{"id":5505,"date":"2015-09-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/madam-secretarys-taa-leoni\/"},"modified":"2016-01-22T10:03:37","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T15:03:37","slug":"madam-secretarys-tea-leoni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/madam-secretarys-tea-leoni\/","title":{"rendered":"Madam Secretary’s T\u00e9a Leoni"},"content":{"rendered":"

PREMIUM: T\u00e9a Leoni tells World Screen how she was attracted to the quality of television\u2019s long-form storytelling and intrigued by the prospect of playing Elizabeth McCord, a former CIA analyst who left the agency on ethical grounds and is tapped by the President to be Secretary of State in Madam Secretary<\/em>.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>What attracted you to television and to Madam Secretary<\/em>?
\nLEONI: <\/strong>I was ready to do a television series because my kids had gotten to the age where they can turn their own key and make their own breakfast in the morning, and I thought, they\u2019re ready. I was curious about television because the level of work being done, from the cinematography to the commitment from every department, is in many ways more incredible than in film. Television used to be more like film-light and it\u2019s not that way anymore. And I was certainly attracted to the idea of living with a character beyond the beginning, middle and end that takes place in two months on a film. There is something about playing a character when you don\u2019t know the middle or the end. I was looking forward to that opportunity. I had never done that. I had done a sitcom, but sitcoms are a little bit different.<\/p>\n

Madam Secretary<\/em> came at the 11th hour of me looking around and thinking about a commitment to a different [project]. If they had been asking me to play a seasoned secretary of state I wouldn\u2019t have been as interested; actually they wouldn\u2019t have asked me to begin with! But I liked the idea of a rogue, fish-out-of-water woman. I either made up or identified right off the bat with the fact that Elizabeth was hopeful. That was her dirty little secret. I like that dirty little secret. There are a lot of powerful women on television who have really fun, fetishistic hobbies and addictions! That\u2019s fun and kicky and I\u2019m loving a lot of these performances and the characters that are being created. I also like the opportunity to play a woman who is enough just as she comes, without any of that. We haven\u2019t explored that, it\u2019s as if a bunch of TV executives felt we needed to spice this up. I like the idea that Elizabeth isn\u2019t particularly extraordinary. She\u2019s smart. She\u2019s doing her best as a mother. There is something about her ordinariness that I like. That\u2019s not quite the right word; I\u2019ll think of a better one.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> It\u2019s interesting that you say that. Elizabeth is totally a good person, but she\u2019s fascinating. Is it more difficult to take a person who is \u201cgood\u201d and make them interesting than playing a badass?
\nLEONI:<\/strong> I think in a way it is, because the idea of lack of character makes for great drama! It\u2019s spicy, it\u2019s shocking, it\u2019s titillating and there are no boundaries, there is a freedom.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons I took this job, oddly enough, was because of the Henry character [Elizabeth\u2019s husband]. I was so impressed that we would have a man on film that could stand alongside a very powerful woman and not derange himself or her in the process. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve seen a lot of men like that. If I were a man I would be greatly offended by a lot of the depictions of men on television, mostly in that they can\u2019t seem to be able to stand behind or alongside a powerful woman. I like the idea that they would have\u2014shocker of shockers\u2014a strong relationship where they hold each other accountable. Where they work it out; they figure it out. I\u2019ve played the hyper-neurotic, not-so-gracious characters. I\u2019m particularly thinking about Spanglish<\/em>. That was kicky because there is compassion there. As an actor, you\u2019ve always got to have compassion for your characters, good or bad. One of the coolest things happened a couple of weeks ago. A woman walked up to me and said, My 10 year old now wants to go to law school and get into politics because of you on Madam Secretary<\/em>. And I loved that!<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>You mentioned the Henry character. Henry and Elizabeth make an enviable couple.
\nLEONI:<\/strong> When we tested the pilot, it was really funny. You always test pilots and it\u2019s more for shits and giggles than anything else. It was interesting because some of the women said Henry and Elizabeth look like they want to eat each other alive: after 25 years of marriage, these people are way too horny! I thought that was really funny. And the men were upset that they didn\u2019t see more sex; the lovemaking scene was after the moment, it was sort of post-coital, as opposed to mid-coital!<\/p>\n

