WASHINGTON _ Suppose you're a commander in chief who's been invited to deliver a State of the Union address, then disinvited, but you're still determined to deliver the address as scheduled on Tuesday.
And you really want it to look like you're in the U.S. House of Representatives _ like last year, and like every other president for decades.
One place to seek inspiration: Hollywood.
The U.S. Capitol is off limits for filmmakers, except on the outside. But Hollywood has found ways around that _ some of which might provide some ideas for President Donald Trump as he searches for a suitable venue, now that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has shunned him until the federal government reopens.
"We will have a response to Nancy Pelosi in due course," he told reporters on Wednesday.
After all, the show must go on.
_ "MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON"
The 1939 Frank Capra classic starring Jimmy Stewart as the idealistic senator was filmed in ... Hollywood, except for outdoor shots.
Scenes in the Senate were filmed on a sound stage.
_ "LINCOLN"
The 2012 Steven Spielberg movie starred Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president.
It used the House of Delegates at the Virginia State Capitol as a stand-in for the U.S. House chamber, where much of the action takes place as lawmakers wrestle with emancipation and Civil War.
_ "HOUSE OF CARDS"
Before actor Kevin Spacey's scandalized fall from grace, his amoral Frank Underwood rose from congressman to president thanks to murder, treachery and Machiavellian conniving in "House of Cards."
The Netflix series filmed in Maryland. Interior shots of the U.S. Capitol were filmed at the state capitol in Annapolis and at a warehouse turned sound stage in Joppa.
_ "DAVE"
This 1993 movie starred Kevin Kline as Dave, the lovable owner of an employment agency who is a dead ringer for a rather despicable president. When the president has a stroke while cheating on the first lady, his chief of staff presses the doppelganger into service. Dave ends up enjoying the gig, firing the chief of staff, and calling in his CPA best friend to straighten out the government's books.
His address to Congress was also filmed at the Virginia state capitol in Richmond.
_ "VEEP"
HBO's "Veep" stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selena Meyer, a former senator who finds that serving as vice president isn't as great as she'd hoped.
The show used a sound stage in Columbia, Md., to re-create the House chamber before filming shifted from Maryland to Los Angeles.
_ "W."
Like many films set in Washington, the 2008 biopic starring Josh Brolin as George W. Bush relied on studios to re-create interior shots. "W." was shot mostly in Shreveport, La.
The film re-enacts the February 2003 State of the Union address in which Bush alleged that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
The accuracy of those 16 words would be debated for years.
_ GREENBRIER
It's not a movie, but there's an actual venue designed to host all of Congress, a four-hour drive west of the White House.
The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., has an underground bunker big enough to accommodate Congress because it was built as a hideout for Congress in case of nuclear war.
The existence of the bunker is no longer classified, and 90-minute tours are offered for $39 per person. Lawmakers often hold retreats at Greenbrier.
_ "IDIOCRACY"
The 2006 satire stars Luke Wilson as a soldier who wakes up 500 years in the future after a military experiment gone awry. Society has fallen apart thanks to fast food and reality TV. Famine has taken hold because advertising for the energy drink Brawndo has been so effective _ "Water is for toilets" _ that crops are failing. But Wilson, a dumb guy, in his own time, is now the most intelligent person alive. Spoiler alert: he eventually becomes president.
The movie was shot in Austin and other parts of Central Texas. There's a presidential address before the House of Representin' in which President Camacho, played by Terry Crews, brandishes a machine gun. Wherever that was filmed, it definitely wasn't the U.S. Capitol.
