Kate Walsh

This is the interview prep I wrote for Kate Walsh's segment in the Hillary Clinton campaign content. The interview was filmed, but never deployed. I'm keeping it on the project page because the document still shows the work, and because the work is honest about what was filmed, not just what was used.

What this captures is a different surrogate, a different angle, a different argument. Kate taught English in Japan before she acted, so we open on patriotism through the lens of having lived abroad. She worked with Shonda Rhimes, so we ask about being mentored by a woman who reinvented what television could be. The personal question in the middle is the one I'm proudest of writing. I told her where I grew up, a town of 123 people in South Georgia, and asked her about coming from Tucson and working at Dairy Queen. That kind of question only works if the person asking has skin in it too.

Pay attention to the Josh Gad reference. Both interview lists reference his statement about the war on decency, but Kate's version adds "Because we go high, let's not mention he who must not be named." That's a 2016 artifact. That's how the campaign was talking about the opposition in those final weeks. The document is dated by its own restraint.

The voter outreach scripts at the bottom are identical in structure to the Dunham version, swapped only on the name. That's how campaign content scales.

For anyone reading this who's worked in production, scrapped material is part of the job. Some pieces don't make it to viewers. That doesn't mean they didn't shape the work that did.