ABC/Byron Cohen(LOS ANGELES) — Kerry Washington admits that playing Olivia Pope on Scandal has been life-changing, and says the role LAO has also helped to open up the conversation about race.
Washington, who covers the May issue of Glamour, says her role on the hit ABC series has evolved dramatically since its start back in 2012.
“In the first season it was as if Olivia Pope was race-less,” Washington tells the magazine. “There was no denying that Olivia was a black woman, because I’m a black woman, playing her in bada** white trench coats that call to attention the fact that I’m not looking like anybody else on television. But we didn’t talk about her identity as a black person.”
Now, the actress says the show has evolved — and her character has evolved with it.
“[Since then] the writers have become more and more willing to deal with race,” Washington explains. “When Olivia was kidnapped, it was not lost on me that the fictional president of the United States was willing to go to war to save one black woman at a time when hundreds of black women were missing in Nigeria and we were begging the world to pay attention.”
According to Kerry, that particular storyline had a bigger meaning that just Olivia’s kidnapping.
“Shonda [Rhimes] was saying, ‘The life of a black woman matters.’ With her dad — he is trying to instill in her this generational learning about what it means to be a person of color in the United States,” says Washington. “And Olivia is at odds with balancing the truth of his understanding with her ability to achieve things he was never able to.”
The May issue of Glamour hits newsstands April 11.
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