If you’re not anxiously awaiting the premiere of USA Network’s Political Animals (premiering Sunday, July 15), you should be. And if you need the slightest extra nudge, TVLine here presents video of the luminous Carla Gugino (Sin City, Karen Sisco) detailing how her character, journalist Susan Berg, fits into the mix.
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A reporter for the (fictional) Washington Globe, Susan years ago cut her teeth — and claimed a Pulitzer — for exposing the nitty gritty of then-President of the United States Bud Hammond’s less-than-estimable bedroom behaviors.
With Hammond now out of office and ex-wife Elaine Barrish (played by Sigourney Weaver) serving as Secretary of State to the new POTUS (Adrian Pasdar), Gugino has leveraged keeping the lid on one explosive story about the Hammond clan into having full access to Elaine’s orbit — an arrangement the former First Lady is outspokenly not thrilled with.
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In this video preview, Gugino teases how Susan will wind up with her grasp on a new “story of the decade” as the result of her time spent with Elaine, though not without suffering some bruises to the ego along the way — courtesy of both Madame Secretary and the politico’s boozy, brassy mom played by Ellen Burstyn, who has a scene dressing down Gugino that had the crowd at a recent screening of the pilot howling with laughter/cheers. (You get only the slightest, sanitized taste of it here, at the 2:00 mark.)
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