Michael Shulman (4:06)

What does that word presidential mean to you? Is it something you felt like you had to draw in as an actor or think about? Is there a physicality to it that you saw yourself taking on?

Bill Pullman (4:19)

I remember just that one thing that I was talk to the Roland Emmerich when we first were doing it was that, you know, that I didn't want to have to work hard at being president, that I thought a lot of it would be him directing everybody else. That no matter what they said, they had to triangulate to me, you know, that if there's a discussion between two people in the room, I'm in, I don't want to be. I want to be clocked. You know, that feels like that would be what would happen with the President. It wasn't my assertion of anything that would make that happen. It was. It had to be something in the air that we all agreed is part of what it is to be presidential is you don't get to, you know, leave him out of the conversation. I don't think. I don't know, but maybe he did.

Tony Goldwyn (5:12)

I think that's really true. And that's what sort of struck me. It made me laugh all the time, because even though I'm playing the President, people treat me differently. Like all of a sudden, you just come into the room and people. You have all of this gravitas, by definition. So everybody is always looking at you all the time. 24 7, you are in the public eye. So how do you handle how do you handle that?

Alfre Woodard (5:46)

Was I one of the first women presidents? Did I play one of the first women presidents?

Bill Pullman (5:50)

I mean.

Michael Shulman (5:51)

Well, it's an interesting topic. I mean, there's. You know, we've had Cherry Jones on 24, Gina Davis on Commanders in Chief. It's sort of become more of a trope. But.

Alfre Woodard (6:01)

But. So I ask. Because I forget. Gina's a good friend. So, yes, I do know that. But there is a different awareness coming in as a woman. So I was aware of the fact that as a culture, we had this mommy thing where somehow we turned everything over to the moms of the country. And everybody, even as adults, are still feeding at the breast of the mom, the big country mom. This is getting a little risque, but go for it. But we still couldn't bring ourselves to say, madam President, we don't know what would happen if you had to say that. So I felt responsibility to make sure that she was somebody, first of all, realistically figuring out how it would happen after the first African American president, that there would be another African American president. So for me, I just can't act. Whatever somebody wanted to have. I've got to know where I came from. So Jill Carnahan and I came up with a backstory for Constance Payton, and it was that she was a combat veteran, so she's military. So that automatically gives me a certain amount of bearing and a certain balance and sort of playing it close to the vest and practical conservatism in terms of how I deal with people. Yeah. So I had two things going. Being a woman and not wanting to cut up. So they start saying, oh, yes. See, they put a skirt in there and everything goes to hell. The other was that I was. My military background and how I came up through even to be. You have to walk it up. How does a woman get to be the commander in chief? And it has to make sense. You may not even know any of backstories, but you'll know whether you believe something or not. And that's when an actor has done their homework from that person as a kid. Because anybody that runs for president has known that they could do it from the time they were eight. They might become the president of something else. But you don't just suddenly say, you know what? Damn it, I'm gonna run for president.

Michael Shulman (8:18)

You know, it's funny, I didn't think about this before this moment, but you all play military veterans who are presidents, which is funny, because we haven't had that recently. You know, it just struck me that that's a storyline that is common to all of you. I don't know if that informed the character for you guys as well.

Bill Pullman (8:36)

Yeah, I think it's the military thing, I know was very important for Independence Day, that first movie, because there was a lot of question about Bill Clinton and whether he could be tough, you know, being more liberal and everything else. And so they made a deliberate choice to have this fighter pilot background. And, you know, the scene of the president, you know, getting back into uniform and appearing before the troops on the aircraft carrier before. And then it was so curious to later see Bush in a flight uniform saying, we have won in Iraq in the very complete kind of replication of this same thing that we had done in the movie.

Michael Shulman (9:23)

Well, this is a great moment to pause, and we should watch our clip from Independence Day, which is a scene that became absolutely iconic. So let's watch Bill Pullman in the original Independence Day in 1996.

Clip Voice (Bill Pullman in Independence Day) (9:40)

In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world, and you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind. That words should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interest. Perhaps it's fate that Today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression or persecution, but but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live, to exist. And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today we celebrate our Independence Day.

Michael Shulman (11:16)

So I have to say, before I went and rewatched the movie, not having seen it since it was in Theater in 1996, I remembered that speech as an address to the nation. And it's actually not. It's him just talking to these troops. But I think that's because it feels like that actually happened. Like it just. You know what I mean? Like, people really. It really feels like that is, you know, part of the pantheon of, you know, presidential speech making. And did you. How did you psych yourself up for this? I mean, did you read any presidential oratory or anything that drew from real life?

