As Veep’s Sixth Season Begins Production Tony Hale Insists It’s A ‘Completely New World’

It’s been a pretty good month for everyone involved with ‘Veep’. For the second year in a row it won the Primetime Emmy Award For Outstanding Comedy Series, which was only eclipsed by Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ sixth consecutive Lead Actress In A Comedy Series Emmy, while production on the show’s sixth season began this week, too.

Going into its brand new season ‘Veep’ has never been in a more impressive position, with critics and fans alike proclaiming that it’s most recent run of episodes were as funny as any of its preceding four seasons worth. This wasn’t always a certainty, though, as creator Armando Iannucci left ‘Veep’ at the end of its fourth season, only for David Mandel to step into the showrunner position as if nothing had changed. Something that ‘Veep’s’ back-to-back Emmy triumphs proves.

Yet David Mandel has changed the show, and rather dramatically, too. Not only did Selina Meyer spend last season not knowing if she was actually President, but it concluded with her being booted out of The White House and her legacy forever tarnished.

Considering the show’s title, it was hard to picture how ‘Veep’ would proceed following the tragic end to Selina’s laughable tenure. And that’s exactly how everyone involved in ‘Veep’ apparently wants it to be, too, as Tony Hale revealed on the red carpet at the Emmy’s that the upcoming episodes find ‘Veep’ in a brand new world.

Speaking to TVLine Tony Hale, who has played Gary Walsh throughout ‘Veep’s’ run, said of the new episodes, “It’s post-presidency. With that comes a lot of breaking down and anxiety … Gary is probably losing his mind.”

When pushed for details on what we can expect Hale said that these episodes are “kind of opening up a whole new world of, ‘What do these people do after they were president of the United States?’ It’s like they don’t know how to be themselves maybe.”

Of course there’s always some trepidation when a show heads off in a brand new direction. But considering that ‘Veep’ is aging like a fine wine, revels in abusing its despicable ensemble of characters, and has itself managed to transition from one showrunner to the next without even the slightest of hiccups, its cast and crew clearly revel in this chaos, and we can expect it to be just fine when it finally returns in either the spring or summer of next year.

[Images via HBO]