Kerry Washington on That ‘UnPrisoned’ Finale Cliffhanger, Learning to Pole Dance for the Show — and Feeling ‘So Grateful’ to Olivia Pope and ‘Scandal’
SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for Season 2 of “UnPrisoned,” now streaming on Hulu.
Kerry Washington refuses to rest on her laurels. In the six years since wrapping up her seven-season run as political fixer Olivia Pope on ABC’s “Scandal,” which made her the first Black woman in nearly 40 years to lead a primetime network drama, Washington has ventured further into producing and directing — all while keeping an eye out for new acting roles that would diversify her body of work, and get her out of comfort zone.
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Her latest TV project “UnPrisoned” is a dramatic — or, shall we say, “dramedic” — departure from the more serious work that has largely defined her career, but continues her tradition of playing messy, complicated women who must reckon with the scars of their painful past. In Hulu and Onyx Collective’s “UnPrisoned,” which is inspired by creator Tracy McMillan’s personal experiences, Washington plays Paige Alexander, a marriage and family therapist who must put theory into practice after her estranged father, Edwin (Delroy Lindo), gets out of prison and moves in with her and her 16-year-old son Finn (Faly Rakotohavana). Suddenly, Paige’s abandonment issues, as well as the years of baggage that she carried into failed romantic relationships, have begun to stare her in the face.
The show’s serio-comic tone has been a respite for Washington. “I always say if you asked me what my two favorite weeks of my life were — not including anything with my children, because they trump everything — I would say my honeymoon and my week on ‘SNL,’” she tells Variety. “After years of doing a one-hour drama, and even coming out of that and doing theater and movies, I was really excited about the opportunity to do a comedy. So, from that perspective, it’s really fun for me to be dabbling in this ‘dramedy’ space. But also, it is really special for me to be telling a story that is meaningful in the world, and I find that balance of joy and substance really gratifying at this point in my career.”
Washington recently returned to New York City to celebrate the Season 2 premiere of “UnPrisoned,” only to test positive for COVID-19 the day before its 10-episode launch. While quarantining in her room, Washington — who has been shooting the top-secret, third “Knives Out” movie with a star-studded cast — opened up about how writing her bestselling memoir helped inform her own understanding of the show’s exploration of generational trauma, the joy she finds in physical comedy — and why she will always love Olivia Pope.
Going into the second season of “UnPrisoned,” what kinds of conversations did you have with the rest of the creative team about the next chapter of this story?
I have to credit Tracy, [showrunner] Yvette [Lee Bowser] and our writers for really figuring out what this next stage of the journey would be. But I do feel like this season is even better than last season. It feels funnier to me, and I think partly that’s because it also feels braver to me. In the first season, we really were exploring what reentry looks like, how you begin to embrace a reunion, and how you begin to build out what a family looks like when you are confronted with the unique challenges of having a returning citizen in the family.
But at this point in the journey of the Alexander family, we’re not dealing with that kind of initial discovery process. We really wanted these characters to go beyond the struggle of bumping up against one another, and to dive deeper into the work that each of them needs to do individually to grow. That felt like the next level of brave accountability. So I think you have a family who, in Season 1, is really trying to figure each other out, and in Season 2, they’re like, “Oh, I think I need to figure myself out.”
The Alexanders are able to have conversations that they weren’t necessarily ready to have in Season 1, and I wouldn’t say they’re all difficult conversations. Something as silly as Edwin telling Paige to act more like a “cool cat” when dating this season definitely couldn’t have happened in the first season.
Yeah. They had to build a foundation of, “OK, we are actually going to share space with each other.” So much of Season 1 was Paige trying to figure out what her boundaries were, and Edwin too. Sometimes, we feel like those boundaries help to define a relationship, and yet this season is like, “OK, but can we also have intimacy?” A boundary can be a really healthy part of an intimate relationship, but there also has to be intimacy if you want that relationship to be intimate.
The Alexanders are each able to find some personal and interpersonal clarity in their unorthodox therapy sessions with Murphy, a new therapist played by John Stamos. Why did you decide to cast him in that role?
