'Veep' Star Reid Scott Knows Dan Egan Is "Just Awful" — But He Loves Him Anyway

When celebrities hang out with Bustle editors, we want to give them the chance to leave their mark. Literally. So we hand them a pen, a piece of paper, a few questions, and ask them to get creative. The rest is up to them. This time, Veep star Reid Scott is leaving his mark in the Bustle Booth.

The genius of HBO's political comedy Veep is that every character in Selina Meyer's entourage is a unique brand of terrible. But aside from maybe Jonah (Timothy Simons), Reid Scott's character Dan Egan might be the absolute worst of the bunch. Sitting in Bustle's offices just days before the final season's premiere, Scott sheepishly agrees that his character is "just awful." Not that that was really up for debate: Just minutes into the Season 7 premiere, Dan tells Amy (Anna Chlumsky), whom he's gotten pregnant, that he's down to "go Dutch" on the abortion. "Just hit me up on Venmo. Make it public, it shows I'm a gentleman," he tells her as he walks off.

As disgusting as that is, Scott can't help but recite the line back to me with a huge smile on his face when I ask him how he channels his inner dirtbag. It's like he can't believe the show has gotten away with — and been awarded for! — its uniquely twisted brand of vulgarity. Still, as Veep comes to an end, Scott can't help but marvel at the fact that he got to be on such a successful show, and become close friends with "legends" like Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Gary Cole, and his own personal comedic hero growing up, Matt Walsh. "I keep pinching myself," he says. "It's so beyond, we go on vacations together, our kids play together," Scott says of the bond between the cast members.

Although he's played all sorts of characters over the years, Scott's been typecast a bit, as evidenced by his most recent roles in Great News and the upcoming Late Night. Scott helpfully jumps in as I struggle to find the perfect words to describe the type of dude I'm thinking about. "I'm making a career out of the privileged white prick, it’s a very important archetype. We don’t want to forget about the poor privileged white pricks," he jokes. Exactly. "He’s the worst guy ever," Scott says of Dan.

Still, it's "cathartic" for him to play such an extreme level of asshole, given that "doing weird" (and Dan Egan is a weirdo deep down) is what Scott likes to do best. "I try to think of myself as more of a character actor than anything else," he says. "Nothing bores me more than just a straight up leading man." After thinking a bit he adds, "If it was up to me I’d play, like, Gollum."

Hey, why not? Check out Reid Scott's answers to our Bustle Booth questionnaire below.