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ANNA FOR PRESIDENT! As HBO's smash political satire Veep kicks off its fifth season, Chicago native and three-time Emmy nominee Anna Chlumsky cements her spot as one of television's most talented comedy players. by SAm RiCHARdSOn Anna Chlumsky may have shot to fame at age 10 with a starring role opposite Macaulay Culkin in the hit '91 movie My Girl, but hers is no typical child-star story. The whip-smart West Side native took a hiatus from acting to study international relations at the University of Chicago, and for the past five years she has put her hilarious stamp on HBO's Veep as the über-intense Amy Brookheimer, campaign manager for (and comic foil to) Julia Louis-Dreyfus's ambitious politician Selina Meyer. With season five ready to premiere, Chlumsky connected with costar Sam Richardson in an exclusive interview for Michigan Avenue, with the pair dishing on politics, pizza, and the joys of growing up a Bulls fan in Jordan-era Chicago. Sam Richardson: Hello, Anna, this is Sam from the show Veep. Anna Chlumsky: Hi, Sam. It's nice to hear your voice. Thanks for doing this. SR: I love you dearly, so of course I'd do it. AC: God only knows why. SR: There's a plethora of reasons, which I won't get into in this interview. AC: It's an embarrassment of riches already. SR: So Anna, Veep is celebrating its season-five premiere. I don't know if you're aware of this. AC: Oh, man. SR: Did you imagine five years ago that the show would be such a hit? AC: Actually, no. The greatest thing about that first season was that we were just having such a blast that I personally didn't even concern myself PhotograPhy by tom Schirmacher/aUgUSt with the response because we loved it so much and it was excellent satire. To me, that was all that mattered, so any audience was gravy. SR: Why do you think Veep has had so much success? AC: It's funny, and it's smart, and it has the perfect home. HBO is a very smart place, and it attracts smart viewers. Also, they're known for letting the creators fly, and we needed that. And we can't forget that Julia [Louis-Dreyfus] is such a force. People just can't stop: They want more of her. SR: There is an appetite for Julia Louis-Dreyfus. AC: Yes, the insatiable appetite for Julia Louis- Dreyfus, exactly. That can't have hurt. SR: Has being on the show made you more interested in politics? AC: I was on a huge diet of politics before I started this show. I studied international relations. My dad's a political junkie, so I grew up around that. I will say that being on this show makes you have to be aware on a cultural level about DC. But the beauty of this is that we don't have to really draw on the actual politics of today because we're satirizing the system. I'm aware of it, and I can hold my own in a conver- sation. I have my own views, and I use my power, which is a vote, but that's where I stick. I don't like to treat it as a sport, because it exhausts me. SR: What's your favorite thing about doing the show? AC: The thing I value most is that I get to act with the best of the best and the smartest of the smartest: actors, comedians, writers, directors. To take a phrase from academia, we have a marketplace of ideas, and you want to fill that marketplace with michiganavemag.com 117