John is such an extraordinary addition to the show this season. I think a lot of us who are involved in the show are committed in our personal lives to doing the kind of mental, emotional excavation work that allows for our characters to be attempting to traverse this kind of work [on screen], and John is somebody who’s done a lot of this work. We really wanted to find somebody who could be the perfect foil to Paige at the beginning of the season, but who you also believed could garner the respect of Edwin. [You could believe] that Edwin would choose him, and that he would be able to communicate with every member of the Alexander family and have a significant impact on all three of them.
I don’t know exactly whose idea it was, but I know it was when Shiri Appleby was directing. We were prepping for the beginning of the season, and when his name came up, it was instantaneous. We were all like, “Yes, a hundred percent. That’s the person.” I think Shiri had his number and gave it to me, so I texted him and was like, “Come play with us!” I don’t know him well. We have some friends in common, but I’ve always been a huge fan. He was like, “Send it to me!” And he loved it, and I really do feel like he is so believable as this kind of non-traditional kooky therapist guru person.
He has such fantastic comedic instincts, and we knew that we would be navigating these really heady emotional ideas, so we wanted to make sure that we were grounded in the funny. It’s not the first gear that Delroy and I go to, so it’s great to have somebody on board who really lives in that.
You also had an opportunity to play up the physical comedy this season — there is the fun Alexander family therapy session in a WWE-esque ring, and then, of course, Paige’s first pole-dancing class with her ex-boyfriend Mal’s (Marque Richardson) new girlfriend (Brandee Evans).
One of my favorite episodes last season was the big dance battle scene. For a lot of people, that was one of their favorite moments last season, because it was this metaphorical embodiment of how the family was navigating conflict with each other, and putting it on a dance floor where we could battle it out in dance really landed and resonated with people.
So, when the writers pitched this idea of this season doing a sort of WWE-style wrestling match, I was like, “This sounds incredible. We all use the language of wrestling with difficult issues. This is going to be so fun.” This season, the physical comedy has been so enjoyable for me. As an actor, I always start with the body. It’s where I really begin the process of working all the time, so being able to throw myself into pole dancing and wrestling was just so joyous.
How did you approach the pole dancing scenes?
We had an incredible, award-winning choreographer, Kelly, who came highly recommended, and who my husband [Nnamdi Asomugha] actually went to college with — they were both at Berkeley — which was so funny. Kelly is really good friends with Pamela [Morrone], a friend of mine that I’ve had for decades. Pamela is a professional organizer. She has a company that’s all around creating clarity, and I’ve known her for close to 20 years in that capacity. She’s organized closets for me. She’s helped me move across the country three or four times. But I’ve always known that she had this pole dancing hobby on the side and that she would do competitive pole dancing or teach pole dancing. But I’d never seen this side of Pamela. She’s in the scene. She wound up assisting Kelly, and it was so fun for me to see this new version of somebody who I’ve been friends with for over a decade.
But when I went to my first lesson with Pamela and Kelly, I literally came back and went to Yvette and Tracy and said, “We have to rewrite the scene.” And they were like, “Why?” And I was like, “There is no way I’m going to get up a pole and hang upside down! It’s never going to happen. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted to do physically. It’s painful.” And they were like, “Keep going. Let us know if you need us to rewrite it.” And in my second or third lesson, something clicked for me, and I was like, “I have to figure this out. It’s too exciting.” It was exciting to be shooting full days on set and then go practice at lunch or on the weekend — just carving out times to be on the pole. And in terms of the trick of hanging upside down and being able to actually climb up the pole — that was insane. Brandee was also incredibly helpful.
I worked so hard to get the dance perfect around the pole, and then as we approached the scene, I was like, “Oh, but Paige can’t drop into her first pole dancing class and do it perfectly.” So, the good student in me had perfected the dance, and then I had to figure out how to “cat and mouse” the routine to be a little bit behind the dancers, a little bit bad, a little bit trying to figure it out. It was fun to know the dance inside out and then kind of “deconstruct” it with Kelly and Brandee to find more of the physical comedy in it.
The finale ends on a number of cliffhangers: Paige gets back together with Mal, and shortly after losing the woman who she considered her own mother — and then Paige’s biological mother shows up at her front door. What are your own interpretations of where we leave Paige in the finale?
