Allison Janney on The Diplomat season 3, season 4 preview

Sweet sixteen, indeed.

For her role as the manipulative President Grace Penn in Netflix’s The Diplomat, Allison Janney scored her 16th Emmy nomination — positioning her to add to her already impressive collection of seven trophies. With that success rate (she also has an Oscar and Golden Globe for I, Tonya and two Tony nominations), it’s little surprise that the ubiquitous actress never seems to stop working — whether on stage or screen, both big and small. This season alone saw her in three contenders, ranging from the dramatic political potboiler than earned her the acting nod, along with the tearjerker TV movie Miss You Love You, while also proving her comedic chops yet again in Apple TV’s hilarious Palm Royale.

Janney may have only joined The Diplomat in its second season, but her character has more than made up for lost time — proving herself to be a remarkable foil to Keri Russell’s Kate, especially in the third season, where she named Kate’s husband, Hal, her vice president, undermining Kate’s political power along with her marriage. And then there’s Grace’s own marriage — to fellow West Wing alum Bradley Whitford — which delighted fans but also proved its own minefield.

Here, Janney diplomatically unpacks the political and personal twists of the hit series — and reveals what’s in store for the “wild” upcoming fourth season.

Gold Derby: You are the busiest woman in Hollywood, between The Diplomat, Palm Royale, and Miss You, Love You — to name a few. What makes you say yes to a part?

Allison Janney: For The Diplomat, I watched the first season having no idea that I was going to be asked to be part of the second season or to play Grace Penn. I was just a huge fan of the show. The minute I saw Kate (Keri Russell) beating Hal (Rufus Sewell) up in the bushes, I was like, oh my God, this is exactly what I wanted. It’s just delicious relationship stuff in a political world — and such smart writing. Debora Cahn, of course, was a writer on The West Wing, so I knew it was going to be good when I knew she was involved. And then I got the call from her, and I said yes before she even finished, because I thought, God, yes, I would love to be part of a show like that. It’s so smart, so fun, so powerful and political and funny — and her ability to write the personal and the public sides of a relationship, and to watch those dynamics and power shifts happen, is so much fun to play. So that’s why I took it.

I was doing Palm Royale at the same time, and those women just delight me — those socialite women who are interested in maintaining their standing in society. It’s so important to them, and it’s also silly. But I love it, and I love the ’60s, the costumes, and the hair. It’s so glamorous. Getting to play those two parts — I was flying back and forth to do both, one in New York and one in California. It was a lot of traveling, but a lot of fun. And thank God the two characters were so completely different that I didn’t get confused. It worked out really well, even though it was a lot to do.

So what makes me say yes? Definitely the writing is one of the most important things to me, and then who the people are that I’m going to be working with. Keri Russell I just adore, and Rufus [Sewell] and Debora. And on Palm Royale, Carol Burnett and Kristen Wiig — I can’t imagine ever saying no to working with either of those people.

And then there’s someone named Bradley Whitford. I think I’ve heard of him.

[Laughs] Yeah, I think I’ve heard of him too. That was so smart of her. I think she was a little nervous about bringing him on because of the West Wing connection, but it was fun for everyone to see. These characters are so completely different from the C.J. and Josh characters. And it was kind of genius, because it gave Brad and me — playing these two characters — this whole history together as actors that we brought into the world of Grace and Todd. They have a marriage, they know each other well, and Todd’s the only person who knows Grace from before she was into politics, before she was president. He knows that side of her. So that was a great element to bring into Season 3. You see all sides of Grace and Todd, and you continue to see the sides of Hal and Kate, and how huge the power shifts are. They’re either hating each other, loving each other, or misunderstanding each other. It’s all going on at the same time, which makes it a lot of fun to play. It’s so rich.

How much did Debora know, or tell you, about where Grace was going to go?

She didn’t tell me anything. I had no idea. At the end of Season 2, I read that all of a sudden Grace is president — I threw the script across the room. I was just shocked and so delighted by that ending. So I had no idea where I was going or where I was ending up in Season 3. And Season 4 is wild. She’s constantly bringing new things in and surprising me and delighting me. It’s a ride. I hope it doesn’t end too soon. It’s pretty great.

How much is she able to write to you, given your shared history going back to The West Wing — knowing your skill set as an actor?

