50 Fun Facts About Madam Secretary

Which Bad Boys and Deep Impact actress stars as Elizabeth McCord in the political drama Madam Secretary?

Téa Leoni played the secretary of state turned president for all six seasons and was also credited as a producer of the series.

Which real secretary of state, later a fifth-season guest star, partly inspired Madam Secretary, its producers said?

Hillary Clinton later revealed that she watched and loved the series, and her cameo came alongside two other former holders of the office.

In Madam Secretary, Elizabeth McCord gets her job after predecessor Vincent Marsh dies in what suspicious way?

A plane crash over the Atlantic killed Marsh, and McCord spends much of her first year proving that his own co-conspirators sabotaged the flight.

Which US broadcast network aired all six seasons of Madam Secretary on Sunday nights?

CBS ordered the pilot in January 2014 and extended the drama to a full 22-episode first season only weeks after its premiere.

Which Madam Secretary executive producer directed three season premieres and appears as Chief Justice Frawley?

Morgan Freeman executive-produced the drama with Lori McCreary and directed the opening episodes of seasons two, three and four.

Which real-life stateswoman played herself in Madam Secretary in both season two and a 2018 premiere?

Madeleine Albright, the first woman to run the State Department, came back for the fifth-season premiere with two fellow former secretaries of state.

Which Wings star plays Henry McCord, husband of the title character in Madam Secretary?

Tim Daly began dating the actress who plays his on-screen wife during the first season, and the two married in real life in July 2025.

Although Madam Secretary is set in Washington, D.C., in which city was the series primarily filmed?

New York hosted most of the shoot, with only some exterior filming done in the capital itself.

In season two of Madam Secretary, Elizabeth McCord helps end a decades-old US trade embargo on which country?

Cuba agrees to the deal once a fugitive 1960s revolutionary gives herself up, and the US reopens its embassy there after 54 years.

After losing his party's nomination in Madam Secretary, how does President Conrad Dalton win a second term?

As an independent, Dalton narrowly carries Ohio, which deadlocks the Electoral College and leaves the House of Representatives to hand him the win.

Before Madam Secretary begins, former CIA analyst Elizabeth McCord teaches political science at which college?

The University of Virginia is also where she studied mathematics and met her future husband, whom she married in 1990.

Which Cheers actress, a two-time Tony winner, plays chief of staff Nadine Tolliver in Madam Secretary?

Bebe Neuwirth, who won two Emmys as Lilith Sternin, left the drama three episodes into its fourth season.

Henry McCord, husband of the heroine of Madam Secretary, is a professor and scholar of which subject?

Theology is his field, yet the former fighter pilot keeps being pulled into intelligence work and later chairs military ethics at the National War College.

In which branch of the military did Henry McCord serve as an aviator before his academic career in Madam Secretary?

The Marines had him flying F/A-18 Hornets during Operation Desert Storm, and he left the service as a captain.

Which member of Elizabeth McCord's State Department team in Madam Secretary did she hire herself rather than inherit?

Blake Moran starts as her personal assistant, gets fired in the fifth season only to be rehired as a policy advisor, and ends up personal secretary to the president.

Which former spy and one-time student of Henry McCord marries Stevie McCord in the Madam Secretary finale?

Dmitri Petrov weds her in a White House ceremony officiated by former President Dalton, after their original venue burns down two days before.

What secret about the late Vincent Marsh does chief of staff Nadine Tolliver confess early in Madam Secretary?

They had an affair lasting six years, begun when Marsh was a senator from Illinois, which is why she is slow to warm to his replacement.

In the first season of Madam Secretary, Elizabeth McCord learns Vincent Marsh joined a coup plot against which country?

Iran was the target, and Marsh was murdered by his fellow plotters once he began to have doubts about the plan.

Which Emmy winner for Damages plays White House chief of staff Russell Jackson in Madam Secretary?

Željko Ivanek won that Emmy in 2008, and his Russell goes from clashing with McCord over her unorthodox methods to serving as her own chief of staff.

In the final season of Madam Secretary, an inquiry led by Senator Mark Hanson threatens Elizabeth McCord with what?

Impeachment is voted down by the House Judiciary Committee after one member storms out, calling the hearings a hatchet job.

Which Oscar-winning songwriter and Deadwood actor plays President Conrad Dalton in Madam Secretary?

Keith Carradine won his Oscar for writing the song I'm Easy for the film Nashville, and his Dalton was promoted from recurring role to main cast in season two.

Which Grey's Anatomy star joined Madam Secretary in season four as policy advisor Kat Sandoval?

Sara Ramirez arrived as a series regular just as the long-serving chief of staff departed, playing a former United Nations aide lured back into politics.

Which Tony winner for Pippin plays press coordinator Daisy Grant in Madam Secretary?

Patina Miller's real pregnancy was written into the show, and in the fourth season Daisy gives birth to a daughter named Joanna.

Which Mask and Pulp Fiction actor plays Elizabeth McCord's brother Will and directed many Madam Secretary episodes?

Eric Stoltz served as the drama's producing director and directed both the opening and the closing episode of its final season.

Which creator of Judging Amy and Joan of Arcadia also created the political drama Madam Secretary?

Barbara Hall wrote both the pilot and the series finale herself, and had earlier been a co-executive producer on the spy thriller Homeland.

Which Arizona senator, long a rival of Elizabeth McCord, becomes her presidential running mate in Madam Secretary?

