July 11, 2024 • 58 mins
Our own beloved James Novak (Dan Bucatinsky) joins to break down an infamous episode and what it was like to find out he was the one killed off. Plus, Katie and Guillermo explore James’ career while acting on Scandal and simultaneously writing on Grey’s Anatomy. And to wrap things up, Scott Foley shares his thoughts on the episode and having to kill James.
What do you think, Gladiators? Email us at UTT@Shondaland.com or leave us a voicemail at 805-298-1474 to share your thoughts about the show, about food, about life, but mostly about the show. We would love to hear from you!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Unpacking the Toolbox is a production of Shondaland Audio in
partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
The scans shown as it.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Katie those, we have an incredible episode for you today.
Not only will we be graced by the Danny Bukatinski
or as I call him, Danny Buka as we break
down this episode, but later on we get a little
bit more info from Scott Foley about what it was
(00:48):
like to be command or when he actually became command.
In this episode, we have to talk about James from
beginning middle end, we have to talk about the brilliant
Danny Bukatin grace us with his presence today. We're so lucky.
We have been waiting to have you on this podcast. Yes,
I do waiting, cherishing, waiting. But then also everyone needs
(01:08):
to know that Danny Buca and I share the same birthday.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You guys do every year, No wonder, you're both nuts,
it's every year.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
We're both nuts. We're both nuts, but we like connected
over our birthday, like on day one and now every year,
you know, we hang out.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It's why we are perfect, glorious, special, smart, stunning inside
and out, very sexually advanced.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Now yeah, yeah, I get that a lot. I get
that a lot.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Okay, I'm bringing us in. Why how did you get James?
Where were you in your life? How did you get
it to Shaun Land? Also, you auditioned for huck.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Well you just did? You just answer my question? No?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
But weren't you writing in Grays.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
No, I wasn't quite writing a graze yet. I had
done episode of Grey's Anatomy a season earlier and Shonda
wasn't around, and I didn't meet her for that, but
I remember that Linda Lowie, the casting director, sent a
scene I had done in Curby Your Enthusiasm to Shonda
(02:17):
and she approved me to get the offer on Grey's Anatomy.
Then I did Grey's Anatomy, and right around that time,
my book came out. Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It's such a great book for anyone. It's brilliant. Does
this Baby make Me Look straight? It's brilliant.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
No, it does not, is the answer.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
It does not make me look straight. I mean there's
you know, that would be a stunt. There's a lot
that would need to I mean, there's there'd be a
lot more work than just the baby, and I've had
two of them. But you know, The book chronicles my
whole like journey into parenthood with my husband and adoption,
and in the book, I this is going somewhere, I promise.
(02:56):
In the book, I talk about the inspiration I got
from Dan savage book The Kid, and Shonda's inspiration for
her adoption of her kids was also Dan Savage as
The Kid. So we wound up. I don't know how
it happened, but one way or another, I wound up
sending Shonda my book. She wound up blurbing on my
book before it came out, and we sort of connected
(03:17):
over the way we became parents. Around that time, I
then came into I went into a casting session to
read for Huck and the monologue I will never forget it.
I don't know, Giermo if you remember it, but the
audition monologue was so beautifully written. It was a perfect
example of how quickly an actor could learn it. Yeah
(03:41):
if if it's written well, Like how hard it is
to learn lines when something is like I don't see
how this connects to this, but this was like a
beautiful piece of writing and one hundred percent not me.
But I was like, I love this. I'm gonna I'm
gonna read it anyway. So I went in there and
I was like, guys, I get it. This is one
(04:01):
hundred percent not me, but maybe it is me. Maybe
it'll maybe maybe you'll change the way you think about Huck.
But this is a beautiful piece of writing. So I
did the monologue and they were like, you're right, it's
not you. Who was in the room, Betsy, Shanda, Linda
was in the room for somebody meeting with.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Me too.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Yeah, And then I came back to read for a
recurring role as David Rosen.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Oh wow, I bet you killed that.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I could see you playing.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
I could have played, thank you. I could have played
David Rosen. I mean we, Josh and I even look alike.
You don't.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
You're so much hotter. And that was on purpose for
you to hear that.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Josh.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Keep going, yeah, Josh, you've said it yourself, Josh, So
we're not saying anything that you haven't said yourself. But
I saw Josh, and I've known Josh for a very
long time, and we saw each other at the audition,
and I went in for that one, and I think
even in the room, Shanda said, I'm going to write
something else for you, And I left and I was like,
(05:05):
you know, if I had a nickel, I didn't quite you.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Know, it was very nice as you're so beating down.
It's like until I'm on set right and even still
and I see it.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Even believe it.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Correct, You're on set and you're like, they're gonna fire.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Me any and it's getting come.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
You shoot it and then they call saying like you're
being recast in there reshooting. They don't care how much
money it costs. They can't allow what you just did
to appear on television.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
They cut. Sometimes they cut the scene and you're like,
my whole family, I'm on a show and I'm cut.
Is that?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
That was my first job ever that happened to me
and I my whole town, including my ex boyfriend who
hurt my heart and I and then I got through it.
I was like, oh my god, I wasn't in it,
and I've never been so mortified in my life and
never learned.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
But sand Sean, so Shonda thought, I love this, homo.
I'm going to write a big old gay roll for him.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
You know, I didn't hear that part of it, but
clearly you speak Sean. That was going on that head
easily I love this homo. He wrote this book about adoption.
I mean, listen, not for nothing. To some degree the
creation of who James was going to be and who
he wound up as this writer who wants to adopt
(06:19):
a baby, Like a lot of me, I think went
into who James became. But I had no idea that
that was coming down the pike. And in fact, I
was at my office. You know, I had a production
company with Lisa Kudron for fifteen years. We were like
in this office, back and forth, and there was one
day we were taking all these meetings and I get
a text on my phone from Linda Lowe saying will
(06:40):
you play my husband's husband? And I was like, and
I was like, is that some kind of party game?
Like what what does that even mean? Will you play
my husband's husband? I knew I know Jeff, and I
knew Linda and Don and I had been in Mexico
with them when our daughter was a year old, Like
we knew each other, but will you play my husband's husband?
(07:02):
And I was like, I don't know what that means,
but sure? And so I got offered this part of
James and I did this episode that I found it
was in season one, and I found it so and
I talk about this all the time, talk about subversive
television making What made Scandal so unbelievably innovative in the time.
(07:24):
At the time that had happened was that Olivia Pope
knocks on the front door of Cyrus Bean's house, which
we've never seen before, and James opens the door and says, really,
Olivia on a Sunday, you know, the like, like the
audience has to catch up to the fact that existed
way before they started watching this show, that this man
(07:45):
lives with this man and they're a couple and they're married,
and Olivia knows it, and.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
He is President's chief of staff and a Republican presidency
and this guy is in no way shape form what
you would have ever thought of, like, oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Jeff Perry, Harry gets offered that part and is never
told that this is going to be a gay character.
There's never told that you're going to have a husband.
Le's he's just as shocked as all of us. But
the fact that there was no coming out episode, the
fact that it wasn't about telling Tony telling Fits one
day that he is gay, like all of it is
a fact, a matter of fact that the audience just
(08:19):
has to catch up is the way it should be.
And it was so exciting and so that was just
a thrill, and I thought I would just do that
one episode and it would be what it would be.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
And I wound up doing you have to Kiss Jeff
in that episode. I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
No, no, I just said, baby, I want a baby,
a fat one. That's why I said to him, I
want a baby, a big, fat one. So knock it
off with all the whatever you're doing.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Oh my god, you know we have to talk about like, Okay,
so you get it offered, but it's kind of like
an offer that you've auditioned for so many times in
a way, right, because you had read two other parts
and she already knew you personally, she read your book, and.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I was playing somebody not far from who I am, right.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Okay, so that's your first episode. Now tell me about
because we've almost had you on for this episode, but
we were saving you for now. But you are a
part of one of my favorite all time scandal scenes ever,
which I think you must have been so shocked to
know what James was going to turn into. But that
one act play of you and Jeff Perry taking off
(09:23):
both of your clothes and being ass naked to make
sure that you're not miked when he admits to you,
I stole the election because you know something's up. I
mean that what I think it's one of the best.
I think it's one of the best television scenes in
his I mean it's like a fucking play.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
It's it was a mini in the app Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
And it's in season It was amazing.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Is it in two? Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
It's in season two?
Speaker 4 (09:46):
In season two?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
So when do you start to realize the role that
James is becoming and the amount of like unbelievable gift
of line scenes like when are you like pan? Are
you excited? Are you making out with Jeff? Are you
liking it? He's been your friend for twenty years?
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Like?
Speaker 4 (10:05):
So, I had done season one and then I took
my friends were running Gray's Anatomy, and they said, will
you come and consult as a writer because I've been
a writer for a long time, will you consult as
a writer in the writer's room of Gray's Anatomy? And
I took a meeting with Betsy and Shonda and my
two friends Tony and Joan, who are still my best friends,
and I was like, look, this would be an amazing opportunity.
(10:26):
I'm really flattered and I would love to but I've
really enjoyed the three episodes I got to do on Scandal,
and if there's any I'm not suggesting that he's coming back,
but if there's any chance that James would come back
in season two, I wouldn't want the fact that I'm writer,
I'm writing in the writer's room of Grays to stop
me from being on Scandal. And they said, don't worry
(10:48):
about it. Well, nowhere to find you nice. In other words,
if you're at the writer's room at Grays, we can
write you onto Scandal and you can just bounce back
and forth, which is what I did for the next
two years. In the next two seasons.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Exhausting.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
It was. It was exhausting and made my head spin
a little bit. But I say that only because in
season two, pretty quickly James comes back and James starts
to like get a writing gig again, and the adoption
of the baby becomes a story for them, and I
go visit my mom in New York. She lives in Brooklyn,
(11:23):
and I realized and we all remember this. Season two
is when the viewership of that show went berserk and
suddenly I was like people on the street were recognizing
me from having only done four episodes or five. In
season two was when it felt like, oh, this, this
is something that could be more or bigger or more
(11:46):
layered and more. And the truth is, season two, I
was so lucky to get to play a journalist, a
dad wanting to adopt a baby, the love of Cyrus's life.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
You know, you spy as well on the show.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, it was the end of season two that James
was poking the bear a little bit. Yeah, but for
the first half of the season, it was all about parenthood.
It was all about like, I don't know what you're
doing at work, but I am happy to be a dad.
