“The network was reading us their top choices, and it was Connie and all white women,” casting director Linda Lowy told THR.
ABC had a very different idea of Olivia Pope in mind, y’all.
“I got a phone call from somebody who said, ‘This would be the perfect show for Connie Britton,'” Rhimes told The Hollywood Reporter for its oral history of the series.
After Scandal was ordered to series in 2011, creator Shonda Rhimes received a call from an ABC executive about who should play the white hat-wearing fixer.