I’ll tell you one thing. There are lots of things she gives me because she knows I can handle lots of dialogue. I love that — getting my mouth around it and spitting it out and doing what I need to do. But I also love that she trusts us. She wrote a scene for me and Brad that had no dialogue whatsoever, and that’s a huge thing when a writer does that for her actors. It’s like, no, I know these guys — they can handle this. There are no words, but you know the relationship, and you see it just in their physicality and how they relate to each other. That was a beautiful scene to get to play. So I like to think she knows what I can handle — like the map scene she wrote for me. That was a huge chunk of stuff, like patting your stomach and rubbing your head at the same time. That was crazy. She likes to give me challenging things to act, and I’m like, bring it on, girl, let’s do it.

Did she sit down with you at the top of the season and say, here’s where it’s going to go? Or are you getting scripts hot off the press?

Hot off the press. We get them, we read them, we have the table read, we discuss them. I go, “Wow, okay, this is happening,” and I totally trust her. I don’t have meetings with her where I discuss where I think Grace should go. She’s got the wheel. Actually, here’s the better analogy — she built the car, and I get to drive it.

So in your mind, what motivates Grace?

Well, now that she’s president — thrown into the role of the presidency — she wants to live up to the job. It’s her moment. She didn’t think it was going to come this way, but she is now president of the United States, and damn it, she’s going to do a great job. When we did that swearing-in scene, it was very emotional for us because it was soon after the recent election. There was a lot of emotion behind seeing a woman getting sworn in as president, and it made me very emotional. There’s so much scrutiny she’s under from so many people, underestimating her, judging her. She can’t afford to look like she doesn’t know if she made the right choice. She has to have the burden of certainty. It’s a lot, and she wants to do it right. That’s what’s driving her through everything — wanting to be this president.

Is she a good president, in your mind?

I don’t like to judge my characters at all. I feel that she’s a woman who is not afraid to make tough choices. When she made the choice about the HMS Courageous, it was a tough decision, but she thought something extreme was necessary to avoid an even worse conclusion. That’s the whole beginning of Season 3 — her realizing, in the Amagansett episode, that she has to own up to it. It was her decision, and she needs to own up to it. And then the whole plot develops of her blaming it on Rayburn. I think that’s hard for her to live with morally, but she gets more comfortable with it, realizing that it’s going to help her stay president.

She’s someone who is not afraid to take chances, take risks — in her mind, “the ends justify the means” kind of things. I think she sees that Hal is more aligned with her than Kate is, which is part of the reason she picked Hal as her vice president. I’m sure there’s a little pettiness involved there too, but I think it was the right decision, because they’re both people who are able to say one thing publicly and then, behind closed doors, be doing something a little devious — morally questionable — to get the right outcome. Kate is not a character who could do that. So Grace knows what she’s doing by picking Hal. Which is what threatens her relationship with her husband, because she’s so close with Hal — they’re really finding they’re like-minded politicians.

And the dynamic with Kate is just, oh my God — she hates her so much, but she knows she’s useful. She has to keep her around. All those scenes are so fun to play with Keri. She absolutely can’t stand that she needs her so much. It’s so fun to hate her.

It does seem like there’s so much acting Olympics going on, because you can really see she can’t reveal what she’s thinking — there’s three-dimensional chess going on all the time with all these plot twists.

Yes, so many different currents running through Grace at the same time. There’s the Grace who knows that her husband knows who she is and might be judging what she’s doing, and there’s the presidential Grace who can’t show that she’s anything but certain about everything she’s doing, and the relationship with Hal — she’s always being watched. It was fun to find moments where I could show the TV audience something that was going on that she wasn’t sure about, but the people in the room don’t know.

What were some of those moments for you?

Now I think I might be thinking of Season 4 things right now. I know there are moments like that in Season 3 — I can’t think of a specific one right now. I just remember always knowing that there was something I wanted to make sure the audience knew, but the people in the room don’t. Making the decision to blame Rayburn, but not owning up to it — things like that, the secrets she has to keep and doesn’t want anyone to know. Sorry, I can’t be more specific.

There’s the Season 3 finale — especially that final moment where they’re taking all the photos together, and you see them looking at each other.

Yeah, when Hal tells her that Kate knows what they’ve done with the nuclear weapon — it’s such a powerful one. Kate is horrified to see that they are together. They have used her, and she knows it, and it’s terrifying for her. She’s probably looking at the end of her marriage, and we are looking at a new partnership that is aligned and dangerous.

What questions should we be asking going into Season 4?

Well, we know the relationship between the U.S. and the U.K. is at an all-time low, and there are some other things — the nuclear sub that could launch things, that could create more conflict with other countries. There are some pretty catastrophic things about to happen, I would say.

