PaleyFest: SCANDAL’s Kerry Washington Shares Memories of the Show’s Beginning, Reuniting with Henry Ian Cusick

SCANDAL was honored at PaleyFest on Sunday night, and during the panel — hosted by JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE’s Jimmy Kimmel — series star Kerry Washington (Olivia) reflected on the show’s very early days, and the cast’s immediate bond.

“We were all cast, except for Darby [Stanchfield (Abby)], and there was this big mystery about what actress was going to be in that role,” Washington recalled during the panel. “We were all at rehearsal when we got the call that the deal had closed and she was on her way. And I remember the feeling when Darby walked in of, ‘Okay, this is our team.’ That moment in a superhero movie, ‘All right, now we gotta go out and get this done.'”

And in those early days, it was a camera test that helped the SCANDAL producers realize the chemistry potential for Fitz and Olivia.

“Tony [Goldwyn (Fitz)] and I knew each other, oddly, from politics; we had worked together in Washington, but we hadn’t worked together as actors,” she shared. “We walked in front of the camera for camera tests, and we were chatting about politics, and I could hear and feel [SCANDAL creator] Shonda [Rhimes] and [executive producer] Betsy  [Beers] [chatting in the background]; they were so excited, and I thought, ‘Oh, they like what they see.’ And they got more and more excited, ‘Keep walking back and forth!’ And I thought, ‘There must be some chemistry here.'”

The SCANDAL cast got to pay homage to its first season when a recent episode brought back Henry Ian Cusick’s Stephen (who departed the show after its freshman year) as the man who bought/saved Olivia Pope when she was auctioned off.

“We were shocked. We all were so shocked,” Washington said. “Our first question was ‘How? Is this happening? Shonda, have you spoken with him?’ And she had…working with him, the one thing he and I [decided] was, let’s not even talk about it, because we, as actors, felt so similar to our characters felt: it was this unbelievable homecoming; this relief in seeing each other and having this closure. So we just kept saying…’Let’s just be in the truth of this moment.'”

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SCANDAL airs Thursdays at 9 PM on ABC.

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