Bill Pullman (11:49)

Well, I did. You know, there's. At that point, there wasn't the Internet, and I was remembering, and I finally got a CD of the recording that Robert Kennedy speech that he gave upon hearing about Martin Luther King's death. And it's impromptu, and so I felt like that idea would be under great duress, you know, when the whole thing was looking very bad for not only us, but all of us, you know. And the speech that Kennedy gave was just two minutes after hearing of Martin Luther King's death. And he, you know, out of this calm center of him, spoke about that this is a time in which it is understandable for blacks to have bitterness and anger and revenge. And he could feel that that would be a legitimate response to this. But he quoted Aeschylus in talking about how the pain can drop one by drop. Some paraphrase, but drop by drop. Pain will drop on us in our sleep until we will begin to have greater wisdom for compassion and love by the awful grace of God, which I thought, so amazing to have a guy who's running for president stand up. And then the capper was. He said, I understand your anger now because I too, lost a member of my family not long ago speaking of the assassination of jfk. And I thought all those ingredients were really should be his own investment in the moment, his own understanding and compassion for everyone else's fear. And to take that on and speak of it, I thought was a good example to look at for that.

Michael Shulman (13:58)

And then, as you mentioned, this was five years before 9 11. And when 911 happened, a lot of people said, oh, this is like a Roland Emmerich movie. This is like a Hollywood disaster movie. And then, you know, we would see George W. Bush give these speeches trying to rouse the nation and unite the world. And, you know, and some of the imagery, like the mission accomplished moment, just. It's people, you know, more than one person observed. This is kind of like Bill Pullman in Independence Day. Did you have that feeling watching this feeling like life was imitating art? I mean, what was that like for you to observe?

Bill Pullman (14:34)

Yeah, you know, I do feel like it's strange how when I do I meet presidents, there is a little look in their eye like you're one of us. But it is weird, you know, And I'll go to certain countries, and they love the little theater of saying Mr. President.

Michael Shulman (14:57)

You know, did you guys get that ever?

Tony Goldwyn (15:01)

All the time.

Bill Pullman (15:04)

Well, you have the reputation of being a buff president. I gotta say, if I could change mine for yours, I think I'd go for that. Being you're, you know, a. A real. Not feral. But. But how is that. I mean, does that ever bug you? I mean, in some ways, You'? But it's part of the Scandal thing, is that you have a lure. Tony, come on. How does that fit? Does that sync right with you?

Tony Goldwyn (15:45)

No, but it's. You know, you never know. One week you're going to open your script and be like, oh, God, I have to have my clothes off again. It's a bit of a thing in Shondaland for the men of. Yeah. As the President, you must be prepared.

Michael Shulman (16:08)

All right, it's time to watch a Scandal clip.

Tony Goldwyn (16:12)

Please tell me I have my clothes on.

Michael Shulman (16:16)

This is season two of Scandal. It's a flashback to the night of Fitz's inauguration. See? They know. Let's watch Tony Goldwyn in Scandal.

Alfre Woodard (16:30)

Mr. President.

Tony Goldwyn (16:31)

I like that.

Michael Shulman (16:34)

Say it again.

Alfre Woodard (16:37)

Mr. President.

Bill Pullman (16:38)

Mm.

Michael Shulman (16:40)

We can't.

Bill Pullman (16:41)

We can.

Alfre Woodard (16:45)

Look around you. Look where we are. This can't happen. Not anymore.

Tony Goldwyn (16:51)

I think it could happen right there on that desk.

Alfre Woodard (16:55)

We decided we have to stop.

Bill Pullman (16:58)

You're the most important person in my life.

Tony Goldwyn (17:03)

I can't just stop.

Bill Pullman (17:08)

Can you? Very nice. Whoa.

Michael Shulman (17:23)

I mean, Scandal has these incredible scenes of Olivia and Fitz, or as the Internet calls them, Olitz, who have these electric, really steamy, intense scenes. Can you just tell us about what it's like to film those?

Tony Goldwyn (17:39)

It's such a funny thing, you know, doing sex on camera. I mean, thank God Carrie and I have. We just have. We have a great friendship and a great mutual trust that we've found immediately. And I say that that's important because it's a terribly awkward, weird thing, as these guys will tell you, you know, when you're. And it never isn't that because, you know, people think it's so super hot. But imagine, just imagine having sex with 50 people standing there looking at you, you know, which is what a film crew is and does. And the antidote to that, in addition to the connection you have with your fellow actor, is the scene that you're playing and, you know, what's actually happening between the characters and their relationship. And that's what you focus on so that you don't have to think about this bizarre thing that you're doing in public.

Michael Shulman (18:42)

I mean, do you think of Fitz as someone who uses his power as a kind of sexual.

Tony Goldwyn (18:48)

No, I don't, personally. Some people might. I don't. And it was very important to me as the character developed, to anchor it in someone who was desperately, uncontrollably in love with this woman and was willing to sacrifice all of it for her. And even in the realm of possible self justification, in the first season of the show, when you first met Fitz, he was accused of having an affair with a staffer, which it turned out he ultimately did. So even in thinking about that character named Amanda Tanner, first of all, for a long time, Shonda didn't decide whether Fitz had slept with her or the he hadn't. It was like six episodes in, and I kept asking her, did I do it or did I not? And she said, I don't know yet. And she said, I'll tell you when I know. But when it turned out that he had I for myself, I was like. And I think Fitz even said this. He did that out of, you know, heartbreak over having lost Olivia. And he just did this stupid, impulsive, irresponsible thing, you know? But I guess my point is it was not a conscious abuse of power. You know, a lot of people might disagree with me or accuse Fitz of that 100%, but I don't see it that way.