And then he was like, I'm getting bored and I
want to start writing again. And then there was a
lot of interesting conflict to be played with Jeff when
(12:24):
I was trying to throw my hat back in the
ring into the world of journalism. And you know, it
played out, our little piece of the show played out
like a very realistic, oddly but crazy marriage and.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
It's just like you and Don right, just like you.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Oh, I can talk about this more later, but there's
so much that I found baffling about how much we
connected to people as like the heart, like the place
where the love and family and marriage existed in the show.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah you guys, they wrote, you have such a love
even though he is a monster, and you just said it.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
You said it. But the key to this show, I'm
telling you, Like I figured it out recently when I
had to rewatch these episodes for today, I was like,
this show is crazy. I had forgotten this is this show.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Is it's crazy.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
It's so good. Writing is so good.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
You can't you couldn't.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
You know, people a say like, you can't write that shit,
but they did. Like every character is so complicated, and
you know what trumps all of the malice and evil
and and backstabbing and politicking and all of the torture
love any character that loved another character, Like it's unbelievable.
(13:40):
The fact that Cyrus loved James as much as he
did even though he's killed He tried to kill him
in the end of season two, and then James is
like that motherfucker, I am married to a monster and
I'm gonna bring him down, and then I'm like, but
I love him, right, but I love him. I'm gonna
forgive him because I love him. We have a baby
together and we have a family him. And he's like, Honey,
(14:01):
I love you so much. I love you. I'm like,
you love me so much, You're like going to I'm
gonna wind him dead because you love me so much.
But the love is unbelievable. There's a scene in the
episode right before three thirteen where David Rosen winds up
in the trunk of a car and he's calling Darby's character,
what's her name?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Abby?
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Abby? Abby? And he's like, Abby, I didn't say it before,
but I'm now in the trunk of a car and
I don't know what's going to happen to me, but
I just want to tell you I love you. I
just want to tell you I love you. I should
have said it yesterday, but I'm going to just say
it now. And the trunk opens and you and Abby
are standing there too, write Gherma, were you there? Or
was he? I think it's I don't remember, I don't
remember you rescue him. I almost started crying. I literally
(14:43):
I found it so touching. I found it so touching.
I'm like, he's just been like almost abducted and there's
abby to rescue him. And it's really the love that
like it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
It's a romantic show at the end of h it's
so it's so you know, it's just like Liver Die
Like it's either it's so tweeter where it's like you
either want to fuck them or punch them right, It's like,
honey pee they ride that line all the time. How
is it working with Jeff, who you'd been friends with
forever to try to like be I mean, do you
(15:15):
think the love came out so well because you guys
had such a long relationship or like, yeah, I just
buy it, man, I bought it.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
I love Jeff, I love Jeff beforehand. I love Jeff.
But I mean we had the opposite of a romantic relationship.
I mean, he's a straight man for his entire life
and I'm not. And we were friends and we had
to do you know, we had to go there with
each other in a way that was at first very awkward,
(15:46):
and yet we both just gave ourselves over to it.
And I trusted him with and still do to this day.
I trust him with my life, and we love each
other so much, Like I just saw him to nights
ago and I was like, we just love each other.
We love each other like we I can't explain it.
We've been through something together now. That said, there was
(16:08):
the sexual nature of our relationship and the ways that
Shanda and those writers pushed the envelope on what you
can show on ABC was not easy. It was not easy,
I will say that, like having my head pushed data
frame and and I remember having an argument with Tony Goldwin,
who was directing an episode, and they were they wanted
(16:29):
to simulate my going down on Jeff And I was like, Tony,
why is it always me? Like why do I always
this is so?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Why the bottom?
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Why do I have to I don't remember an episode
where he's blown me, so like why can we? And
then and I said, it just feels and I have
to be honest with you, like I had this total
window into what women must have experienced in our business
for like five decades. There was there was a little
bit of like embarrassment and my own internalized homophobia around
(17:02):
the crew about the ways in which I had to
sort of play that role in his life because I
was his younger, incredibly hot husband, and yes, and Tony said,
and and Tony said, do you think that I haven't
had to throw myself. I'm a married man with two
with two daughters, and I had to throw myself on
(17:24):
the on the desk of the Oval office with Kerry Washington.
And I said, uh.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Huh yeah, all right, motherfucker.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
I was like, yes, yes, you did. You did have
to do that. And therefore, of course, I mean, it's
all for the art, and of course I love Jeff
and but I'm just saying, like, couldn't our relationship be
depicted in a more equal way? And He's like, that's
not the kind of relationship this is. Anyway, we had
that out on set and I wound up doing what
I had to do.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
And it and then you've been out of frame. I'm
gonna I did.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
What was on the page because I my job as
an actor is too is to do what's on the page.
We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Guys, when you did the naked scene, were you both
in like banana hammocks. I'm sorry, I have to know.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Oh my god, we were so anxious about that scene.
We had eleven days. I begged at at the table read.
I had a nervous breakdown when I read that in
because you know, we only read what we were gonna
do at the table reads. There was no prep and
I begged them, I said, can we schedule this scene
for the last day of the so I have eleven
(18:30):
days to lose thirty pounds. I mean, oh my god,
I need eleven days to do pushups and set ups
so I can look like Brad Pitt by the time
they take off my shirt. And I starved myself for
eleven days, and then I realized at the end of
eleven days that I don't look like Brad Pitt eleven days,
twenty two days, or in three hundred and sixty five days,
(18:52):
I looked very much like the version of myself. And
Jeff's like, I'm not even gonna bother. Okay, so I'm
having whatever I want. I'm not even going to bother.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I remember Jeff working out, though I remember him going
to the gym and working out during that time.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
They wanted to shoot very specifically. They wanted to make
sure that the only thing that blocked our nudity were
objects in the room lamp a lamp. So they said,
they said to us, you can wear a dance belt
or a jock strap, or a or a what do
they call them a so so it's called a sock,
(19:30):
a cock sock. And so we had all of them.
We had all of them, and so we all of
the time. Oh yeah, I wore a turtleneck. I tried.
I tried to get away with I was like talking about,
you know, how to get away with murder. I was
trying to get away with wearing. I was wearing more
clothes than I've ever worn in my life. And I
(19:51):
would peel it off and peel it off, and peel
it off and peel it off, and then we do
a take. And then Verica came in and he was like,
we see the edge of the dance spelt. And I
was like, so I took.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Off the dance belt and now something now dance dance spelt.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
So gay. I was like, by the way, the minute
I was in a dance belt, I was like doing
the opening number.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Of dancing and choreography.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Thank you. And then eventually we were wearing nothing but socks.
And I will say in one of the takes, and
we did it so many times. I had to dress
and undress so many times and then they came off.
They came off. They just came off, and there we were.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
You're just standing there acting with your dog out.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
I was a Jeff's came off and I just trained
my brain.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
On his looking that.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yes, you would have that's why you're Hawk. And I'm
listening to James.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Here's the thing. I've had to wear a cocks out
two on the show, and I had the whole hawk
getting waterboarded thing, and then I'm naked, and but then
after a while, like you said, it just falls off,
so I remember. But it's so freaking annoying. It's just
so freaking annoyed.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Like just did you guys did you feel and g
too as you as a gay man?
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Like what nothing? She's you mean?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Don't buck around? Stop fucking around.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
You've played gay characters before, and Danny, I don't know
before Scandal how many gay characters you had played on television,
But did you feel like a responsibility as being a
part of a show that was reaching millions of viewers?
Like what kind of pressure did you feel, you know,
in portraying a gay character? Had you done it before?
(21:33):
Like how did that feel? Because I mean the show
broke a lot of buges. I feel like we've talked
with Carrie a lot on this show about, like, you know,
her being the first black lead, you know, woman on
a network drama in thirty seven years, and feeling like
this has to succeed because if it doesn't, no one
else will ever get a shot, you know. So what
kind of pressure were you thinking like that? Or we're
(21:55):
like nope, just do your lines, do your job, Like
what was that?
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Like? I was I had played gay characters before, and
I had done an HBO show that I helped produce
called The Comeback, where I was playing Alisa Kudro's characters
publicists and who was obviously gay, and she was like,
I gotta get a gay Jimmy. And you know, I
had played gay characters before, and I was very used
to playing what I used to call igh insert gay here.
(22:19):
You'd read a pilot and they'd be like the token
gay character, and I'd read for those for a decade.
I have to be honest. And then of course when
I did Gray's Anatomy, I was playing the gay husband
of somebody in a hospital bed. And because it was
shondaland it was always handled with like complete matter of
fact complete respect. So it wasn't as much on my
(22:41):
mind as was the fact that something happened to me
when I was doing when I was on Scandal, something
that tied together everything that had happened in my life
prior I think that I had been. When I first
came to Hollywood, I was very closeted. I was twenty seven,
and I was trying to get roles, and I was
pretty tending to be a straight actor pretending to be
(23:04):
the character I was reading for, So there was always
layers in front of me of and so I wasn't
really working in the way that I wanted to be,
and no surprise, and by the time I was ten
years into my marriage and having a baby and writing
a book about it and like completely letting myself be
one thousand percent honest in the world and then allowed
(23:25):
to play that on television. Something came over me when
I got to play those scenes with Jeff that felt
like I can't even explain it to you. There were
moments where things that had happened to me as an
actor that had rarely happened to me before. I felt
unbelievably honest and like whatever comes out of me is okay,
(23:47):
and there's no self consciousness here, and I'm in a
real marriage, and like, this is my husband, and I
can be as vulnerable with him as anybody would be
with their husband. And I found enormous liberation in that.
And then the scene would come. I was so lucky
because even if I was in like tiny scenes, and
you know, I was a guest star for twenty nine episodes,
so I guess did on all those scenes, but they
(24:09):
always wrote me something that felt honest for who I was.
So as time went on, I felt like, Oh, this
is an unbelievable opportunity to just be one hundred percent
this guy who happens to be gay but he's also
a million other things. And I thought that was very
modern for that day. We hadn't really seen that before
(24:31):
on TV.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, but think about also, like the millions of people
that were watching the show who were you know, homophobic
or in closet or whatever, and are seeing it portrayed
in this beautiful, like matter of fact way, Like how
freeing for those people, and how you know, how wonderful
for them to see us just as a regular person,
because unfortunately, you know, a lot of freaking dumbasses out
(24:54):
there don't see it that way. But yeah, so that
even the pilot, you guys remember the pilot, the lead
guest star was a gay character. Oh. It was so
beautiful and he comes out, you know sort of he's
just you know, by the end of the episode, he's
I'm a gay man, and it's just it was I
remember reading that and just being like so moved and
(25:15):
so happy that you know that that the show was
going to be that type of show, that that's how
you know they were going to portray gay characters.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Yeah, it was because on TV for a long time,
the only description of a character who was gay was
that they were gay. In other words, you know, write
a scene and then describe the character by their age
and the fact that they're gay, you know what the
gays are like.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yeah, I was going to say. The other thing about
it is that like the they to see Cyrus and
James Novak, like neither of them are like you know
what I grew up with thinking, you know, in my town,
like a gay guy's like a musical theater gig, right,
like like you know, like we're going together to get
our nails done and then we're singing rent or like whatever,
(25:58):
which is like all also wonderful, but to just see
like Cyrus being and James who's a guy, and then
Cyrus who's mean and like really scary and like not
femi at all, if that's even the terms. Just see
like you know, not that type of gay eye, right.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
It can look like this. And I'll tell you something
what started to happen that was blew my mind to
this day. And Guermo, I mean, no, Hawk was not
a gay character. But I'm telling you that what really
blew my mind is that the audience for Scandal, you
all know what I mean, is like it crossed so
many demographics. The black audience that came to supported us
(26:43):
in the millions, and the black women who for whatever
reason related to James and my love for that baby Ella.
