‘Scandal’ stars Kerry Washington and Tony Goldwyn revisit their favorite Olitz moments

Ironically, the first time Kerry Washington and Tony Goldwyn met, he was the president. Well, co-president … of The Creative Coalition.

“I feel like there’s such a beautiful poetry to (the fact) that we were campaigning in Washington together,” Washington says. “We were walking up and down the halls of Congress asking for more money for the arts and humanities. And you were co-president of The Creative Coalition at the time, so you were already in your executive office.”

The duo met through their political activism years before they’d become one of the most beloved couples in Shondaland as fixer Olivia Pope and POTUS Fitzgerald Grant on Scandal. “I had been a really big admirer of Kerry’s work. I just thought she was fantastic,” Goldwyn says. “Every time I’d see her in a movie I’d be like, ‘Who’s that actress? I got to see who that is.'”

So when Scandal creator Shonda Rhimes asked Goldwyn if he was interested in running the fictional Oval Office, he was sold. “When she said it was with Kerry, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been dying to work with her,'” Goldwyn remembers. “It was surprising when we started working together. We just vibed as actors. So I think we were like, ‘Wow, this works.’ It had that magical quality to it.”

In celebration of 20 years of Shondaland, Washington and Goldwyn reunited for a conversation with Entertainment Weekly looking back at their favorite Olitz moments.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When you mentioned that moment of you guys being like, “Wow, this works,” was that pretty early on?

TONY GOLDWYN: It was immediate. I remember in the pilot there were two scenes that stood out out to me. There was one of me and Kerry and Jeff Perry walking down a path in the woods and there was this thing about Jeff saying, “The band’s back together again,” or something like that. And the three of us felt like old friends, even though none of us knew each other very well. And then that great scene in the Oval Office when you realize that Fitz and Olivia have a history and Jeff walks in on us kissing. There was this electricity between us and also between the three of us.

KERRY WASHINGTON: I remember talking to your manager at a party a couple nights before our camera test and being super excited that you were in. Maybe a couple weeks before. And then at the camera test, I remember us both coming on set in our hair and makeup and they were like, “You guys just stand next to each other on camera.” And everybody in the room got weirdly quiet and they were like, “Holy s—.” We were just standing around chatting on camera, but everybody was like, “What’s happening?”

GOLDWYN: What was funny immediately was we just vibed as people and actors. Right?

WASHINGTON: Yeah, instant friends.

GOLDWYN: Very at ease with each other.

WASHINGTON: Yeah, completely. And I think a big part of that comes from how much respect — I’ll only speak for myself — how much respect I had for you going into it. And it felt mutual. If it wasn’t, you’re a better actor than I thought.

GOLDWYN: No, it wasn’t. I was just pretending. (Laughs)

WASHINGTON: (Laughs) Yeah, exactly. I feel like respect goes a long way when it comes to chemistry.

GOLDWYN: I think that’s right. The other thing that was interesting about our approach to the work, romantic or not, whatever the context of the scene, Kerry and I never had to really talk about what we were doing in a scene. We always just seemed to have the same perspective on it.

WASHINGTON: Oh, true.

GOLDWYN: It was weird. With some actors, you’re like, “So what do you think about this?” But Kerry and I just were like, “Yeah, we’re good.” We just did it. It was always a nonverbal kind of understanding of our approach. It was cool.

WASHINGTON: Is it okay if I tell the story about when we realized we…

GOLDWYN: (Laughs) Yes.

WASHINGTON: So we were doing some scene and I specifically remember we were lying in bed just chatting while they were setting up lights. I don’t even remember what you said, but Tony said something that I was like, “Wait, what did you just say?” And I said, “Oh, that’s so crazy that you just said that because that’s something that my therapist says.” And he was like, “Who’s your therapist?” And we realized that we had the same therapist.

GOLDWYN: This therapist speaks in a very specific kind of vernacular. And we were using that vernacular.

WASHINGTON: We were like, “Wait a second.” It explained so much. We had this emotional shorthand that we didn’t know where it came from, but when we got that information it was like, we truly are speaking the same language.

GOLDWYN: Yeah, that’s right. That was so funny.

That’s amazing. I’d love to talk about a couple specific Olitz scenes, the first one being the introduction of “one minute,” which feels like the ultimate test of your chemistry, to have no dialogue. What do you remember about that experience?

WASHINGTON: It was so great. I remember the table read and it said, “They just sit there for one minute.” And this is not like an edited minute. It’s an actual entire minute of television where they’re just going to sit together. And what a treat as an actor to have that. Especially in television, but honestly in any context, to have the space and time to just sit and be. To be able to do that in real time as the characters, it just spoke so clearly about their comfort with each other too, because they didn’t have to do anything. They could just truly be together. So it’s really special.

GOLDWYN: Yeah. And because we’re very comfortable with each other, it was easy. It was a very cool opportunity. Was the first one on the couch in your apartment, Kerry?

WASHINGTON: It was. And it was when we were, we hadn’t built my apartment on stage yet, so it was that actual apartment on Rossmore.

It also really stood out on this show, which was known for its fast-paced dialogue.

GOLDWYN: The big thing about Scandal is (Shonda) beat us up in the first season about pace and speed and she called it “Scandal Pace” and she was sending us emails, “You guys have to talk faster.” She said, “The only time this show slows down is when Fitz and Olivia are together. Then it slows down.” Everything else goes like a bat out of hell. Isn’t that right, Kerry?

WASHINGTON: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Because weren’t they 60-something page scripts that you guys had to get into 43 minutes?

WASHINGTON: That is correct.

GOLDWYN: Yeah. She also did a lot in the cutting room. She did a lot of rewriting in the cutting room so she always overshot. But she also wanted us to speak much faster than we normally would.

