By Felicia R. Lee
Kerry Washington starts with the shoes. To portray Olivia Pope, the tough crisis manager at the center of the hit ABC series “Scandal,” Ms. Washington is always in gravity-defying heels. How else to make that sexed-up power stalk down the White House corridors?
“I never completely understand a character until I know what kind of shoes they wear,” Ms. Washington said. For an interview at Milk Studios here, she was in a pair of intimidating white high heels. But Ms. Washington is often in sneakers or flip-flops, a clue for anyone trying to understand her. “It says I’m not really attracted to walking in the world in any one way,” she explained. “I like to walk in the world a lot of different ways.”
Those ways have ranged from the role of the slave Broomhilda in Quentin Tarantino’s recent “Django Unchained” to the pampered Grace Peeples in the modern romantic comedy “Peeples,” out on May 10. But it has been through the intimacy and reach of television that Ms. Washington, 36, has arrived in the center of a major cultural discussion. Thanks to “Scandal,” she is only the second black woman in almost 40 years to lead a network television drama, and the first one to make it a bona fide hit. Ratings for the political thriller, which began last April, have been building all season; it now beats its rival at 10 p.m. on Thursday — “Elementary” on CBS — many weeks among viewers 18 to 49, the demographic advertisers covet most.
Read More The Weight Those Heels Carry – NYTimes.com.