I believe that something happened. Something happened because I there
was suddenly a moment where in the public and the
(27:03):
and the numbers of people, women and men. But but
how many people from from that particular community that that
had such an enormous love and understanding for James. And
I was like, God, I wonder like this is I mean,
some of them are are in Southern communities and are
come from religious backgrounds to where and I think that
(27:28):
it normalized what the love that a man can have
for their baby, regardless of their gender, regardless of their sexuality,
regardless of their race, that crossed all these boundaries, because
I'm telling you, my particular fan base was like all
of these women, tons and tons and tons of black women,
And to this day, like I that's the number one
(27:49):
demo that stops me in the street and we get
into conversations and we talk about the show, and they're like,
oh my god, you and that baby, and you know,
like we have we had like a kinship and to
be able to let parenthood and love and marriage be
the things that connect us rather than our race or
sexuality solely, I think it was a huge gift that
(28:10):
I did not predict. I did not predict that, and
and then I thought like, oh, I have a responsibility
to just be like a loving parent who and by
the way, at the end of the day, I think
the only character up until season four who was not
a murderer somewhere in their soul, which.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
James, yeah, you were like the only moral compass like
literally on the never I mean.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Willing to throw my husband under the bus one hundred
percent because he was a criminal, but not willing to
kill him. I wasn't. There was no scenes of James
trying to kill Cyrus, although I should have.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
We will be back with more after the break. I
want to talk to you guys. We're going to break
down this episode really quickly, and then I want to
talk about so what we're talking about Today's episode three thirteen,
which was entitled No Sun on Their Horizon and aired
on March thirteenth and twenty fourteen, and it.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Was written by Matt Byrne and directed by Randy zisk And.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
It was guest starring John Tenny as Andrew Nichols, Brian
Lesher as Tom Larson, paul Aiedelstein Is, Leo Bergen.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Laurence Stamil as Carlos Steele, Jennifer Payo as Vanessa Chandler,
and Juliet Cho as Shelby Moss.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Do you have us in front of you? Dan?
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Do I have what?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Do you have a synopsis?
Speaker 4 (29:26):
If you do have it in front of me?
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Do you want to try reading your best scandal thinks?
Or am I throwing you under the bus right now?
Speaker 4 (29:31):
I'll give it a try.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
See if you can do it and don't worry. People
do really bad, so don't don't worry, and.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
By people me and Katie gets terrible most of the time.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Oh my god. Okay, ready. When Olivia learns the truth
about David Douglas's death, it sends her, David Rosen, and
Jake Ballard into a tailspin trying to figure out what
you do and to make matters worse. Sally Langston finally
realizes that she must confess the truth on national TV
during the presidential debate. Everything comes to a head when
Olivia barely convinces Fish to throw the debate in order
to prevent Sally from being killed. But then the loose
(30:00):
sands are tied up when Jake pulls a gun on
James and David Rosen.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
Amazing, mom, so good, you are warmed.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Up and ready to shoot my friends.
Speaker 6 (30:10):
So good.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
That was so good. Okay, crazily enough, Like I mean,
this episode is insane, Like Dan and g Any favorite
highlight moments of people's acting, What were your favorite school
of Kerrie Washington, greatest actors in the world, who had there,
who won the scenes?
Speaker 6 (30:29):
I mean, listen for me.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
That the one of the opening scenes with Sally Langston
with that crazy speech of hers where she says yum yum,
crispy piggy yum yum. I mean that was, oh my god,
I mean that was out of this world so good,
so unhinged.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
Kate Burton in this episode is so crazy good because
she's I mean, her character was so crazy anyway, but
she's in a presidential debate and she's this this unbelievably
religious born again woman who by the way, has the letter.
There's so many there's so many things going on.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
She's unbelievable. And in this scene she's like obviously been
like touched by the devil or whatever because she murdered
this guy and she's totally unhinged, and Leo Bergen paid
to on a private jet put her pastor to try
to like, you know, exercise the demons that have sort
of taken her. And then she decides. The whole episode
is like she's deciding, She's like, I have to confess
the American people that I'm a murderer because I've stopped
(31:25):
hearing him, I've stopped hearing God. And if I don't
confess and we're able to, but guess what if she
convinces then everyone will know that Cyrus being covered it
up and he's responsible and blah blah blah.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
They have to stop her from doing that at all costs,
including the moment in this episode where Jeff as Cyrus
is like he is willing to He's gonna plug that
hole no matter what. He's like, we got to kill
someone's got to kill Sally Langson because she's she's gonna
do this. But I'll tell you something. Carrie's acting when
she comes into in the beginning of the episode, Carrie's
acting when she finds out when she finds out the
(31:59):
truth that her entire team has covered up the death
of Daniel Douglas, and Carrie walks into that room with
with with with with Cyrus, and she's like trying to
see if he was if it's true, and within one
line she knows it's true, and she starts laughing.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
She starts laughing, unhinged, crazy, maniacal.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
It's so good. She's like laughing, and then she's like,
I can't, I can't. I just want to walk back
into the light. What has happened we have all turned into.
This is not what I set out to do. It's
like there's this moment from her that's so honest. She's
laughing and then she's crying. It's really.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Carry's pregnant here, right, She's pregnant in this episode.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, Jeff Perry has an amazing scene.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Yeah, he has the monologue to Jake about how the
American people can't find out about Daniel Douglas. Like he's
making it like it doesn't even matter that I would
go to jail for the Daniels and that the people
of America can't know how fucked up the leadership is
because they will lose their faith in America.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Like it's a great speech, it's a it's a beautifully
written speech where he's like he the American people, the
fabric of our country, who believe in the leaders that
they voted for, cannot be.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Told that we all murders. We are murder And he
says like that murder, he's a rook DERs.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I'm like, Jeff Perry, you actor unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
But Jake, Jake Ballard also has a monologue at the
top of the show which is so great where he's
talking about sort of well.
Speaker 6 (33:33):
It's just and it's shot so beautifully too.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
This is the thing about this show. They humanize the
demons all the time. They humanize the torturers, every single
one of us, from Huck to Quinn to Jake Ballard,
They're all like underneath it, all these human beings that
have somewhere inside them the ability to love and his
longing for family, which he does not have. Is this
(33:56):
opening monologue, He's like, so this becomes my family, and
this this becomes my purpose. And it's like this is cuckoo.
It's all cuckoo, but it's what makes me love all
the characters.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
I mean I personally we always talk about how Quinn
Huck did and if we loved or hated our acting.
I think Quinn nailed this episode.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
She did.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Anytime Quinn is a receptionist, I'm like, wow, why am
I good at this? And so so many other things.
But for some reason, when there's a headset and she's like, hi,
acne paper unlimited, I'm like, I got you, Like I
did a good job, and I kind of feel like
I actually remember being really intimidated because Scott Foley had
(34:40):
been added to the show this season, but I personally
hadn't had any like one on one scenes with him,
and when I watched this episode, I had like PTSD
coming up because I was like, it was my first
time ever getting like we're just me and Scott were
on set and like me and Scott alone, our chairs
were next to each other, and me and Scott had
these couple handful of these actme limited scenes to do,
(35:02):
and I got to act with him, and I remember
being like a little nervous because, yeah, because he's so cute,
and I watched every episode of City, so I was like,
oh my god, I better act so good. So maybe
that's why I wasn't total shit.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
And I really not in this episode, but in the
one right after kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Scott and.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
I we have to talk about that. Can we fuck
the rest of this episode? Is there anything else in
the episode we need to touch on?
Speaker 4 (35:31):
I will say I love the scene where James is
at the house and Cyrus comes and he now knows
that James was Publius and James is like, broke our family,
broke our family, and he said I know, I know,
and he goes, I just want to tell you something.
I love you. I love you so much. I love
you so much, and it's like all James needs to hear,
(35:52):
and that's.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
For you guys, if you don't remember Cyrus. Leo Bergen
walks into Cyrus's office and he's like, I can't wait
till Sally wins, and this is good. Be my fucking office, bitch,
and then Cyrus is like, and then Leo's like, first
thing I'm gonna do is get rid of that buzzing sound.
And Cyrus is like, what buzzing sound? And then we
realize there is a buzzing sound. And Cyrus opens up
the family picture frame of James and Ella on his
desk and opens up the picture frame and there was
(36:14):
a mic and he had been recorded, and he knew
it was James that did it, and he goes home,
tells him he knows he's Publius. James is crying, you
broke us, you broke our family. And then Cyrus says,
I just love you. I love you so much.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
I love you so much. And then James goes right
to go meet David Rosen and says, listen, all bets
are off. My husband told me he loved me. And
as it turns out, that's all I really need. I go.
I really I wrote down what I said. I said.
I know I need to. I know I shouldn't forgive him.
I have no business forgiving him, but I love him.
So it's I'm sorry that you called. I'm sorry that
(36:53):
you called this meeting, but I'm gonna have to just bail.
And he's like, I didn't call this. Zoom zoom, zoom,
And then there's this moment bang guns.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
And then it's too late, and then you both realize,
oh my god, we both didn't call this meeting. Fucking
Jake Ballard did And at the exact moment, two bullets
go ripping past the two of you and murder the
two reporters that you were meeting to sell the info to.
And the episode ends with the gun on you, and
we don't know.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Who I know, yes, except that the gun no no
is The episode ends over black with one last shot,
so you do know that at least David or James
has been shot. And when we read that in the
table read, it was the most shocking thing anybody had
ever I mean we were like, what and then and
then Josh.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
And did you know at this point.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
No, no, I had no idea that was coming down
the pike. I had no idea. And Josh starts screaming,
you gotta kill James. He already won an Emmy and
I and I'm like, that has nothing to do with it.
Oh shit, Yeah, I'd already won, So which is you
know you should? If I hadn't, I would still be
hond Would you give me emmy back?
Speaker 6 (38:02):
If they would have kept you on the show for
all eight seeds?
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Yes, I get asked all the time. I'll be honest
with you. I'm not. I'm not ungrateful, by the way.
I'm not ungrateful. I'm very happy to have been honored.
