There are three options for my Halloween costume this year, and top of the list is Scandal’s Olivia Pope, played by Kerry Washington. Her ascent has been a cultural moment for some years now.
It was not always thus. I first saw her in 2001 teen movie Save The Last Dance, in which she played a tough but kind student single mother. That small role led to parts in bigger things (Spike Lee’s She Hate Me, a role in Oscar-winning Ray) and the big thing came in 2012, when she was cast in Shonda Rhimes’ megahit, Scandal.
As fictional White House fixer Olivia Pope, Washington, 38, is arresting. It’s not her famous pout that stops you, it’s her jaw: when it tightens, you’re about to get something special. In that jaw you see discipline and resolve, the sort that makes her a staunch political activist in real life. It’s what you remember, even when the character slides into ridiculousness (especially in a tired fourth season).
There is a thrilling core of steel in Washington. See it at work in the speech she gave at the Democratic National Convention; or on Bill Maher’s show, when she winningly debates the merits of affirmative action. It will no doubt be in evidence in Confirmation, in which she will play real-life attorney Anita Hill (who in 1991 accused judge Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment). “It’s handled” is Pope’s line, but it applies to the actor, too – she radiates capability alongside her ethereal beauty.
I love her for what she gives the audience, but am intrigued by what it is she keeps to herself. It’s such a rare thing in a modern star.