Carlos Morejon refuses at first, but she argues that their habit of fighting and then compromising is exactly what makes them a strong ticket.

In Madam Secretary, which political fixer runs Elizabeth McCord's presidential campaign and is her first chief of staff?

Mike Barnow agrees to stay only for her first 100 days, then steps aside to become counselor to the president, the job he wanted all along.

In Madam Secretary, embracing which issue at Elizabeth McCord's urging costs President Dalton his party's nomination?

Climate change becomes the heart of a new foreign policy that breaks with the party line, and Pennsylvania governor Sam Evans takes the nomination instead.

Elizabeth McCord punches the groping president of which country in the Madam Secretary episode Break in Diplomacy?

Philippines diplomats were not amused: the embassy in Washington protested the trailer, which viewers read as a jab at Rodrigo Duterte, then the country's real president.

What diagnosis explains President Dalton's erratic behavior in the Madam Secretary episode Sound and Fury?

A brain tumor pressing on his frontal lobe is found after he insists on shooting down five satellites, and his deputy runs the country for two months.

Flashbacks in Madam Secretary show Elizabeth McCord offered the CIA station chief job in which Middle Eastern capital?

Baghdad was the post, and the first-season finale returns to her last week at the agency in 2005, when she walked away over an ethical dilemma.

In the Madam Secretary pilot, Elizabeth McCord uses back channels to free two American boys held in which country?

Syria holds the boys two months into her tenure, and she wins the president over after his chief of staff advises doing nothing about the kidnapping.

Why is Elizabeth McCord briefly sworn in as acting president in the second-season premiere of Madam Secretary?

Air Force One goes silent in what turns out to be a deliberate hack, and a chain of events leaves the secretary of state next in line to take the oath.

In Madam Secretary, which job does Conrad Dalton offer Elizabeth McCord for his re-election campaign?

Vice president is the offer he makes when she confronts him about lining up a new secretary of state, though the spot on the ticket finally goes to a Pennsylvania senator.

Which former Pennsylvania senator in Madam Secretary serves as acting president during President Dalton's medical leave?

Teresa Hurst holds the powers of the office for two months and, in that time, refuses to sign a Sri Lanka trade deal that McCord had fought to rescue.

Which country sends Elizabeth McCord a horse as an inauguration gift in the Madam Secretary episode Gift Horse?

Mongolia's gift backfires when China calls it a bribe, and a leak reveals that the horse she cannot accept would be killed if it were returned.

Which religious leader confides to Elizabeth McCord that he is dying in season three of Madam Secretary?

The Dalai Lama's visit so angers China that it threatens to sink the global environmental accord she is trying to close.

In Madam Secretary, a stowaway activist brings which disease to the US from thawing Siberian permafrost?

Smallpox first looks like a Russian attack, until former United Nations aide Kat Sandoval argues the thaw is to blame, an insight that wins her a job on the staff.

In Madam Secretary, a volcanic eruption strands Jay Whitman in which country, where he falls for a Dutch chess player?

Ireland's Shannon Airport is where the delegation sits out the ash from an Icelandic volcano, and after hours grounded together the pair agree to try a long-distance romance.

To curb rhino poaching, Elizabeth McCord's team in Madam Secretary plans an ad campaign for which drug?

Viagra is the staff's weapon against the rhino-horn trade: the idea is to shrink the market for horn so that poaching in Namibia stops paying.

After leaving office in Madam Secretary, former President Conrad Dalton gives an interview to promote what new project?

A children's album is the surprise, and during the same stay for his portrait unveiling he announces a new position with UNICEF.

Which long-stalled constitutional measure does President Elizabeth McCord propose again in the Madam Secretary finale?

The Equal Rights Amendment has the votes in Congress but divided public support, so she and Henry set off on a whistle-stop train tour to rally the country.

Which musician plays the first-dance song at the White House wedding in the Madam Secretary finale?

Peter Frampton plays Show Me the Way for the newlyweds, at a ceremony moved to the White House after the couple's venue burned down.

Before joining Elizabeth McCord's staff in Madam Secretary, Kat Sandoval had quit politics to farm which crop?

Avocados in California were her escape after she allegedly threw a chair at a difficult diplomat while working at the United Nations.

What does intern Stevie McCord do that saves Russell Jackson's life in the third season of Madam Secretary?

Stevie performs CPR when the White House chief of staff suffers a heart attack, and he is rushed into bypass surgery.

In Madam Secretary, Henry McCord's family gathers for his father's funeral in which city, his hometown?

Pittsburgh is where his father Patrick worked in steel, and where the family learns the old man had been catfished out of all his money.

In the Madam Secretary episode Night Watch, what actually triggers the alert of a massive incoming nuclear strike?

A simulation loaded on a backup server set off the alarm, and the counterstrike President Dalton had ordered was aborted at the last moment.

Nadine Tolliver retires from the State Department in Madam Secretary to be near her son in which city?

San Francisco draws her west once her son Roman announces that she is going to be a grandmother.

Which country ordered a ban on Madam Secretary after footage of one of its towns was captioned as a Chinese city?

Vietnam objected that footage shot in Hoi An was labelled as Fuling, China, and asked Netflix to pull the series from its local service.

Elizabeth McCord's brother Will Adams in Madam Secretary belongs to which humanitarian organization?

Doctors Without Borders is his calling, though in season three he brings his family to visit while interviewing for a job at Walter Reed Hospital.