But I got to tell you something. If if the
exchange would have been to stay on for another three
or four seasons and not have won, I would have
happily done that. I would have happily done that. Ugh.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah, we don't act for trophies, you guys.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
I do, and I've never got anither.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
But when you get them when you're not expecting them,
well you're not expecting one. I had a nervous breakdown
that day. I mean, that was a crazy, crazy day
at the table read where the gun goes off and
we don't know whether it's Josh or me. The entire
shooting of that episode which is three thirteen, the one
we're talking about right now. While we were shooting three thirteen,
(38:54):
I did not yet know which one of us in
three fourteen was gonna was gonna die. And so I
called Shanda and I was like, listen, I beg of
you as soon as you know, will you please let
us know? And they're like, yeah, we're just now listen.
In hindsight, I can't imagine that that room did not
know that this is where this was headed. But I
(39:14):
remember getting a phone call in January of twenty fourteen.
I'll never forget it. I pulled off the side of
the road. I was in my car, so I get
a phone call. You know, Dan, can you hold for Shonda?
And I was like, oh my god. My hands started shaking.
I pull off the side of the road and Shawonda's like, Danny,
we couldn't think of any other way around it, but
it's you. And I was like, oh my god, oh
(39:35):
my god. I said listen, but Shanda, can I ask
you a question?
Speaker 6 (39:38):
You already?
Speaker 4 (39:38):
I mean, they hadn't readen the episode yet. They I
was pitching. I was pitching, I go, does do you
have to see James's body? Actually in the episode, I go,
I mean, if the gun goes off, is there any
way that James just disappears into the night. And then
you know, in season five he appears like a like
living as a caveman somewhere in some log cabin in
(40:00):
the woods, like that would happen in Scandal, like they
could never find the body of James Novak. And then
I'll have me back in season five and she's like, no,
but we're gonna write an incredible episode and I will
let you read it before the next table read, which
they did, and I wept like a baby.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
And this is the episode that's the flashback of you
and Cyrus falling.
Speaker 6 (40:21):
In love, and yes, so great.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Yes, I couldn't have asked for a better To be
honest with you, I could not have asked for a
better send off. It was traumatic to act, because lying
there and breathing your last breath with cameras rolling and
Scott Foley there, that was really traumatic. But but all
the little flashbacks that we got to act, which was
like a play in and of itself, which was the
whole history of the relationship of James and and and Cyrus,
(40:46):
was beautifully written. It was it was just great.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Love and courting each other two game and courting each
other on it was freaking ABC on a national television show.
Speaker 6 (40:56):
How freaking amazing is that I know?
Speaker 4 (40:58):
And how awkward Cyrus was, and how unprepared Cyrus was,
and how he was neck beard to the next beard
on his neck. And let me tell you something, the
acting that Jeff Perry does in episode three fourteen. If
you think about the range that that man had to
(41:18):
act in three fourteen, I just want you to wrap
your brain around him, not only playing the beginning flirtations
flashbacks with James within that episode, but then in denial
about the fact that his husband is dead and on
a work mode and completely maniacal, and then his absolute
collapse in front of the press corps. It was, it
(41:41):
was to me one of the best range. Like Jeff
Perry is a god. For what he had to do
in three fourteen, it's unbelievable. I'm in such awe of him.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Now take us through the night of the death scene.
We don't have to go in long because I know
it's probably very triggering, no pun intended. What when you
say it was so magical? We've had you know, Jeff,
I know showed up. You had to go through this
thing with Scott.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Fully.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
The death was so long and drawn out and awful,
like watching someone take their last breaths home saying I
know it's painful, I know it's.
Speaker 6 (42:20):
Horrible, but I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
The only way it's going to look like yeah that yeah,
what tell me?
Speaker 4 (42:25):
Tell me hor They kept putting. They had to continuously
put these packs of fake blood into my mouth so
that I would gurgle and gasp. It was not easy,
and I remember when I uttered the words ella to him,
I whispered the words la to him. I could not
(42:45):
stop crying, and so there was so much liquid on
my face. I was like I was I was teared up.
And Scott, who by the way, was like, I mean
he was traumatized by having to play that guy. I mean,
if you think that he didn't want to do it, No,
we were all from the table read on. It was
like really dramatic that that was going to have to happen.
(43:06):
And it was one o'clock in the morning in Hollywood
on the sidewalk. It was starting to rain. It was late,
and we were doing that scene over and over and
over again, and I had to like get the and
and Paul mccrane was the director and he had been
on Er and I love Paul. He was he was
a doll and he was really telling me medically how
I was supposed to get through this final gasps of
(43:28):
breath before I died, and so I had to play
that out and I did, and then we wrapped and
they wheeled out a huge cake for me. And I'm
gluten free and Celia, so I couldn't add a little bit.
Speaker 6 (43:41):
But anyway, was it red velvet? Was it red velvet?
Speaker 4 (43:44):
I couldn't have any of it, but there's photographs of
me covered in fake blood in front of a big cake,
and Jeffy came and Linda came, and it was very
respectful and lovely, and honestly, I could not have asked
for a better send off. I will say that the
next morning, I was due to be on Access Hollywood
(44:05):
to promote an earlier episode, and I had so much
blood in my fingernails that I sat in my interview
chair talking to Kit and What's in Billy Bush with
my fingers curled up in my hands.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Like you can't get off and it's been all day.
Oh yeah, you have to like it's so bad. Dyes
your skin. It like dies your skin.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
I had. I had red, like I put makeup on
and I was covering my the bloody finger stumps. And
then I had to do Ellen. And when I did
Ellen again, we had already shot my death episode, but
what had aired so far was just James poking air.
And Ellen was like, I don't this doesn't smell good
for James. That's all I can tell you. Is like,
(44:48):
I don't know what you're doing, but I don't think
it's going to end well for you. And I was like, well,
I don't know. You never know. Oh god, it was
awkward to It was awkward for three months to do
press and and and I did a lot of it
and I was, you know, I couldn't talk about what
was coming, but it.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Was very so proud, you know, like of the work
you did and the character you created and the relationship
you got to be part of on television and like
it's so.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
It was.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
Forgound.
Speaker 6 (45:24):
Character's ever going to forget him.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
Right, Listen. It changed my career. I made friends with
people that I will never not be friends with. And
by the way, the two of you, like I could
not love two people more in my life, and we've
never we never had one scene so true behind episodes.
There wasn't even a moment of even a fantasy episode
that we were in together. It was crazy. I did
(45:48):
scenes with Mellie, and I did scenes with Tony Goldwyn
and everybody and David Rosen, but nobody in nobody did we.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Were we the group that went to the White House
Correspondent dinner together? Yes, yes we were the group because
I have a real memory of us.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Yes, yes, yes you can have the memory of Dane.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Our fancies, Ritz Georgetown Hotel suite. We're on a political show,
which basically means you're a beatle.
Speaker 4 (46:22):
You know, we were there with Danny was.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Getting a pedicure by someone else. We were with, I mean,
we were like having I mean, it was just you
were there for such like the highest of high years
of scandal. I feel like, I mean, I just feel
like we were all on this major ride together and
I I mean, and.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
I couldn't it will never be like I mean, like everything,
I mean, it was exactly what it was. It was spectacular,
The work was the people were amazing, the experience was great,
and and uh, you know, it was a game change
up for me and I and I had I will
never forget it. And I'm very proud of the character
I got to play. I'm proud of pushing myself to
(47:07):
do things I never thought I could do in television,
and and the relationships I made. You know, it can't
be repeated. So every time we all get other jobs,
it's not the sandwich chase that it will be the same.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Never had such a thing, my god.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
And I feel like we all walked away from the
show with those same things, right, just discovering so many
amazing things that we were able to do on the show.
I never I've never done so many freaking crazy like
they asked to do so many crazy things on a show,
and and just met so many amazing people. It was just, yeah,
it's it was an experience that will never be able
(47:45):
to recreate, right, No, I mean it's yeah.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
As a writer, I'll be honest, Like, at the moment,
I was so sad, I was so sad, like like,
it was so traumatic. It took a very long time
for me to get over having to leave this family.
That's really what was the most heart wrenching thing for me.
But when I had some distance from it. It was like,
what a smart move. It was so like it shocked
(48:09):
the view. It was exactly the right thing to do.
I mean, they almost killed James in season two and
then and then in a way, I was sort of
playing out a very similar narrative and the next unless
James was gonna wind up with a story of his
own and become a character with a separate storyline. I
was no longer in service to Cyrus in a way
(48:31):
that was that was fresh. So killing James was an
incredibly smart, bold move for TV. And you know, I
kind of respect it now. I hated it, but I
respect it.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
It's such a bit now I feel like people do it.
But at the time, yeah, we all felt like we
were so safe. So it was like, oh shit, like
anyone could go it at a time. Yeah, let's see
what we do that some tweets of the time, which Danny,
you joined Twitter at this time, and I wonder what
(49:02):
the gladiators thought of this episode at VALIDESK ninety three
on March fourteen, twenty fourteen, tweeted, I think I know
hashtag who got shot. Maybe he says when he when
he says I love you to him, that's when he
does terrible things hashtag scandal that Valentina sort of sniffed
(49:23):
it out.
Speaker 6 (49:24):
Yeah, this chick at.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Katie Kompass tweeted, who else has to rewind Scott Foley's
Scandal scenes because of his distractingly huge eyeballs. It's like
two tennis balls aiming a gun.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
I can't, I cannot girls see talk tweeted, Olivia started
to make me mad. I wanted her to pick Jake.
Oh yeah, because this episode, of course, we were in
a love triangle as per usual.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Let's see Nikki with a tick. Nike with a tick tweeted.
If I had a pound for every time a member
of B six thirteen mentioned B six thirteen, I could
buy BE six thirteen. Only Eli denies its existence the
rest amateurs okay, I mean.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
And then we've got, of course, a picture at Nancy
Drew Gall tweeted, I think Olivia Pope needs this wine glass?
What do you think? And it's a picture of an
entire bottle because Olivia be drinking a lot of one.
I mean, what your Twitter experience, Dan? Were people so upset?
When you do you remember people being people being mean
(50:30):
to you on Twitter? People loving you on Twitter, people
being mad that you died. What was your Twitter fan
base reaction?
Speaker 4 (50:36):
People were devastated that James was dead. Absolutely absolutely, and
my I had a very positive for the most part
Twitter experience. A couple of people made fun of me
because James was always crying, and that, you know, the
truth is I often, I often got choked up in
these scenes with Jeff, even when it wasn't called for,
(50:57):
and so my my chin quivers when I get emotional,
and so I got I got a lot of shit
for that. But people loved James and and he was
beloved and on Twitter, I got a lot of love
and people were devastated when he died, and uh yeah,
it was uh it was. It was a thing. It
was a thing, but I was very grateful for it.