Then we dug a little deeper with them and a lot of the women said, I still want to watch it. I still may not think that is my marriage or the marriages I see on television, but I want to see more. In a way that\u2019s Elizabeth and that\u2019s what people also respond to. Ultimately, she doesn\u2019t run around pleading for her hopes, but you know she is hopeful. You know she believes she can get [the job] done. That\u2019s a very strong aspect of human nature and at times we\u2019re less in the presence of it. But I really like playing a hopeful woman.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>Madam Secretary<\/em> depicts a different Washington, D.C. than the one we see on other shows\u2014House of Cards<\/em>, Veep<\/em> and Scandal<\/em> come to mind. Was the vision for the show a more positive way of looking at government?
\nLEONI: <\/strong>One of the things we set out to do, and it\u2019s going to get trickier in season two, is we have never used, to date, the words Democrat or Republican. If [showrunner] Barbara Hall had an agenda, it would be to explore the polarization of Capitol Hill as it is right now, and what would politics look like, what could get done, if we didn\u2019t have that. Barbara doesn\u2019t have an agenda, but what she did by removing those words and staying out of that nomenclature is that you get to see\u2014I know [executive producer] Lori McCreary has a close relationship to this\u2014that the State Department is the largest branch of government with people who are [committed to] public service. It\u2019s really easy to cite what people are doing wrong, but if you take a look at the individuals, people aren\u2019t there for the money, not for the most part. They are there because they want to affect positive change. People don\u2019t get into politics in order to start a war, no matter who they are. We forget that. We can list all the things that get in the way, greed and righteousness and everything else, but there are people who work very hard and commit their lives, particularly the people in the State Department who are stationed overseas away from their friends and family and their country, in order to help our relationship with the world. It\u2019s an immense and admirable commitment.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>How did you research the role and did you fashion Elizabeth on any real-life people?
\nLEONI:<\/strong> I recognized, more so than maybe any other part I\u2019ve played, that I probably needed to get myself a little more educated on the brash tacks and nails of the position. So I did go down to Washington. I did talk to people who work at different levels in the State Department. I talked to, yes, Democrats and Republicans alike! And I had a really good [meeting] with former secretary Madeleine Albright and got to ask her some questions. But ultimately, and I hate to disappoint so many people who are looking for me to confess that this role was designed after Hillary Clinton, but truly I\u2019m fashioning Elizabeth off my mother, my father and my grandmother. They are three of the greatest diplomats I have ever known in my life. To have great diplomacy in life is a greater asset than we teach our children. But my parents knew that. They taught me a lot about that and it\u2019s urgent, I really do try to teach my kids about it. But I wanted Elizabeth to be one of the greatest diplomats of all time. So she would have to have humor, too. I got that from members of my family probably more than from [Henry] Kissinger!<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>The show deals with very serious topics but there are great moments of humor. Is it difficult to find actors who can play the dramatic parts and infuse them with humor when needed?
\nLEONI: <\/strong>It\u2019s interesting. When you look at it, every actor we have has done great comedic work or has great comedic timing or both, and that wasn\u2019t by accident. The levity has to be available not only to the characters but to the cast. If we were sitting around slathering over some of these incredibly intense and dark political issues, we might be accurate but we\u2019d also probably be off the air. Nobody wants to slog through that. And the humor is not just a diversion tactic. The humor is very real. It\u2019s a little bit maudlin humor, but I do have to say, we have fun on that set! I would say our rowdiest scenes are in the conference room in the State Department because it\u2019s Elizabeth with the staff, and the staff is extended. We have our day players who come in as our background artists. It\u2019s a bit of a dinner party with a lot of personality and then [director] Eric Stoltz is one of the greatest bandleaders of all time!<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>I am extremely envious of how Elizabeth and Henry manage their teenagers! Tell me about the dynamics of the family scenes.
\nLEONI: <\/strong>It\u2019s funny because I actually don\u2019t know that Elizabeth is a great parent. You must have diplomacy when dealing with teenagers and that is Elizabeth\u2019s greatest asset as a parent. Tim [Daley who plays Henry] has two kids. I have two kids. We know the drill about teenagers. This sounds so simplistic but have you ever had a conversation at the table with your kids where everybody waited and listened to what the other person had to say? I haven\u2019t. That was something that Tim and I discussed and identified early on. We showed Barbara our take on it and said whatever they are talking about, nobody ever really listens at a teenage-led dinner table. I don\u2019t care who\u2019s in control; if there is a teen there the teen is leading the conversation. If they go dark, the whole table goes dark. They are powerful, that\u2019s what so fabulous about teenagers\u2014they are so powerful. They don\u2019t know the limits of it. Sometimes they strike in ways that they don\u2019t even know they are doing it. So we really like to bring that dynamic…to the scenes with the kids. Families are like free-for-alls, and you win some and you lose some. And I said to Barbara, let\u2019s not make these parents perfect; let\u2019s not always make it go their way. But the one thing that we have been very conscious of is the partnership between Elizabeth and Henry, because that will be what makes the marriage strong. And teenagers do divide and conquer. I don\u2019t know where they learn it. I was the same way. Remember being a kid, you would ask mom when dad wasn\u2019t in the room, and then tell him that she said yes! [Laughs<\/em>] There are some things that teenagers or kids just inherently do, so we certainly play with that. Occasionally, score one for the kids, they got Elizabeth and Henry on opposite sides of an issue\u2014they played them. But for the most part, that\u2019s the two assets these parents have: diplomacy and partnership.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>What reaction have you gotten from members of government to the show?
\nLEONI:<\/strong> We had a premiere\u2014which I didn\u2019t know they did for television shows\u2014but we had a premiere for Madam Secretary<\/em> down in Washington last fall and there was a lot of positive feedback. A lot of people were saying thank you, we are<\/em> working that hard, we are<\/em> trying. It\u2019s a nice break, a few of them said. I\u2019m sorry about that a little bit, because [I cautioned myself], don\u2019t take either [good reaction or bad reaction] too seriously. It\u2019s a little bit like reading your reviews; if you don\u2019t read the bad ones, you can\u2019t read the good ones either! You need to understand that if you are getting any<\/em> reviews, that\u2019s good!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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