Michael Shulman (20:12)

Well, I mean, that first season, the Amanda Tanner storyline, where he sleeps with a White House intern, of course, made people think of Clinton. I mean, did you. And I've read that you have borrowed, you know, looked at aspects of Bill Clinton. I mean, can you tell us about what parts of him or other real presidents you looked at? Or was it something where you had to consciously not draw too many parallels so that people.

Tony Goldwyn (20:35)

No, I mean, look, the Monica Lewinsky thing, obviously, that's just out there. You know, the only thing I was conscious of about that was just the differentness and scandal is, as I said, from Fitz, his obsessive love for Olivia Pope dominates. He was terribly, completely in love with her, and that was just different than the situation with Bill Clinton.

Michael Shulman (21:02)

Well, so let's watch a clip of Alfre in State of Affairs. So this is the last episode, and she's in the Situation Room. Constance Payton, President Constance Payton. And she is deciding whether to take out a really top level terrorist.

Alfre Woodard (21:17)

Adrian McKay, this is the President. What's the travel time from ship to target?

Tony Goldwyn (21:23)

Another half hour.

Bill Pullman (21:23)

Madam President. Universe chose quite a night for all this.

Alfre Woodard (21:27)

How long before I have to speak at the Correspondent's Dinner?

Bill Pullman (21:30)

Less than an hour. We could postpone.

Alfre Woodard (21:34)

Absolutely not. No one, the press, public, and God forbid, our enemies can ever get a whiff of what's going on in this room. If we change anything now, it might compromise the.

Bill Pullman (21:48)

I understood. Are you okay?

Alfre Woodard (21:53)

No, I'm fine. I have waited a damn long time for this moment. And then David Harbour and I have sex.

Michael Shulman (22:13)

So what can you tell us about this scene and how you Crafted how. Crafted this character of President Peyton, how I crafted her.

Alfre Woodard (22:21)

Well, I have been. I started knocking on doors. We called it walking precinct back in the day with my parents when I was 10 years old. So I've been active in every presidential, municipal, state campaign. That's just what I do. And I've been around protesting, helping make the signs, being a body on the line eventually by Ron Dellums, who was a congressman from Berkeley, who eventually was mayor of Oakland for a while, said, you know, you got to come into the building, meaning the Capitol. You got to come in if you want to affect policy instead of just storming the ramparts. And so I started to come in with other people to lobby for things that we thought were important for, you know, women's issues, civil rights, equal rights, all of that thing. But I started to understand what it took to make things happen. Like I said, I was just tired of being over in that corner. So with Constance Payton, I would have worked for her when she ran for, you know, when she came out of the military and she went for her law degree, I would have been volunteering for her. I had a great idea of who she was. But my work was to understand and be able to articulate and act out of a military militaristic point of view, out of a conservative point of view, because my impulse would be the other direction. But it was more of finding the human being, a human being that would have made choices that I didn't make. But not just find her, find her reality. Because, I mean, that's our job always as an actor, we all have individual fingerprints. Out of the billions of people that have ever been born, none are alike. So what makes Constance Payton different from another 10,000 black women that look like her, talk like, or has had those same experience women? That's what's so wonderful about it. You're constantly practicing, reaching for, refining, being able to speak out of that person's reality rather than your reality as an actor.

Michael Shulman (24:42)

One thing that is so striking is that we've had a lot of female and minority presidents in fiction, you know, going back to Morgan Freeman and Deep Impact, you know, Geena Davison, Commander in Chief, Dennis Haysbert, Dennis Haysbert and Cherry Jones on 24. But this show was really groundbreaking in that it was the first popular cultural representation that I can think of of a black woman as president. What did that mean to you?

Alfre Woodard (25:11)

I don't think it meant to me what it probably meant to little girls watching it or little boys, because we have to. We owe our boys. Truthful representation. We owe our boys possibility as much as we owe our girls. We have to remember that they're watching too, and we're training their expectations the way that we train our girls expectations. So to me, I had a job to do. I'm not conscious ever when I'm playing a character, I'm not conscious of how that character's perceived. I can't be, because then I've stepped out of who that person is.

David Remnick (25:54)

The actors Bill Pierre, Alfre Woodard and Tony Goldwyn with the New Yorker's Michael Shulman in 2016. That's it for the show this week, and I hope you enjoyed it. Next time, Jennifer Gonnerman talks with the NYPD whistleblower Edwin Raymond. Till then, you can follow us on Twitter New yorkerradio.

Host/Announcer (26:14)

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado. This episode was produced with help from Rhonda Sherman, David Ohana, Michelle Moses, Emily Mann and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.