Speaker 6 (51:16):
You're the best, and.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
We love you so much in our hearts.
Speaker 6 (51:20):
I love you, we love you man, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
Danny Bugatinski, thanks so much. We love you, we love you,
we love you. And now let's hear from Scott fully
again before we wrap this thing up. In three thirteen,
did Sean ever say to you, you're going to be command.
This is going to be You're going to be running
the country.
Speaker 5 (51:40):
No, No, I don't think Sean had told you anything
before a table read. Now you learn everything in the
table read unless you're getting killed off. That was it,
and I didn't. I'm not sure even now that it
was like, oh, it was a huge deal. It was
just I don't know part of the storyline. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
Do you remember when you got that scripted? Do you
remember you had that monologue and you were looking forward
to all about history and hope?
Speaker 5 (52:06):
Yes, I had to deliver that. I had no idea,
absolutely no idea.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
We knew nothing on this show.
Speaker 5 (52:14):
I mean insane you as What we do is I
will sit down before I play any character and I
will write out this is so basic. I will write
out a list of questions, Right, who is he? What's
his relationship with his parents, his relationship with God? What
kind of cologne does he wear? Is he a front
to back wiper or back to front? All the stupid shit.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
The shit you really need to know to play someone.
Speaker 5 (52:36):
None of what I had laid out. And you have
to make those choices, right, you have to have that
in your head. You can so you can play any characters,
so you can make those choices. But no, nothing It
almost never lines up. I don't think Oh, his parents
were loving Muslims and they grew up on a sailboat
like that never lines up with what the Ritters do
because these are different people.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
It just doesn't happen, right, Yo, Do you remember was
Carrie pregnant during that episode?
Speaker 3 (53:02):
I think she was.
Speaker 6 (53:02):
I think she was because she's wearing a big old
coat and a lot of those scenes.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
Yeah, I think she was pregnant. And not long after
she and I have a pretty intense love scene.
Speaker 3 (53:14):
Oh yeah, it goes like this. She says, take advantage
of me Jake, which is hot as fuck. I think
in this episode three thirteen, you come in, she comes in,
She's like, I just want to pretend we're normal. I
don't want to talk about that we're killers and all.
Speaker 4 (53:27):
This kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (53:27):
You're like, right, yeah, I worked at Jake's apartment.
Speaker 5 (53:30):
Yes, yes, I worked.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
At ACME Limited. Today. I sold paper, I sold two reasons.
Speaker 6 (53:34):
And you will drink this whole bottle of wine by myself.
Speaker 3 (53:37):
Yeah, we're just going to make pretend all day. And
then you're like, no, I don't want you to get
too drunk that I take advantage of you and then
she like switches in her head and she says, take
advantage of me.
Speaker 4 (53:45):
Jake.
Speaker 5 (53:45):
Well, she was. She was very pregnant when we did that,
and the director was like, he was like, we were
rehearsing it and he was like, no, you get on
top her. I was like, you can't. I can't get
She's eight months pregnant. I can't do that. So he
was like, well and it was put a song on.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
It was like.
Speaker 5 (54:08):
Because I get on top of her, really and I
was like, you know, sir, she's pregnant. I cannot lay
on top of him.
Speaker 4 (54:16):
Push up.
Speaker 5 (54:17):
Then there's then we've got hold yourself off.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
It won't look real.
Speaker 5 (54:23):
So you want to be like spoon in other ways,
it's very fun.
Speaker 6 (54:29):
He said, do a push up. Imagine you having to
hold that push up for the whole scene.
Speaker 5 (54:34):
Like, but there's still she was pregnant. Man.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
Yeah. And then the other big thing that happens in
three thirteen that I have to hear about, is you
Jake Ballard kills.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
We don't know who he kills in that in this episode.
You assume it's him, but they don't show it. But
it ends up being of course, yeah, we can you.
Speaker 5 (55:00):
The way my worst day ever on Scandal, And it
began with the table read for that episode where we
all found out. We didn't find out who it was,
but it could have been Josh, and it was when
we actually had to shoot it. It was Dan didn't.
He wanted to keep working. He loved we loved having him.
(55:22):
He wanted to be a part of it. He's got
a family. This is his way makes a living. But
you're telling a story, and he was a.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
Great part, like as a game man with a big part.
Was it horrible to shoot? Like you have to feel
so bad or you're just like, I gotta get this done,
Like we got to go home, Like I can't. We
can't make this personal. I just have to like my job.
Speaker 5 (55:43):
I remember that night. I remember how it felt. I
remember the street, I remember him laying there with the blood.
I remember the gun. I remember Shanda had a screenshot
on her work computer of me holding the gun. I
remember it all.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
Why that on her computer was like opposing it morbid?
Speaker 5 (56:07):
Yeah, no, it was like her screensaver for a while.
Speaker 3 (56:09):
I remember it being so hard. It was the first
person on the inside Scandal family who had done a
shitload of episodes, and that's when we really realized, holy shit,
nobody is safe here.
Speaker 5 (56:20):
I got emotional when we did it. I was really tough.
You understand, it's not me.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
I didn't.
Speaker 5 (56:27):
I'm not the one who made the call.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
And Shawna said I remember her saying, I'm the protector
of the story. It's my job to like, not fall
in love with people, but to really look at the
show and the story that we're telling and hold it
above all else, hold it above my personal feelings and
people's personal feelings, which must be so hard. When you're right,
(56:50):
it's like my family, my bills, my all like. Also,
he was playing a gay role.
Speaker 5 (56:54):
In Shanda and Dan had worked together. Dan was a
writer on Gray's Anatomy. They had they have a hand street.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (57:01):
I can only imagine how difficult it was for her.
It was very difficult for me. I know everybody involved,
we all of us had a certain amount of guilt
about survivor guilt.
Speaker 6 (57:12):
I guess you could get yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
And it wasn't just like you Jake shoots him and
he falls over and dead in two seconds. It was
a slow, agonizing death. You're talking him through the death.
So I could see how that was.
Speaker 6 (57:26):
It's super difficult.
Speaker 4 (57:27):
You know.
Speaker 5 (57:28):
Well, you're right, I forgot about that because I shoot
him and then I go down and I talk to him.
It's going to be okay. I'll make sure your daughter
is okay. You know all that.
Speaker 6 (57:35):
And you're telling what he's going to feel as he's dying.
Oh my god. Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 5 (57:40):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Thank you, Scotty Foley, Thank you, Danny Buga. We love
you so much. In next up, we have episode three
fourteen called Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang, where we have to
really struggle through this blood curdling, gurgling.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
Uh So, stay tuned, you guys. The next one is
three fourteen and we have a special guest.
Speaker 4 (58:02):
Bye.
Speaker 3 (58:03):
We love you.
Speaker 6 (58:03):
Thank you bye everybody.
Speaker 1 (58:05):
Thank you, Thank you guys for joining us on Unpacking
the Toolbox. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share
with your friends, rate, or leave us a review.
Speaker 3 (58:16):
Unpacking the Toolbox was executive produced by Sandy Bailey, Alex Alcea,
Lauren Homan, Tyler Klang, and Gabrielle Collins. Our producer and
editor is Vince de Johnny, with music by Chad Fisher.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
Scandal is a production of ABC Signature and You can
follow along by rewatching Scandal on Hulu.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
Unpacking the Toolbox is a production of Shondaland Audio in
partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit
the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you subscribe to your favorite shows.
Unpacking the Toolbox is a production of Shondaland Audio in
partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
The scans shown as it.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Katie those, we have an incredible episode for you today.
Not only will we be graced by the Danny Bukatinski
or as I call him, Danny Buka as we break
down this episode, but later on we get a little
bit more info from Scott Foley about what it was
(00:48):
like to be command or when he actually became command.
In this episode, we have to talk about James from
beginning middle end, we have to talk about the brilliant
Danny Bukatin grace us with his presence today. We're so lucky.
We have been waiting to have you on this podcast. Yes,
I do waiting, cherishing, waiting. But then also everyone needs
(01:08):
to know that Danny Buca and I share the same birthday.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You guys do every year, No wonder, you're both nuts,
it's every year.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
We're both nuts. We're both nuts, but we like connected
over our birthday, like on day one and now every year,
you know, we hang out.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It's why we are perfect, glorious, special, smart, stunning inside
and out, very sexually advanced.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Now yeah, yeah, I get that a lot. I get
that a lot.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Okay, I'm bringing us in. Why how did you get James?
Where were you in your life? How did you get
it to Shaun Land? Also, you auditioned for huck.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Well you just did? You just answer my question? No?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
But weren't you writing in Grays.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
No, I wasn't quite writing a graze yet. I had
done episode of Grey's Anatomy a season earlier and Shonda
wasn't around, and I didn't meet her for that, but
I remember that Linda Lowie, the casting director, sent a
scene I had done in Curby Your Enthusiasm to Shonda
(02:17):
and she approved me to get the offer on Grey's Anatomy.
Then I did Grey's Anatomy, and right around that time,
my book came out. Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It's such a great book for anyone. It's brilliant. Does
this Baby make Me Look straight? It's brilliant.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
No, it does not, is the answer.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
It does not make me look straight. I mean there's
you know, that would be a stunt. There's a lot
that would need to I mean, there's there'd be a
lot more work than just the baby, and I've had
two of them. But you know, The book chronicles my
whole like journey into parenthood with my husband and adoption,
and in the book, I this is going somewhere, I promise.
(02:56):
In the book, I talk about the inspiration I got
from Dan savage book The Kid, and Shonda's inspiration for
her adoption of her kids was also Dan Savage as
The Kid. So we wound up. I don't know how
it happened, but one way or another, I wound up
sending Shonda my book. She wound up blurbing on my
book before it came out, and we sort of connected
(03:17):
over the way we became parents. Around that time, I
then came into I went into a casting session to
read for Huck and the monologue I will never forget it.
I don't know, Giermo if you remember it, but the
audition monologue was so beautifully written. It was a perfect
example of how quickly an actor could learn it. Yeah
(03:41):
if if it's written well, Like how hard it is
to learn lines when something is like I don't see
how this connects to this, but this was like a
beautiful piece of writing and one hundred percent not me.
But I was like, I love this. I'm gonna I'm
gonna read it anyway. So I went in there and
I was like, guys, I get it. This is one
(04:01):
hundred percent not me, but maybe it is me. Maybe
it'll maybe maybe you'll change the way you think about Huck.
But this is a beautiful piece of writing. So I
did the monologue and they were like, you're right, it's
not you. Who was in the room, Betsy, Shanda, Linda
was in the room for somebody meeting with.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Me too.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Yeah, And then I came back to read for a
recurring role as David Rosen.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Oh wow, I bet you killed that.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I could see you playing.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
I could have played, thank you. I could have played
David Rosen. I mean we, Josh and I even look alike.
