Trump inspires TV comedy
Former Monk star Tony Shalhoub didn’t have to look far for inspiration for his role as Senator Red Weatus in the new political satire Brain Dead, screening on The Zone this week
‘‘Ted Cruz, without the evangelical side, and definitely Trump is in there,’’ says the 62-year-old actor, who won three Emmys during his eight seasons as Adrian Monk, the brilliant San Francisco detective with an obsessive compulsive disorder.
The series is the latest offering from Robert and Michelle King, the powerhouse writers behind The Good Wife, who came up with the idea during the 2013 government shutdown of Washington.
A cross between the West Wing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the plot revolves around alien bugs eating the brains of Capitol Hill workers and politicians.
The series also stars 10 Cloverfield Lane‘s Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a fresh-faced Washington staffer who first becomes aware of the alien invaders and Aaron Tveit as Republican chief of staff Gareth Ritter.
Shalhoub says the horrors of the American political landscape meant that the time was right for the show. ‘‘People are becoming kind of numb I think to the realities [of politics].
‘‘Things are getting weird and scary so we need, we really need, to laugh here,’’ he says, describing Brain Dead as tame and benign when set against the reality of the 2016 presidential race.
‘‘We are steeped in this endless election cycle ... It gets more and more strange and preposterous,’’ Shalhoub says.
His Senator Weatus is one of the first characters to succumb to the alien invaders and his is relishing the chance to play another uniquely quirky part.
‘‘It’s more interesting I think for me to play something that feels like it hasn’t been done before,’’ he says of a character who changes from a heavy-drinking, fun-loving Republican to a healthconscious, hard-line extremist.
But while Weatus becomes a fitness freak, Shalhoub describes his own relationship with the gym as ‘‘intermittent’’.
‘‘I go through periods of becoming, yeah, obsessed and then becoming repelled,’’ he says.
And repelled might well sum up some viewers’ feelings towards the bugs as they wreck havoc, either taking over their hosts or exploding their heads in all the gory, comic horror of a sci-fi classic.
Shalhoub though is enthusiastic abut the alien invaders, proudly displaying shots of them on his mobile phone while warning, ‘‘please don’t scroll through the photos’’.
As to the bugs’ ultimate aim, and whether they make for a better person, he says, ’’I do like the new Red. I like it because he’s fearless. He gets restored. He becomes smarter, sharper more politically savvy.
‘‘We’re not privy as to what the end game of the bugs really might be. I want to think the bugs are here to help. I want to believe that.’’
Brain Dead starts Tuesday, July 26, 8.30pm, The Zone.