seemingly simple as when her freakout over the signature mistake on the president’s card becomes a physical symphony of exasperation.

“She does a scene, and then once you say ‘cut,’ you can see her wheels turning of, how can we tweak this,” says Chlumsky. “She’s always aiming to make something more excellent. It’s a wonderful lesson, and more the rule [with her] than the exception.”

“She’s amazing at filling a paragraph or a line with so many moments you don’t see on the page,” says Walsh, citing the pencil-f- - - ed speech as an example.

“There were a few sentences there, and then she had to improvise on top of that to fill time [so we could] capture other things happening in the room. She lived in this awkward moment way longer than I could have.”

And when performances of this caliber are matched with Iannucci’s whip-smart writing, it makes for HBO’s funniest new show in quite some time.

“It’s haughty with potential, that role, because you’re so near and yet so far,” says Iannucci. “You’re so close to the center of power, and yet because you’re there at the whim of the president, you can be as far removed from power as if you were some lowly first-term congressman.”