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David Mandel: ‘Between takes, the cast and crew rushed to their phones’

The set of “Veep” was “deathly quiet.”

On election night, even with dozens of extras, the set drew to a hush as the evening wore on. 

{mosads}“Veep” showrunner David Mandel recalls that, as the results were coming in, the cast and crew were shooting a fake polling station set in the country of Georgia. In the episode, Selina Meyer — played by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus — is monitoring the election as Georgians vote for the first time. 

There were no TVs on set so, between takes, the cast and crew rushed to their phones.

“It seemed like every time we called cut, Julia would come sit down and [Hillary Clinton’s] chance of winning would drop down a few more percentage points,” Mandel said. “Then she would have to get up and go back and try to be funny.”

“It was just awful,” he continued. 

The renowned television producer and writer also recalled a stream of text messages from his wife telling him that she was trying to get their kids to go to bed, but they wanted to stay up to see Clinton win.