BRADLEY WHITFORD

The Valley of the Boom star on cheese curds, technology and growing up a Quaker By Samuel R. Murrian

Two-time Emmy-winning actor Bradley Whitford, 59, is best known for playing White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman on the NBC drama The West Wing. But he’s knocked it out of the park in recent film and TV hits The

Post, Get Out, Destroyer and The Handmaid’s Tale, and stars in National Geographic Channel’s new docudrama series

Valley of the Boom (Jan.13), which explores the tech boom of Silicon Valley in the 1990s. The Madison, Wis., native plays James L. Barksdale, the former CEO of Netscape. Engaged to

Transparent star Amy Landecker, Whitford has three children— Frances Genevieve, 21, George Edward, 19, and Mary Louisa, 16, with his first wife, actress Jane Kaczmarek.

What makes a show about the ’90s tech boom relevant today?

George Orwell was afraid people were going to burn books. Aldous Huxley correctly was worried that people would not read books anymore and it wouldn’t matter. Technology is a massive reorganization of how we deal with each other and how we communicate, and how we carry on our civil discourse— or uncivil discourse.

Do you think the ’90s tech boom improved our lives?

I think our ways of communicating have exploded. Are we as a culture communicating better? No! [Laughs] Right now, we are living in the information age instead of the wisdom age, which is too bad.

What were your Sundays like growing up?

My family was Quaker. We would go to a Quaker meeting, which is kind of where I got interested in politics. It was all about public service. And then the regular stuff: raking leaves and watching football. I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and I would sell Cokes at football games—but that was Saturday, not Sunday.

What’s a perfect Sunday today?

A lot of rest, a lot of kids, a lot of dogs—and knowing that you’re going to have an easy Monday that you don’t have to prepare for [laughs].