You don't.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
You're so much hotter. And that was on purpose for
you to hear that.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Josh.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Keep going, yeah, Josh, you've said it yourself, Josh, So
we're not saying anything that you haven't said yourself. But
I saw Josh, and I've known Josh for a very
long time, and we saw each other at the audition,
and I went in for that one, and I think
even in the room, Shanda said, I'm going to write
something else for you, And I left and I was like,
(05:05):
you know, if I had a nickel, I didn't quite you.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Know, it was very nice as you're so beating down.
It's like until I'm on set right and even still
and I see it.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Even believe it.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Correct, You're on set and you're like, they're gonna fire.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Me any and it's getting come.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
You shoot it and then they call saying like you're
being recast in there reshooting. They don't care how much
money it costs. They can't allow what you just did
to appear on television.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
They cut. Sometimes they cut the scene and you're like,
my whole family, I'm on a show and I'm cut.
Is that?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
That was my first job ever that happened to me
and I my whole town, including my ex boyfriend who
hurt my heart and I and then I got through it.
I was like, oh my god, I wasn't in it,
and I've never been so mortified in my life and
never learned.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
But sand Sean, so Shonda thought, I love this, homo.
I'm going to write a big old gay roll for him.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
You know, I didn't hear that part of it, but
clearly you speak Sean. That was going on that head
easily I love this homo. He wrote this book about adoption.
I mean, listen, not for nothing. To some degree the
creation of who James was going to be and who
he wound up as this writer who wants to adopt
(06:19):
a baby, Like a lot of me, I think went
into who James became. But I had no idea that
that was coming down the pike. And in fact, I
was at my office. You know, I had a production
company with Lisa Kudron for fifteen years. We were like
in this office, back and forth, and there was one
day we were taking all these meetings and I get
a text on my phone from Linda Lowe saying will
(06:40):
you play my husband's husband? And I was like, and
I was like, is that some kind of party game?
Like what what does that even mean? Will you play
my husband's husband? I knew I know Jeff, and I
knew Linda and Don and I had been in Mexico
with them when our daughter was a year old, Like
we knew each other, but will you play my husband's husband?
(07:02):
And I was like, I don't know what that means,
but sure? And so I got offered this part of
James and I did this episode that I found it
was in season one, and I found it so and
I talk about this all the time, talk about subversive
television making What made Scandal so unbelievably innovative in the time.
(07:24):
At the time that had happened was that Olivia Pope
knocks on the front door of Cyrus Bean's house, which
we've never seen before, and James opens the door and says, really,
Olivia on a Sunday, you know, the like, like the
audience has to catch up to the fact that existed
way before they started watching this show, that this man
(07:45):
lives with this man and they're a couple and they're married,
and Olivia knows it, and.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
He is President's chief of staff and a Republican presidency
and this guy is in no way shape form what
you would have ever thought of, like, oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Jeff Perry, Harry gets offered that part and is never
told that this is going to be a gay character.
There's never told that you're going to have a husband.
Le's he's just as shocked as all of us. But
the fact that there was no coming out episode, the
fact that it wasn't about telling Tony telling Fits one
day that he is gay, like all of it is
a fact, a matter of fact that the audience just
(08:19):
has to catch up is the way it should be.
And it was so exciting and so that was just
a thrill, and I thought I would just do that
one episode and it would be what it would be.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
And I wound up doing you have to Kiss Jeff
in that episode. I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
No, no, I just said, baby, I want a baby,
a fat one. That's why I said to him, I
want a baby, a big, fat one. So knock it
off with all the whatever you're doing.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Oh my god, you know we have to talk about like, Okay,
so you get it offered, but it's kind of like
an offer that you've auditioned for so many times in
a way, right, because you had read two other parts
and she already knew you personally, she read your book, and.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I was playing somebody not far from who I am, right.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Okay, so that's your first episode. Now tell me about
because we've almost had you on for this episode, but
we were saving you for now. But you are a
part of one of my favorite all time scandal scenes ever,
which I think you must have been so shocked to
know what James was going to turn into. But that
one act play of you and Jeff Perry taking off
(09:23):
both of your clothes and being ass naked to make
sure that you're not miked when he admits to you,
I stole the election because you know something's up. I
mean that what I think it's one of the best.
I think it's one of the best television scenes in
his I mean it's like a fucking play.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
It's it was a mini in the app Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
And it's in season It was amazing.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Is it in two? Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
It's in season two?
Speaker 4 (09:46):
In season two?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
So when do you start to realize the role that
James is becoming and the amount of like unbelievable gift
of line scenes like when are you like pan? Are
you excited? Are you making out with Jeff? Are you
liking it? He's been your friend for twenty years?
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Like?
Speaker 4 (10:05):
So, I had done season one and then I took
my friends were running Gray's Anatomy, and they said, will
you come and consult as a writer because I've been
a writer for a long time, will you consult as
a writer in the writer's room of Gray's Anatomy? And
I took a meeting with Betsy and Shonda and my
two friends Tony and Joan, who are still my best friends,
and I was like, look, this would be an amazing opportunity.
(10:26):
I'm really flattered and I would love to but I've
really enjoyed the three episodes I got to do on Scandal,
and if there's any I'm not suggesting that he's coming back,
but if there's any chance that James would come back
in season two, I wouldn't want the fact that I'm writer,
I'm writing in the writer's room of Grays to stop
me from being on Scandal. And they said, don't worry
(10:48):
about it. Well, nowhere to find you nice. In other words,
if you're at the writer's room at Grays, we can
write you onto Scandal and you can just bounce back
and forth, which is what I did for the next
two years. In the next two seasons.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Exhausting.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
It was. It was exhausting and made my head spin
a little bit. But I say that only because in
season two, pretty quickly James comes back and James starts
to like get a writing gig again, and the adoption
of the baby becomes a story for them, and I
go visit my mom in New York. She lives in Brooklyn,
(11:23):
and I realized and we all remember this. Season two
is when the viewership of that show went berserk and
suddenly I was like people on the street were recognizing
me from having only done four episodes or five. In
season two was when it felt like, oh, this, this
is something that could be more or bigger or more
(11:46):
layered and more. And the truth is, season two, I
was so lucky to get to play a journalist, a
dad wanting to adopt a baby, the love of Cyrus's life.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
You know, you spy as well on the show.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, it was the end of season two that James
was poking the bear a little bit. Yeah, but for
the first half of the season, it was all about parenthood.
It was all about like, I don't know what you're
doing at work, but I am happy to be a dad.
And then he was like, I'm getting bored and I
want to start writing again. And then there was a
lot of interesting conflict to be played with Jeff when
(12:24):
I was trying to throw my hat back in the
ring into the world of journalism. And you know, it
played out, our little piece of the show played out
like a very realistic, oddly but crazy marriage and.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
It's just like you and Don right, just like you.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Oh, I can talk about this more later, but there's
so much that I found baffling about how much we
connected to people as like the heart, like the place
where the love and family and marriage existed in the show.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah you guys, they wrote, you have such a love
even though he is a monster, and you just said it.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
You said it. But the key to this show, I'm
telling you, Like I figured it out recently when I
had to rewatch these episodes for today, I was like,
this show is crazy. I had forgotten this is this show.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Is it's crazy.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
It's so good. Writing is so good.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
You can't you couldn't.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
You know, people a say like, you can't write that shit,
but they did. Like every character is so complicated, and
you know what trumps all of the malice and evil
and and backstabbing and politicking and all of the torture
love any character that loved another character, Like it's unbelievable.
(13:40):
The fact that Cyrus loved James as much as he
did even though he's killed He tried to kill him
in the end of season two, and then James is
like that motherfucker, I am married to a monster and
I'm gonna bring him down, and then I'm like, but
I love him, right, but I love him. I'm gonna
forgive him because I love him. We have a baby
together and we have a family him. And he's like, Honey,
(14:01):
I love you so much. I love you. I'm like,
you love me so much, You're like going to I'm
gonna wind him dead because you love me so much.
But the love is unbelievable. There's a scene in the
episode right before three thirteen where David Rosen winds up
in the trunk of a car and he's calling Darby's character,
what's her name?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Abby?
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Abby? Abby? And he's like, Abby, I didn't say it before,
but I'm now in the trunk of a car and
I don't know what's going to happen to me, but
I just want to tell you I love you. I
just want to tell you I love you. I should
have said it yesterday, but I'm going to just say
it now. And the trunk opens and you and Abby
are standing there too, write Gherma, were you there? Or
was he? I think it's I don't remember, I don't
remember you rescue him. I almost started crying. I literally
(14:43):
I found it so touching. I found it so touching.
I'm like, he's just been like almost abducted and there's
abby to rescue him. And it's really the love that
like it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
It's a romantic show at the end of h it's
so it's so you know, it's just like Liver Die
Like it's either it's so tweeter where it's like you
either want to fuck them or punch them right, It's like,
honey pee they ride that line all the time. How
is it working with Jeff, who you'd been friends with
forever to try to like be I mean, do you
(15:15):
think the love came out so well because you guys
had such a long relationship or like, yeah, I just
buy it, man, I bought it.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
I love Jeff, I love Jeff beforehand. I love Jeff.
But I mean we had the opposite of a romantic relationship.
I mean, he's a straight man for his entire life
and I'm not. And we were friends and we had
to do you know, we had to go there with
each other in a way that was at first very awkward,
(15:46):
and yet we both just gave ourselves over to it.
And I trusted him with and still do to this day.
I trust him with my life, and we love each
other so much, Like I just saw him to nights
ago and I was like, we just love each other.
We love each other like we I can't explain it.
We've been through something together now. That said, there was
(16:08):
the sexual nature of our relationship and the ways that
Shanda and those writers pushed the envelope on what you
can show on ABC was not easy. It was not easy,
I will say that, like having my head pushed data
frame and and I remember having an argument with Tony Goldwin,
who was directing an episode, and they were they wanted
(16:29):
to simulate my going down on Jeff And I was like, Tony,
why is it always me? Like why do I always
this is so?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Why the bottom?
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Why do I have to I don't remember an episode
where he's blown me, so like why can we? And
then and I said, it just feels and I have
to be honest with you, like I had this total
window into what women must have experienced in our business
for like five decades. There was there was a little
bit of like embarrassment and my own internalized homophobia around
(17:02):
the crew about the ways in which I had to
sort of play that role in his life because I
was his younger, incredibly hot husband, and yes, and Tony said,
and and Tony said, do you think that I haven't
had to throw myself. I'm a married man with two
with two daughters, and I had to throw myself on
(17:24):
the on the desk of the Oval office with Kerry Washington.
