'The Diplomat’s Bradley Whitford Teases Todd’s "Excruciating" Decision in Season 5
Taylor Gates is an Indiana native who earned her BFA in Creative Writing from the University of Evansville. She fell in love with entertainment by watching shows about chaotic families like Full House, The Nanny, Gilmore Girls, and The Fosters.
After college, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a writer, editor, and filmmaker. Today, she’s a sucker for dramedies — especially coming-of-age stories centering around complex female and LGBTQ+ characters. She has been with Collider since May 2022.
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Editor’s note: This interview contains spoilers for The Diplomat Season 4.
Summary
- Bradley Whitford discusses the complications that emerge from Todd getting a special envoy role.
- He also breaks down the complexity and surprising “optimism” of his marriage with Grace.
- Whitford teases the impossible predicament Todd will be put in during Season 5 after that shocking Season 4 finale.
Bradley Whitford is one of the most accomplished actors working today. Though best-known for starring as Josh Lyman in The West Wing, which earned him an Emmy in 2001, he’s also taken home two more trophies for Transparent and The Handmaid’s Tale. His iconic roles aren’t limited to TV, either. The actor has also starred in horror films like Get Out and The Cabin in the Woods, dramas like Saving Mr. Banks and tick, tick… BOOM!, and even comedies like Adventures in Babysitting and Billy Madison.
Whitford is returning to his political drama roots with The Diplomat — in more ways than one. The decorated actor plays Todd Penn, the husband of President Grace Penn, played by Allison Janney, whom he famously worked closely with on The West Wing. Season 4 sees a particularly juicy arc for Todd, as he’s given a special envoy position. It’s difficult to navigate for him, particularly because both his wife and US Ambassador to the UK Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) attempt to use him to their advantage. To make matters even more complicated, a traumatic event has Grace struggling to cope and making increasingly dangerous decisions for the country.
Collider got the chance to speak to Whitford about his work in the season. During the conversation, he breaks down Todd’s unique position with his new government role, reveals what he’s thinking during the final shocking moments of the finale, and whether Season 5 could see him committing a major act of betrayal.
Bradley Whitford Talks the Complications of Todd’s New Role in ‘The Diplomat’ Season 4
“He's definitely wobbling on the skates.”
COLLIDER: Todd's arc is so fascinating this season. We see him get the special envoy role, which Kate and Grace both try to use to their advantage. Do you think that he senses that they're both trying to use him as a pawn at times?
BRADLEY WHITFORD: I think he's so lost that he’s a little unaware of the conspiracy. The fun thing about this guy, I realized at the beginning of this year, is either he doesn't want to be in the scene or the other people don't want him to be there. It's just a really fun, kind of cringy thing to play around with. But what's great about it is Debora writes it so just when he gets to the edge of the cliff of dismissibility, you realize he's not an idiot. He's a very bright guy in a very disorienting position. I think he fell in love with Grace a long time ago, and he fell in love with her brilliance, and her ambition, and her strength. I think he just didn't realize he was suddenly going to have to play tambourine, and he doesn't quite know how to do it. He doesn't know how to protect her.
There's a moment in the season that got really sad to me. It's not really in the writing, but I felt like he realized, “You don't want me here.” He doesn't put it that way, and she doesn't put it that way, but [it’s there]. And there was something very real about it. It was funny to me because I'm in a rehearsal. My wife is visiting — who is incredibly loving and very supportive — and we were doing a run-through of a Broadway play, but right before we go into tech. And she's like, “Oh, can I come to the run-through?” And she's the most supportive person in the world, but there's a part of me that is like, “I want to get my feet first.” It would be like if you had your partner sitting off camera, looking at you with a partner's X-ray eyes while you interview me. It's uncomfortable, and it's a really delicate thing. There's a lot of fun stuff to play in this.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Netflix Character Would Be Your Best Friend? Dustin · Emily · Wednesday · Gi-hun
Some friends drag you out of the house. Some sit with you on the worst night of your life. Netflix has written both, plus the one who tells you the truth you have been avoiding all week. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually do friendship, and find out which of them was always going to end up in your corner.
🧢Dustin(Stranger Things)
🗼Emily(Emily in Paris)
🕷️Wednesday(Wednesday)
🟢Gi-hun(Squid Game)
01
How do you usually end up making a new friend? The origin story says a lot about the friendship that follows it.
02
What is a perfect Saturday with your best friend? Friendship is mostly built out of very ordinary hours.
03
You call them at two in the morning. What happens? This is the real test of a friendship, and everybody knows it.
04
What do you want from them when you are clearly wrong? The best friendships are the ones that survive being corrected.
05
What do your friends actually value about you? The friend you attract says something about the friend you are.
06
You have a falling out. How does it go? How a friendship repairs itself matters more than how it breaks.
07
What do you actually need a best friend for? Everybody is missing something. The right friend fills that gap.
08
Ten years from now, what keeps the two of you close? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who you get.
The Group Chat Has Spoken Your Best Friend Is…
Four Netflix characters, four completely different ways of showing up for somebody. This is the one who fits how you actually do friendship, and what having them in your life would be like.
Dustin Henderson
You do not do friendship at half volume, and neither does he. What you want is somebody who says yes to the plan before you have finished describing the plan.