And on the personal front, how is the state of their marriages? Is Grace and Todd’s marriage OK?

I don’t think either of their marriages is doing well at all. That’s also a side you get to see in the show — Grace is absolutely, “You’ve got to get this man out of my sight, I can’t look at him, get him away from me.” She sends him away. He’s always wanting to help, and he’s getting in the way, making things more difficult for her, and she just wants him to go away. So their marriage is not doing well in this new dynamic. And neither are Kate and Hal — they’re both couples in the middle of new power struggles. Their relationships are in trouble. They’re not over, but they’re in trouble. It’s another layer that adds the personal side that most people don’t see in politicians — and that’s what’s so exciting, to show that side of things.

It just makes it a full, complete look at the whole lives of these people — personal and public. The best. So delicious. And it’s so rare to see a show get richer like this as it goes on. Normally shows start great and then peter off, and this show is just getting richer and deeper. I think that’s due to Debora and the other writers she works with. She’s just very smart. She knows how to tell a story, she knows how to tell relationship stories, and she knows how to write dialogue. There’s a really smart group of people behind the show. I don’t think they’ll ever disappoint. They haven’t disappointed in any of the seasons, and we just finished Season 4, which was no disappointment at all. It just keeps getting more exciting and thrilling.

What did you learn from the third season that you brought to the fourth? Are you getting to know Grace better as a character?

She goes through some big changes in Season 4. There are some things that happen to Grace that you haven’t seen before that are coming. Very, very big changes for Grace in Season 4. It was challenging and exciting and scary. That’s what I can tease about that.

Does she have people around her that she can trust? She parachuted into the middle of this without much backstory and without her own entourage.

I think what she discovers being president is how lonely it is at the top. It’s a very lonely place to be. She does have Todd as an anchor, even though the relationship isn’t particularly perfect right now — but she does have him. I don’t think she really has anybody else. She unfortunately needs Kate, which drives her crazy. She’s got smart people around her that she doesn’t necessarily trust, but she knows they’re smart. I think there’s a cost to her being this powerful, and I think she feels that.

What advice would C.J. Cregg give her?

Oh boy. I don’t think C.J. would be privy to the things that are going on with Grace. I think C.J. is more aligned with Kate than Grace. If she were the press secretary, she definitely wouldn’t be close to Grace. If she were chief of staff, I think she’d probably be replaced by someone willing to take more risks — because C.J. would play things by the book, wanting everything to be morally right, with her moral compass absolutely straight on. Grace is a different leader than C.J. C.J. would not be totally aligned with her.

But is it important for you? Like you said earlier, you want to find the good in your character. Is it important for you to find the humanity in Grace?

Yeah, I like to always be rooted in that. I think that when she made the decision that she wanted to own up to what she’d done — that’s her humanity right there. She really felt she was doing the right thing. She wasn’t making a reckless decision; she was really making the right decision, she felt. So I don’t think she has a problem owning up to it — but once the decision gets plotted to blame it on someone else, that takes things in a different direction for her. Hiding that, holding that secret underneath everything — it’s huge, it’s risky. And it’s almost like once she makes that decision, other hard decisions become easier. “Oh, okay, that happened and it worked, and I’m president.” Now she sees maybe that’s how you navigate in this world — you don’t have to be completely honest with everything. It’s definitely a big turn for her.

And I love that she didn’t think of it herself. I don’t even remember who thought of it — did Kate think of it, or did Todd? I think Kate thought of it. That’s why she needs Kate. Kate is willing to make the difficult decision. I mean, that’s a pretty ballsy thing to do, and that was Kate’s idea. So maybe choosing Hal was just petty.

I know Debora wouldn’t want to do another West Wing stunt-casting, but if you could bring over one other West Wing character or actor, who would be on your wish list?

Oh man, you’re getting me in trouble. Let me think — who would be good? Richard Schiff would be right. A little Toby Ziegler in there would be spicy. That would be an interesting choice. I love my cast from that show so much — they were family. That’s when we did 23 episodes a season. The eight-episode thing is great; it makes you have a bit of a life outside, able to do other things. But man, we were together a lot — a lot more than I ever spent with my own family. I love all those people so much. So yeah, I’ll go with Richard for now.

And what are you most looking forward to about the Emmys?

I’m going back to Broadway — I’m doing a show — so I’ll have to fly Sunday from rehearsal, go to the Emmys, and fly back to New York Monday night. I just hope the weather cooperates and I can get in there and be there, because it’s just fun to be in that room. It’s a great honor to be in that room, and it’s exciting.