And I said, uh.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Huh yeah, all right, motherfucker.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
I was like, yes, yes, you did. You did have
to do that. And therefore, of course, I mean, it's
all for the art, and of course I love Jeff
and but I'm just saying, like, couldn't our relationship be
depicted in a more equal way? And He's like, that's
not the kind of relationship this is. Anyway, we had
that out on set and I wound up doing what
I had to do.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
And it and then you've been out of frame. I'm
gonna I did.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
What was on the page because I my job as
an actor is too is to do what's on the page.
We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Guys, when you did the naked scene, were you both
in like banana hammocks. I'm sorry, I have to know.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Oh my god, we were so anxious about that scene.
We had eleven days. I begged at at the table read.
I had a nervous breakdown when I read that in
because you know, we only read what we were gonna
do at the table reads. There was no prep and
I begged them, I said, can we schedule this scene
for the last day of the so I have eleven
(18:30):
days to lose thirty pounds. I mean, oh my god,
I need eleven days to do pushups and set ups
so I can look like Brad Pitt by the time
they take off my shirt. And I starved myself for
eleven days, and then I realized at the end of
eleven days that I don't look like Brad Pitt eleven days,
twenty two days, or in three hundred and sixty five days,
(18:52):
I looked very much like the version of myself. And
Jeff's like, I'm not even gonna bother. Okay, so I'm
having whatever I want. I'm not even going to bother.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I remember Jeff working out, though I remember him going
to the gym and working out during that time.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
They wanted to shoot very specifically. They wanted to make
sure that the only thing that blocked our nudity were
objects in the room lamp a lamp. So they said,
they said to us, you can wear a dance belt
or a jock strap, or a or a what do
they call them a so so it's called a sock,
(19:30):
a cock sock. And so we had all of them.
We had all of them, and so we all of
the time. Oh yeah, I wore a turtleneck. I tried.
I tried to get away with I was like talking about,
you know, how to get away with murder. I was
trying to get away with wearing. I was wearing more
clothes than I've ever worn in my life. And I
(19:51):
would peel it off and peel it off, and peel
it off and peel it off, and then we do
a take. And then Verica came in and he was like,
we see the edge of the dance spelt. And I
was like, so I took.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Off the dance belt and now something now dance dance spelt.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
So gay. I was like, by the way, the minute
I was in a dance belt, I was like doing
the opening number.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Of dancing and choreography.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Thank you. And then eventually we were wearing nothing but socks.
And I will say in one of the takes, and
we did it so many times. I had to dress
and undress so many times and then they came off.
They came off. They just came off, and there we were.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
You're just standing there acting with your dog out.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
I was a Jeff's came off and I just trained
my brain.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
On his looking that.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yes, you would have that's why you're Hawk. And I'm
listening to James.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Here's the thing. I've had to wear a cocks out
two on the show, and I had the whole hawk
getting waterboarded thing, and then I'm naked, and but then
after a while, like you said, it just falls off,
so I remember. But it's so freaking annoying. It's just
so freaking annoyed.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Like just did you guys did you feel and g
too as you as a gay man?
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Like what nothing? She's you mean?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Don't buck around? Stop fucking around.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
You've played gay characters before, and Danny, I don't know
before Scandal how many gay characters you had played on television,
But did you feel like a responsibility as being a
part of a show that was reaching millions of viewers?
Like what kind of pressure did you feel, you know,
in portraying a gay character? Had you done it before?
(21:33):
Like how did that feel? Because I mean the show
broke a lot of buges. I feel like we've talked
with Carrie a lot on this show about, like, you know,
her being the first black lead, you know, woman on
a network drama in thirty seven years, and feeling like
this has to succeed because if it doesn't, no one
else will ever get a shot, you know. So what
kind of pressure were you thinking like that? Or we're
(21:55):
like nope, just do your lines, do your job, Like
what was that?
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Like? I was I had played gay characters before, and
I had done an HBO show that I helped produce
called The Comeback, where I was playing Alisa Kudro's characters
publicists and who was obviously gay, and she was like,
I gotta get a gay Jimmy. And you know, I
had played gay characters before, and I was very used
to playing what I used to call igh insert gay here.
(22:19):
You'd read a pilot and they'd be like the token
gay character, and I'd read for those for a decade.
I have to be honest. And then of course when
I did Gray's Anatomy, I was playing the gay husband
of somebody in a hospital bed. And because it was
shondaland it was always handled with like complete matter of
fact complete respect. So it wasn't as much on my
(22:41):
mind as was the fact that something happened to me
when I was doing when I was on Scandal, something
that tied together everything that had happened in my life
prior I think that I had been. When I first
came to Hollywood, I was very closeted. I was twenty seven,
and I was trying to get roles, and I was
pretty tending to be a straight actor pretending to be
(23:04):
the character I was reading for, So there was always
layers in front of me of and so I wasn't
really working in the way that I wanted to be,
and no surprise, and by the time I was ten
years into my marriage and having a baby and writing
a book about it and like completely letting myself be
one thousand percent honest in the world and then allowed
(23:25):
to play that on television. Something came over me when
I got to play those scenes with Jeff that felt
like I can't even explain it to you. There were
moments where things that had happened to me as an
actor that had rarely happened to me before. I felt
unbelievably honest and like whatever comes out of me is okay,
(23:47):
and there's no self consciousness here, and I'm in a
real marriage, and like, this is my husband, and I
can be as vulnerable with him as anybody would be
with their husband. And I found enormous liberation in that.
And then the scene would come. I was so lucky
because even if I was in like tiny scenes, and
you know, I was a guest star for twenty nine episodes,
so I guess did on all those scenes, but they
(24:09):
always wrote me something that felt honest for who I was.
So as time went on, I felt like, Oh, this
is an unbelievable opportunity to just be one hundred percent
this guy who happens to be gay but he's also
a million other things. And I thought that was very
modern for that day. We hadn't really seen that before
(24:31):
on TV.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, but think about also, like the millions of people
that were watching the show who were you know, homophobic
or in closet or whatever, and are seeing it portrayed
in this beautiful, like matter of fact way, Like how
freeing for those people, and how you know, how wonderful
for them to see us just as a regular person,
because unfortunately, you know, a lot of freaking dumbasses out
(24:54):
there don't see it that way. But yeah, so that
even the pilot, you guys remember the pilot, the lead
guest star was a gay character. Oh. It was so
beautiful and he comes out, you know sort of he's
just you know, by the end of the episode, he's
I'm a gay man, and it's just it was I
remember reading that and just being like so moved and
(25:15):
so happy that you know that that the show was
going to be that type of show, that that's how
you know they were going to portray gay characters.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Yeah, it was because on TV for a long time,
the only description of a character who was gay was
that they were gay. In other words, you know, write
a scene and then describe the character by their age
and the fact that they're gay, you know what the
gays are like.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yeah, I was going to say. The other thing about
it is that like the they to see Cyrus and
James Novak, like neither of them are like you know
what I grew up with thinking, you know, in my town,
like a gay guy's like a musical theater gig, right,
like like you know, like we're going together to get
our nails done and then we're singing rent or like whatever,
(25:58):
which is like all also wonderful, but to just see
like Cyrus being and James who's a guy, and then
Cyrus who's mean and like really scary and like not
femi at all, if that's even the terms. Just see
like you know, not that type of gay eye, right.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
It can look like this. And I'll tell you something
what started to happen that was blew my mind to
this day. And Guermo, I mean, no, Hawk was not
a gay character. But I'm telling you that what really
blew my mind is that the audience for Scandal, you
all know what I mean, is like it crossed so
many demographics. The black audience that came to supported us
(26:43):
in the millions, and the black women who for whatever
reason related to James and my love for that baby Ella.
I believe that something happened. Something happened because I there
was suddenly a moment where in the public and the
(27:03):
and the numbers of people, women and men. But but
how many people from from that particular community that that
had such an enormous love and understanding for James. And
I was like, God, I wonder like this is I mean,
some of them are are in Southern communities and are
come from religious backgrounds to where and I think that
(27:28):
it normalized what the love that a man can have
for their baby, regardless of their gender, regardless of their sexuality,
regardless of their race, that crossed all these boundaries, because
I'm telling you, my particular fan base was like all
of these women, tons and tons and tons of black women,
And to this day, like I that's the number one
(27:49):
demo that stops me in the street and we get
into conversations and we talk about the show, and they're like,
oh my god, you and that baby, and you know,
like we have we had like a kinship and to
be able to let parenthood and love and marriage be
the things that connect us rather than our race or
sexuality solely, I think it was a huge gift that
(28:10):
I did not predict. I did not predict that, and
and then I thought like, oh, I have a responsibility
to just be like a loving parent who and by
the way, at the end of the day, I think
the only character up until season four who was not
a murderer somewhere in their soul, which.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
James, yeah, you were like the only moral compass like
literally on the never I mean.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Willing to throw my husband under the bus one hundred
percent because he was a criminal, but not willing to
kill him. I wasn't. There was no scenes of James
trying to kill Cyrus, although I should have.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
We will be back with more after the break. I
want to talk to you guys. We're going to break
down this episode really quickly, and then I want to
talk about so what we're talking about Today's episode three thirteen,
which was entitled No Sun on Their Horizon and aired
on March thirteenth and twenty fourteen, and it.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Was written by Matt Byrne and directed by Randy zisk And.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
It was guest starring John Tenny as Andrew Nichols, Brian
Lesher as Tom Larson, paul Aiedelstein Is, Leo Bergen.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Laurence Stamil as Carlos Steele, Jennifer Payo as Vanessa Chandler,
and Juliet Cho as Shelby Moss.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Do you have us in front of you? Dan?
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Do I have what?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Do you have a synopsis?
Speaker 4 (29:26):
If you do have it in front of me?
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Do you want to try reading your best scandal thinks?
Or am I throwing you under the bus right now?
Speaker 4 (29:31):
I'll give it a try.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
See if you can do it and don't worry. People
do really bad, so don't don't worry, and.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
By people me and Katie gets terrible most of the time.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Oh my god. Okay, ready. When Olivia learns the truth
about David Douglas's death, it sends her, David Rosen, and
Jake Ballard into a tailspin trying to figure out what
you do and to make matters worse. Sally Langston finally
realizes that she must confess the truth on national TV
during the presidential debate. Everything comes to a head when
Olivia barely convinces Fish to throw the debate in order
to prevent Sally from being killed. But then the loose
(30:00):
sands are tied up when Jake pulls a gun on
James and David Rosen.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
Amazing, mom, so good, you are warmed.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Up and ready to shoot my friends.
Speaker 6 (30:10):
So good.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
That was so good. Okay, crazily enough, Like I mean,
this episode is insane, Like Dan and g Any favorite
highlight moments of people's acting, What were your favorite school
of Kerrie Washington, greatest actors in the world, who had there,
who won the scenes?