- Dustin is the friend the entire show runs on: loyal past the point of sense, enthusiastic about everything, and incapable of leaving anybody behind.
- You have the same instinct. Your friendships are loud, specific and slightly ridiculous, and they last for decades because of it.
- He is also the one person who would take your strangest interest completely seriously, which is far rarer than it sounds.
- You would have a group chat. It would never once be quiet.
Emily Cooper
You are the friend who makes things happen, and so is she. Together you would be mildly exhausting to everyone around you and completely delighted with yourselves.
- Emily treats an ordinary Tuesday as something that could be turned into an occasion, which is either the best or the worst quality in a friend depending on your energy levels.
- You share her refusal to sit still. Neither of you has ever accepted a night in when something was happening somewhere else.
- She is far more loyal than people give her credit for. She defends her friends loudly, publicly, and occasionally before checking the facts.
- She would post the photo without asking. You would forgive her, because it is a very good photo.
Wednesday Addams
You have no patience for pleasant lies, and she has no ability to tell them. What looks like coldness from the outside is the most reliable friendship on this list.
- Wednesday never says a kind thing she does not mean, which makes the rare ones count for an enormous amount.
- You would rather be told the truth than be made comfortable. She is constitutionally incapable of offering you anything else.
- Underneath all of it she is ferociously protective. She simply refuses to make a performance out of caring.
- Do not expect a birthday message. Do expect her to ruin anyone who wrongs you.
Seong Gi-hun
You look after whoever is having the worst day. So does he. It is the least strategic way to move through the world and the best possible quality in a friend.
- Gi-hun is not the strongest player in Squid Game, or the cleverest. He is the one who keeps choosing to protect somebody else, over and over, at genuine cost to himself.
- You have the same instinct. You notice who is struggling and you stay with them, long after anybody would blame you for leaving.
- He is a flawed friend, and that is part of why it lands. He lets people down, then comes back and tries again, which is more than most manage.
- He would give you his last chance and never once mention that he had done it.
In Episode 6, Grace admits that she wants Todd in London because it's where she got shot, and she wants to show the British she isn't afraid of them, even though she is. What do you think is going through his mind at that moment?
WHITFORD: I think he understands. I think there's a joke he avoids about, “Oh, you're afraid to be here, but you’ll send me there?” I think the arc of the season, for him, is taking a big step, understanding he needs to go, her giving this opportunity, feeling incredibly uncomfortable in rooms where people don't want him, and now, on the other side of the ocean, sort of gaining some confidence, which precipitates a disastrous screw-up at the end. He's definitely wobbling on the skates.
Bradley Whitford Breaks Down What Todd Is Thinking in That ‘Diplomat’ Finale
“Todd will be put in a really excruciating position.”
Of course, the end of the finale sees Kate, Hal, Billie, and Miguel all resigning and walking out. Do you think there's any part of Todd that wants to follow suit?
WHITFORD: There's definitely part of him that does. [Laughs] But not really. I think it’s an irrational fantasy. [Beat] I don't think that's true. I actually think that, at the end, he's there with her. I think the entire year, he is worried about what happens at the beginning of the season adding to the difficulty for her having suddenly been jerked into the presidency while she's finding her feet.
It's interesting because it almost becomes a sexism thing. It occurred to me while we were doing it — I remember when Ronald Reagan was shot, and there was no question about his vulnerability. It was just grit. He made a joke in the hospital, and you didn't worry about it. What is it like when a woman gets shot? Even the women in this are worried about the first female president having her judgment thrown out of whack. It's an interesting sort of gender question, but I think aside from the gender question, I'm really worried about how she's making these huge geopolitical decisions, and whether her judgment has been disoriented by the way in which she became president, not to mention a shooting.
I'm curious, do you think there's ever any possibility that he will sort of join the side of Kate and Hal in Season 5? Or do you think his loyalty to Grace is too strong to ever betray her like that?
WHITFORD: It occurs to me that, when you put it like that, Todd will be put in a really excruciating position. Because I don't think he can ever abandon his loyalty to her, but I think he can not help but disagree with some of the decisions that she's making. It’s another wonderfully true marital dynamic. I always say that’s what's interesting and part of the magic sauce of this show is these incredibly complex, long-term marital relationships. They’re very fraught. At the end of the day, the show and Debora, I think, are very optimistic, about the way that all of us are idiots in relationships, even if we're diplomats or presidents.
I think about this because I have grown kids, and you look at them starting to have relationships, and you just want to say to them, “I have no advice. Everybody's a moron in this. Good luck. You're gonna end up hacking through the jungle with a dull machete like everybody else.” And that's the sort of fun of the show: their dispatch and expertise with these geopolitical problems, but they can't quite navigate sharing a bathroom.
The Diplomat Season 4 is streaming on Netflix.
- Release Date
- 2023 - 2023-00-00
- Network
- Netflix
- Showrunner
- Debora Cahn
- Directors
- Alex Graves, Andrew Bernstein, Simon Cellan Jones, Tucker Gates
- Writers
- Debora Cahn, Anna Hagen, Julianna Meagher, Mia Chung, Peter Noah, Eli Attie
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