WASHINGTON: I think part of it, too, was the faster we spoke, the smarter we sounded. Because we weren’t having to stop and think about things. We only stopped for feelings. We didn’t stop for thought.

GOLDWYN: That’s generally a pretty good rule of acting.

The other scene we have to talk about is the rose garden — “I wait for you, I watch for you.” It’s pretty much the opposite of the minute of silence, as you scream at each other. I’m curious what you remember about that one.

WASHINGTON: I feel bad for men sometimes when I think about that scene because Tony’s everything. He says everything you ever want a man to say to you. I was like, “Good luck, fellas.” (Laughs)

GOLDWYN: (Laughs) I feel like that might have been the first big fight we had.

WASHINGTON: I think so, in a way, yeah.

GOLDWYN: Again, we just had fun working together so it was one of those things where we just let it rip. It was just fun to have Shonda write these really meaty scenes. And Tom (Verica) directed that. Verica was just such a great director and it always felt like there were three of us in the scene. I felt lucky to do it.

WASHINGTON: We really understood each other and understood the characters. So there was also this safety in taking these big emotional swings. It’s cool to love somebody so much and be angry at them. We think of those as opposite ideas, but that’s the complexity of being a human, right? And so that’s the kind of thing that Shonda lets you do. She writes these characters who are madly in love with each other and horribly angry with each other, and that those two things can be true and that you can figure out how to play it all within the space of a scene. It’s incredible.

GOLDWYN: Yeah, we had some really great ones. A few months ago, I did Katie (Lowes) and Guillermo’s (Díaz) podcast talking about the episode, which it was years later, when we broke up. I can’t remember the exact story, but I remember we had another epic battle in our bedroom.

WASHINGTON: Oh, yeah. It’s when Olivia has the abortion and didn’t want to tell you.

GOLDWYN: Oh, yes, it was that episode. We had this big fight and at the end of it, we ended up sitting on this cushion at the foot of the bed, this bench, agreeing that it just isn’t going to work between us.

WASHINGTON: Oh, it’s so devastating.

GOLDWYN: We had a few of these really amazing scenes. The other one in Vermont that Ava DuVernay directed. There was just so much contour to those scenes that she would write for us. It was so cool.

WASHINGTON: Have I ever told you the story that I worked with Ava on that Apple commercial? And she called me before and she was like, “Hey, you have a side, right? Like I shouldn’t shoot you on your left or your right?” And I was like, “Oh God, no. You can put the camera wherever you want, I don’t care.” And she was like, “No, Kerry, I really specifically remember when we were shooting on Scandal, you have a side.” Then she called me back two hours later and she was like, “I remember what it was. You were pregnant so I couldn’t shoot you below the chest.” Remember we were doing all those love scenes? The camera’s in the full circle around us and coming off the helicopter and all that. But she couldn’t shoot me below the chest because I had this baby bump.

GOLDWYN: That crazy love scene we did that was quite intimate with the camera going. You were pregnant.

WASHINGTON: I was four months pregnant. So insane.

GOLDWYN: There were a lot of flower boxes in front of Kerry.

WASHINGTON: Yes. Suitcases, boxes.

GOLDWYN: That’s amazing.

Those were my two moments, but are there any other Olitz moments that stand out for you?

WASHINGTON: I have two. When we did that alternate reality episode where we had a wedding, I always think that’s super special that Shonda gave that to fans. But I often remember this scene, I don’t know why, Tony, but the scene I think about often is in “The Trail” when you’re preparing to go out somewhere and I’m tying your tie. I think it’s because I had to learn how to tie a tie backwards. (Laughs) But it was that great thing of the actor business gives you something so clear to distract you, to put you in the scene in a really grounded way. And it was just such a telling behavior that I was tying your tie on the campaign trail. It spoke so much about the relationship and the history and what we offer each other and who we are to each other. And yeah, I just remember being like, “Oh God, I don’t know how to tie a tie.” But it led to such a really nice dynamic that felt so real.

GOLDWYN: Yeah. That’s great. The one that always sticks to me, I guess it was a sort of epic moment, I don’t know, but on that same episode, “The Trail,” sitting on the bus together.

WASHINGTON: Oh my God. Yeah.

GOLDWYN: And the hands. It felt so simple and real that these two people had this love affair secret that was going to rock their lives.

WASHINGTON: And that came back. It was so impactful on all of us that (Shonda) would keep bringing back those finger moments throughout.

GOLDWYN: Shonda called it finger banging or something. (Laughs)

WASHINGTON: (Laughs) Something like that. We were like, “We thought it was more romantic, but okay. Way to reduce it, Shonda.”

GOLDWYN: The other one that was especially fun for me was when I directed the show and got to go to OPA. The White House was a very a grown-up environment. Then there was Olivia Pope and Associates and it was like being in middle school. They would all be goofing around and laughing hysterically. And I was suddenly dad and I would have to be like, “Stop talking.” And what I did was they would never stop talking, so I would just roll the camera and go, “Action.”

WASHINGTON: We would have to tell people, “You know what Tony does? He doesn’t try to get us to stop talking. He just yells action and we’ll fall into line.” But yeah, the magic of OPA was that teamwork and the synergy and the creativity, and there always had to be high stakes at OPA. And also for some reason our scenes were always Friday night at 2 a.m. so we were giddy and loopy and it was definitely a challenge. I felt like, “Oh God, Tony’s seeing a side of me that he’s never seen. We’ve worked on this show together for two years, but he’s never seen the silly, goofy OPA version of this person.”

GOLDWYN: It was great. I felt very lucky to have that.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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