Bad casting can sometimes kill a TV show before filming even begins. In the case of the hit ABC series Scandal, creator Shonda Rhimes faced a challenge in bringing the show she envisioned to life. When presented with a list of women who executives wanted to lead the political drama, she saw a small list of incredibly talented performers with Connie Britton leading the pack. While Rhimes and Kerry Washington, who went on to play Olivia Pope, believe that Britton would have been a brilliant choice, she didn't fit the project's original intention.
Britton had just finished her final season as Tammy Taylor on the NBC series Friday Night Lights. She had been Emmy nominated twice for her performance as the matriarch of the Dillon Panthers and was a name the industry was keeping an eye on. With a solid reputation as a dedicated actor paired with her name recognition, it is fair that ABC originally wanted her to play Olivia Pope. Sadly, the original shortlist of actors ABC had wanted to play Olivia Pope were all white.
Of the many problems with this list, the biggest concern of Rhimes' was that she had originally intended for Pope to be an African American woman. Rhimes had based the leading character off of Washington fixer Judy Smith, whose clientele ranges from Monica Lewinsky to Sony Pictures. Without meeting the gifted crisis manager, the show most likely wouldn't have come to be. "I already had two shows", Rhimes said in an interview with THR, "The idea of doing something else sounded way too exhausting. But Judy Smith talked for ten seconds and I knew what 100 episodes would be".
It is a certainty if Connie Britton were cast Rhimes would have had a great leading performance, but it would have come at the cost of her original vision and potentially not as strong of a series. The successful showrunner has often spoken about how much the quintessential political TV drama The West Wing influenced her shaping of the show. So much so she cast West Wing alum, Joshua Malina, in the series and appeared on his recap podcast The West Wing Weekly.
Britton did have a brief stint on the Aaron Sorkin series, so this may have been a benefit to Rhimes finding a similar vein for her take on Washington. However, this could have also led the show down a path of becoming a far more watered-down version of a unique series instead of blazing its own trails. Furthermore, the two show's intentions are completely different where one is an idyllic version of a government for the people and the other a far more scathing indictment of the underbelly of Washington.
Thanks to Rhimes and casting director Linda Lowy's push for representation, the series found the perfect Olivia Pope in Kerry Washington. By placing the rising star in the role, Scandal became the first drama series to feature a black female to lead in 37 years. Washington quickly became a household name thanks to her captivating performance and the much-needed perspective and representation she brought. The choice set the series on the course to make a habit out of breaking ground for diversity in television from an openly gay main cast member to electing a woman President.
Eventually, ABC found a show which was a much better fit for Britton in the country music series Nashville. In the alternate timeline where Britton played Olivia Pope, audiences would have no doubt received a stunning performance yet would miss out on one of her best. With Scandal having been off-air for nearly four years and the version fans got so ingrained in their minds, it's hard to imagine it without Kerry Washington's performance at its center.