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She enjoyed it—to some extent. “It’s the most fun 9-to-5 job that I can think of, really,” she says. “Especially with science-fiction and fantasy books, you get to look at art, these crazy paintings, and you’re reading about goblins and mages—and that’s really fun. But I wasn’t happy. I was still crying on my lunch breaks. So that was the clue that I was supposed to be pursuing other things.” Chlumsky enrolled in the Atlantic Acting School’s intensive summer “boot camp” program and knew from day one that she was back in the right place. “It’s a real gift to be a part of the storytelling tradition and to be the conduit of good text to the audience,” she says. Fresh out of training, Chlumsky performed Shake- speare—Isabella in “Measure for Measure”—in a church basement in Queens. Later she scored an appearance on “30 Rock” and, in a true sign of “making it” for an East Coast actor, a role on “Law & Order,” playing an erotic novelist who had been assaulted by a TV show host. “I got to be that official New York actor,” Chlumsky quips, “who when you read the Playbill there’s like 100 ‘Law & Order’s on there.”

SECOND BANANAS Anna Chlumsky and Julia Louis- Dreyfus, who plays U.S. Vice President Selina Meyer in “Veep”

‘Uh-huh—let me see that contract first,” she adds, with just a smidge of playful sarcasm. HBO’s “Veep,” which stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as U.S. Vice President Selina Meyer and is now in its third season, was inspired by In the Loop. Chlumsky plays the VP’s chief of staff, Amy Brookheimer, one of the more pulled-together characters on a show with no shortage of frayed nerves, short tempers, preposterous situations, cutting one-liners and unprintable expletives. But even though the show is laugh-out-loud funny, Chlumsky doesn’t believe it’s all just fun and games. “It’s actually taking a look at some- thing that I think is very true and real. These She got her second big post-sabbatical break in 2009, people who are expected to be perfect—and are trying to when she landed a part in In the Loop, the political satire be perfect—aren’t. They’re children.” by Scottish director Armando Iannucci about the run-up to It’s a point of view that resonates with the very people a war in the Middle East. “It was heaven,” Chlumsky says “Veep” is sending up. Last year Louis-Dreyfus had lunch with of acting in a film that would get an Oscar nod for best actual U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, and certain members adapted screenplay. “It was the best thing I’d done. I loved of Biden’s staff introduced themselves as the “Dan,” “Amy” it, and I would write in my journals, ‘Can’t I just work for or “Sue” of the office. “People who are consultants or fans Armando Iannucci again?’ in D.C. say all the time to us, ‘You have no idea how right “So when the pilot for ‘Veep’ [created by Iannucci] you’re getting it,’” Chlumsky says. “It’s frightening, it’s came along, and Arm was like, ‘We want you,’ I was like, troubling—but we may as well laugh.” HAIR��JOHN�RUDIANT�@�ANNA@SEEMANAGEMENT�COM�� MAKE-UP��KIM�BOWER�@�CROSBY@CROSBYCARTERMGMT�COM�� LOCATION��THE�ROOKERY��THEROOKERYBAR�COM��LACEY�TERRELL��STILL�

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