Gold Standard: Watch: Tony Hale discusses ‘Veep’ (and serving Kate Upton)

Tony Hale will be dropping by The Times’ studio at 11 a.m. PDT on Thursday. Of course, we’ll be talking about the latest season of “Veep,” the HBO comedy that earned Hale a supporting actor Emmy last year and yet another nomination this year.

But we’ll also be venturing further afield into other areas of inquiry — namely, how did this job come about? Are the members of Lady Antebellum big fans of “Veep”? Did Hale ever work as a bartender while he was trying to make it as an actor? Would Kate Upton really get the best of him in a drinking game? And that neck tattoo ... it’s very becoming, for that sort of thing. Did Hale keep it for a while after the shoot just to mess with people?

And, again, yes, plenty of “Veep,” which just finished its third season in spectacular fashion. We won’t get into details here, but we will in the chat. So suffice to say, the show continued its superb storytelling as well as its rapid-fire delivery of insults and memorable one-liners.

“It used to be where people just kind of liked to sit in front of comedies and kind of medicate and not have to think,” Hale said recently at The Times’ Emmy comedy round table. “Whereas now, I mean, you look at a show like ‘Portlandia,’ it sticks a mirror to society, and you have to really pay attention. And story lines are now serialized with comedy, so it’s not always stand-alones — so where it used to be you just kind of numb yourself, now you really have to kind of focus on the jokes, and there’s a lot more depth.”

Twitter: @glennwhipp