Kerry Washington is convinced Scandal wouldn’t get the inexperienced gentle in today’s TV landscape with a Black actress in the starring feature.
The political drama, created by Shonda Rhimes, followed the memoir of Olivia Pope, a weak media consultant to the President of the United States.
It ran for seven seasons from 2012, and marked simplest the third time in American TV history that a Black woman had fronted a network drama, reports E On-line.
“No, 100 percent no. For so many reasons,” Kerry, 47, said all via a panel dialogue at the Bloomberg Screentime conference when asked if she plan it would get made today.
“I was in my early thirties at the time, so it hadn’t happened in my lifetime. I hadn’t seen it, and everybody called it a risk. The studio thought it was a risk, the network thought it was a risk. Everybody was proud of ABC (and) Disney for taking this risk.”
“I don’t know that it would have been greenlit with me, with a Black woman at the centre,” she added, calling today’s execs “risk-adverse”.
She further highlighted that Connie Britton was the actress first plan about for the part.
“Shonda Rhimes has talked about this publicly. When they first read the script, the executives were like, ‘This is a great role for Connie Britton.’ And I love Connie, but the show is inspired by a real woman named Judy Smith, who is a Black woman,” Kerry outlined.
“If it hadn’t been inspired by a real woman who is a Black woman, then everybody would have said, ‘Let’s make her white.’ You didn’t have the option to say that.”