I love our finale so much, and it also made me laugh because I spent all these years on “Scandal” and the big cliffhanger in Season 2 was that, of course, my dad [played by Joe Morton] had returned and was in the limo with me. It’s really fun for me to now be doing a completely different show where it’s like, “Oh, the mom is the mystery character.” I’m so excited about being able to go forward and God willing, if we get a third season, cast that role and explore more of those issues.
So much of what Paige is navigating is this sense of abandonment. I think it’s why she struggles in her attachment styles. Yes, in many ways, she felt abandoned by her dad because of the circumstances of his incarceration, but her dad was also very present for her. And it was her mother, as we discover in the Christmas episode, who really abandons her at a very young age — and on Christmas, for God’s sake! So I’m really excited to be able to dive in and explore more of those dynamics.
When you look back at the evolution of television in the last decade, it’s hard to not see a direct link between Olivia Pope and all of the Black female leads who came after you — including Emayatzy Corinealdi’s Jax Stewart in “Reasonable Doubt,” a show that you also executive produce. What kind of relationship do you have with your character on “Scandal” now? How do you reflect on those years of your life?
The first word that comes to mind is gratitude. I just feel so grateful for how she changed me, how she changed culture, how she changed my life. I’m deeply grateful for that time on “Scandal,” for how it opened up the industry’s idea of what a No. 1 could look like. I think if I hadn’t been able to do really meaningful, exciting, different work after, then maybe I would have a more fraught or troubled relationship with her legacy and the powerful space that she holds in people’s hearts and in culture.
But I feel so lucky to have played one of the most iconic characters in our narrative culture and still have been able to do work after that that has been so beautifully received, transformative and exciting. From “American Son” to “Little Fires Everywhere” to “UnPrisoned” and even projects like “The Prom” — I feel really lucky that there has been life after “Scandal,” because as an artist, I am so drawn to telling lots of stories about lots of different kinds of people in lots of different kinds of situations. But I love Olivia Pope, and she will always hold an indelible place in my heart and my life.
“Scandal” creator Shonda Rhimes recently revealed that, of all the people in the business that she talks to regularly, not including the people on her payroll, you and J.J. Abrams are always at the top of her list. What do you discuss?
We talk about everything — and that’s always been the history of our relationship. I think that’s part of why we are each other’s go-to. She was one of the very first people who read my memoir. It was my husband, my parents and Shonda. That was the first round — like, if you guys are good, then I can start to show other people. We talk a lot about being moms. We talk a lot about the business. We talk a lot about our hearts, what’s going on with our lives. We talk about our dreams. We talk about travel. We talk about everything.
You mentioned your memoir, “Thicker Than Water,” in which you revealed that you were conceived with a sperm donor and the man you consider your father is not actually your biological father. What have you made of the reception to your book? Do you suddenly have people coming up to you and telling you all of their family secrets?
It’s wild. It was something I did not anticipate. I knew that other people would want to tell their secrets — I didn’t know they’d want to tell them to me! To hold that space for people has felt like such an extraordinary privilege, and I’m very proud to have done that work.
I think that’s part of what you see in Season 2 as well. In between Seasons 1 and 2, I, Kerry, started to do a deeper level of work around my own family trauma, my own personal trauma, the pathologies that are carried generationally through my family. I have examined the beautiful gifts that I’ve received from my parents that have made me part of who I am today — and also the things that I would like to stop with me. That personal clarity really helped me understand when Paige is standing at the bottom of the stairs in that first episode of the second season, and she’s like [to Edwin], “It has to end with us.” I was able to walk a path of real alignment, of understanding the urgency for that need in my own family.
I think I am operating with a deeper intimacy about my own issues. I don’t have a father who was incarcerated, but in many ways, our family was imprisoned in this secret. So I think doing that work, having that clarity for myself, really allowed me to step into the journey of the Alexander family with more creative courage and a deeper vulnerability and rawness in my performance. My parents gave me this information [about my conception] six years ago. We went into family therapy, and it was not easy, and we had to really wrestle with a lot of stuff. I think as we all developed the season, there was a lot of myself that I was able to pour into this season — and that was such a gift as well.
The first two seasons of “UnPrisoned” are now streaming on Hulu. This interview has been edited and condensed.
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