True Blood, Grey's Anatomy and Felicity alum Scott Foley says the character he plays in the political dramedy, The Girls on the Bus, was inspired by former small-town mayor, 2020 presidential candidate and current real-life U.S. Department of Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.
"And he did it, and I wanted to know how he did it, and I was very interested in that process."
Wrapping up its first season on Max Thursday, the show follows the road-trip adventures of Grace (Carla Gugino), Kimberlyn (Christina Elmore), Sadie (Melissa Benoist) and Lola (Natasha Behnam) -- journalists with different reporting styles and backgrounds -- as they cover the presidential campaigns of fictional Democratic candidates, including Foley's Midwest mayor, Hayden Wells Garrett.
Co-starring Griffin Dunne, Brandon Scott, Hettienne Park and Mark Consuelos, the series was executive-produced by Amy Chozick and loosely inspired by her election-campaign memoir, Chasing Hillary.
Foley, who is from Kansas, said he was inclined to like Garrett when he learned they had similar upbringings, but he hesitated to take the role when he learned he was widely known as "Hot White Guy" among members of the media on the show."I thought, 'How do I say "yes" to that?'" he laughed.
"I think I graduated from being 'guy in the bleachers.' I gotta have a name," Foley said. "For me, there's something interesting about starting out a character as the American ideal, if you will.
Foley hinted that Garrett is harboring a dark secret about his success, and said he probably wouldn't vote for the fictional candidate if he were on a real ballot.
That's not to disparage Buttigieg's accomplishments or integrity in any way, he emphasized.
"I don't know what Buttigieg had to do to get to where he got," the actor said. "I like the way he talked. I like his policies. I like a bunch of stuff about him, but I don't know if he sold his soul. I have no idea."
After playing intelligence agents in dramas like Scandal and Whiskey Cavalier, the actor was happy to explore government machinations from a more comedic angle, both as an actor and a viewer.
"My wife [actress Marika DomiĆczyk] and I watched all 10 episodes in two nights, and I turned to her at the end, and she goes, 'Oh, my God, it's so good!'" Foley said.
Foley is happy the show came out in a presidential election year when incumbent Joe Biden will once again face-off with his predecessor, Donald Trump.
He said the biggest lesson he learned while making the series was how much political candidates and the media need each other.
"The things that every candidate has to do, the lengths to which they will go to have an article written about them, to get an interview done, to have people talk about them is so important to any political campaign," he added. "For me, with what's going on now politically, it opened my eyes quite a bit."
Foley said he also hopes the show makes viewers consider how they consume media, whom they trust and what news outlets' motives are.
"This does raise a lot of really smart questions," he said. "It's sort of made clear to me how difficult it is for the media to be truly objective. We are all human."
