The Awardist podcast: Veep star Anna Chlumsky on Amy's decision to embrace her inner vixen

Veep's Amy Brookheimer has always been a "defense mechanism on two legs," says Anna Chlumsky, who played the character since the HBO comedy premiered in 2012. For the show's seventh and final season, though, Amy freed herself from her domineering boss, President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and embraced her inner vixen while working for Selina's morally repugnant presidential rival Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons).

"She realizes in the midst of this horrific campaign is that the key to victory, albeit a very ugly victory, but the surest key to her victory was to play on the basest instincts of humanity," Chlumsky told EW's editor-in-chief Henry Goldblatt on this week's episode of The Awardist podcast. The actress and five-time Emmy nominee says she imagines Amy's transformation began with a split-second decision before appearing on CNN as Jonah's campaign manager. "I imagine that she was sitting in the CNN room getting her hair and makeup done, and they were like, ‘Well, what do you want to do?' And for the first time in her life, she goes, ‘Um, I wanna look sexy.' She knows that that's going to be her weapon."

Listen to the full episode below, which kicks off The Awardist's coverage of Emmy season with an in-depth look at two major comedy races: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy. You can also listen and subscribe to The Awardist podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. <iframe src="https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=DGT2862287117" width="100%" height="200" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" class="" allowfullscreen="" resize="0" replace_attributes="1" name=""></iframe>

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