Speaker 6 (30:29):
I mean, listen for me.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
That the one of the opening scenes with Sally Langston
with that crazy speech of hers where she says yum yum,
crispy piggy yum yum. I mean that was, oh my god,
I mean that was out of this world so good,
so unhinged.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
Kate Burton in this episode is so crazy good because
she's I mean, her character was so crazy anyway, but
she's in a presidential debate and she's this this unbelievably
religious born again woman who by the way, has the letter.
There's so many there's so many things going on.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
She's unbelievable. And in this scene she's like obviously been
like touched by the devil or whatever because she murdered
this guy and she's totally unhinged, and Leo Bergen paid
to on a private jet put her pastor to try
to like, you know, exercise the demons that have sort
of taken her. And then she decides. The whole episode
is like she's deciding, She's like, I have to confess
the American people that I'm a murderer because I've stopped
(31:25):
hearing him, I've stopped hearing God. And if I don't
confess and we're able to, but guess what if she
convinces then everyone will know that Cyrus being covered it
up and he's responsible and blah blah blah.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
They have to stop her from doing that at all costs,
including the moment in this episode where Jeff as Cyrus
is like he is willing to He's gonna plug that
hole no matter what. He's like, we got to kill
someone's got to kill Sally Langson because she's she's gonna
do this. But I'll tell you something. Carrie's acting when
she comes into in the beginning of the episode, Carrie's
acting when she finds out when she finds out the
(31:59):
truth that her entire team has covered up the death
of Daniel Douglas, and Carrie walks into that room with
with with with with Cyrus, and she's like trying to
see if he was if it's true, and within one
line she knows it's true, and she starts laughing.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
She starts laughing, unhinged, crazy, maniacal.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
It's so good. She's like laughing, and then she's like,
I can't, I can't. I just want to walk back
into the light. What has happened we have all turned into.
This is not what I set out to do. It's
like there's this moment from her that's so honest. She's
laughing and then she's crying. It's really.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Carry's pregnant here, right, She's pregnant in this episode.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, Jeff Perry has an amazing scene.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Yeah, he has the monologue to Jake about how the
American people can't find out about Daniel Douglas. Like he's
making it like it doesn't even matter that I would
go to jail for the Daniels and that the people
of America can't know how fucked up the leadership is
because they will lose their faith in America.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Like it's a great speech, it's a it's a beautifully
written speech where he's like he the American people, the
fabric of our country, who believe in the leaders that
they voted for, cannot be.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Told that we all murders. We are murder And he
says like that murder, he's a rook DERs.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I'm like, Jeff Perry, you actor unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
But Jake, Jake Ballard also has a monologue at the
top of the show which is so great where he's
talking about sort of well.
Speaker 6 (33:33):
It's just and it's shot so beautifully too.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
This is the thing about this show. They humanize the
demons all the time. They humanize the torturers, every single
one of us, from Huck to Quinn to Jake Ballard,
They're all like underneath it, all these human beings that
have somewhere inside them the ability to love and his
longing for family, which he does not have. Is this
(33:56):
opening monologue, He's like, so this becomes my family, and
this this becomes my purpose. And it's like this is cuckoo.
It's all cuckoo, but it's what makes me love all
the characters.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
I mean I personally we always talk about how Quinn
Huck did and if we loved or hated our acting.
I think Quinn nailed this episode.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
She did.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Anytime Quinn is a receptionist, I'm like, wow, why am
I good at this? And so so many other things.
But for some reason, when there's a headset and she's like, hi,
acne paper unlimited, I'm like, I got you, Like I
did a good job, and I kind of feel like
I actually remember being really intimidated because Scott Foley had
(34:40):
been added to the show this season, but I personally
hadn't had any like one on one scenes with him,
and when I watched this episode, I had like PTSD
coming up because I was like, it was my first
time ever getting like we're just me and Scott were
on set and like me and Scott alone, our chairs
were next to each other, and me and Scott had
these couple handful of these actme limited scenes to do,
(35:02):
and I got to act with him, and I remember
being like a little nervous because, yeah, because he's so cute,
and I watched every episode of City, so I was like,
oh my god, I better act so good. So maybe
that's why I wasn't total shit.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
And I really not in this episode, but in the
one right after kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Scott and.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
I we have to talk about that. Can we fuck
the rest of this episode? Is there anything else in
the episode we need to touch on?
Speaker 4 (35:31):
I will say I love the scene where James is
at the house and Cyrus comes and he now knows
that James was Publius and James is like, broke our family,
broke our family, and he said I know, I know,
and he goes, I just want to tell you something.
I love you. I love you so much. I love
you so much, and it's like all James needs to hear,
(35:52):
and that's.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
For you guys, if you don't remember Cyrus. Leo Bergen
walks into Cyrus's office and he's like, I can't wait
till Sally wins, and this is good. Be my fucking office, bitch,
and then Cyrus is like, and then Leo's like, first
thing I'm gonna do is get rid of that buzzing sound.
And Cyrus is like, what buzzing sound? And then we
realize there is a buzzing sound. And Cyrus opens up
the family picture frame of James and Ella on his
desk and opens up the picture frame and there was
(36:14):
a mic and he had been recorded, and he knew
it was James that did it, and he goes home,
tells him he knows he's Publius. James is crying, you
broke us, you broke our family. And then Cyrus says,
I just love you. I love you so much.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
I love you so much. And then James goes right
to go meet David Rosen and says, listen, all bets
are off. My husband told me he loved me. And
as it turns out, that's all I really need. I go.
I really I wrote down what I said. I said.
I know I need to. I know I shouldn't forgive him.
I have no business forgiving him, but I love him.
So it's I'm sorry that you called. I'm sorry that
(36:53):
you called this meeting, but I'm gonna have to just bail.
And he's like, I didn't call this. Zoom zoom, zoom,
And then there's this moment bang guns.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
And then it's too late, and then you both realize,
oh my god, we both didn't call this meeting. Fucking
Jake Ballard did And at the exact moment, two bullets
go ripping past the two of you and murder the
two reporters that you were meeting to sell the info to.
And the episode ends with the gun on you, and
we don't know.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Who I know, yes, except that the gun no no
is The episode ends over black with one last shot,
so you do know that at least David or James
has been shot. And when we read that in the
table read, it was the most shocking thing anybody had
ever I mean we were like, what and then and
then Josh.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
And did you know at this point.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
No, no, I had no idea that was coming down
the pike. I had no idea. And Josh starts screaming,
you gotta kill James. He already won an Emmy and
I and I'm like, that has nothing to do with it.
Oh shit, Yeah, I'd already won, So which is you
know you should? If I hadn't, I would still be
hond Would you give me emmy back?
Speaker 6 (38:02):
If they would have kept you on the show for
all eight seeds?
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Yes, I get asked all the time. I'll be honest
with you. I'm not. I'm not ungrateful, by the way.
I'm not ungrateful. I'm very happy to have been honored.
But I got to tell you something. If if the
exchange would have been to stay on for another three
or four seasons and not have won, I would have
happily done that. I would have happily done that. Ugh.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah, we don't act for trophies, you guys.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
I do, and I've never got anither.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
But when you get them when you're not expecting them,
well you're not expecting one. I had a nervous breakdown
that day. I mean, that was a crazy, crazy day
at the table read where the gun goes off and
we don't know whether it's Josh or me. The entire
shooting of that episode which is three thirteen, the one
we're talking about right now. While we were shooting three thirteen,
(38:54):
I did not yet know which one of us in
three fourteen was gonna was gonna die. And so I
called Shanda and I was like, listen, I beg of
you as soon as you know, will you please let
us know? And they're like, yeah, we're just now listen.
In hindsight, I can't imagine that that room did not
know that this is where this was headed. But I
(39:14):
remember getting a phone call in January of twenty fourteen.
I'll never forget it. I pulled off the side of
the road. I was in my car, so I get
a phone call. You know, Dan, can you hold for Shonda?
And I was like, oh my god. My hands started shaking.
I pull off the side of the road and Shawonda's like, Danny,
we couldn't think of any other way around it, but
it's you. And I was like, oh my god, oh
(39:35):
my god. I said listen, but Shanda, can I ask
you a question?
Speaker 6 (39:38):
You already?
Speaker 4 (39:38):
I mean, they hadn't readen the episode yet. They I
was pitching. I was pitching, I go, does do you
have to see James's body? Actually in the episode, I go,
I mean, if the gun goes off, is there any
way that James just disappears into the night. And then
you know, in season five he appears like a like
living as a caveman somewhere in some log cabin in
(40:00):
the woods, like that would happen in Scandal, like they
could never find the body of James Novak. And then
I'll have me back in season five and she's like, no,
but we're gonna write an incredible episode and I will
let you read it before the next table read, which
they did, and I wept like a baby.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
And this is the episode that's the flashback of you
and Cyrus falling.
Speaker 6 (40:21):
In love, and yes, so great.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Yes, I couldn't have asked for a better To be
honest with you, I could not have asked for a
better send off. It was traumatic to act, because lying
there and breathing your last breath with cameras rolling and
Scott Foley there, that was really traumatic. But but all
the little flashbacks that we got to act, which was
like a play in and of itself, which was the
whole history of the relationship of James and and and Cyrus,
(40:46):
was beautifully written. It was it was just great.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Love and courting each other two game and courting each
other on it was freaking ABC on a national television show.
Speaker 6 (40:56):
How freaking amazing is that I know?
Speaker 4 (40:58):
And how awkward Cyrus was, and how unprepared Cyrus was,
and how he was neck beard to the next beard
on his neck. And let me tell you something, the
acting that Jeff Perry does in episode three fourteen. If
you think about the range that that man had to
(41:18):
act in three fourteen, I just want you to wrap
your brain around him, not only playing the beginning flirtations
flashbacks with James within that episode, but then in denial
about the fact that his husband is dead and on
a work mode and completely maniacal, and then his absolute
collapse in front of the press corps. It was, it
(41:41):
was to me one of the best range. Like Jeff
Perry is a god. For what he had to do
in three fourteen, it's unbelievable. I'm in such awe of him.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Now take us through the night of the death scene.
We don't have to go in long because I know
it's probably very triggering, no pun intended. What when you
say it was so magical? We've had you know, Jeff,
I know showed up. You had to go through this
thing with Scott.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Fully.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
The death was so long and drawn out and awful,
like watching someone take their last breaths home saying I
know it's painful, I know it's.
Speaker 6 (42:20):
Horrible, but I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
The only way it's going to look like yeah that yeah,
what tell me?
Speaker 4 (42:25):
Tell me hor They kept putting. They had to continuously
put these packs of fake blood into my mouth so
that I would gurgle and gasp. It was not easy,
and I remember when I uttered the words ella to him,
I whispered the words la to him. I could not
(42:45):
stop crying, and so there was so much liquid on
my face. I was like I was I was teared up.
And Scott, who by the way, was like, I mean
he was traumatized by having to play that guy. I mean,
if you think that he didn't want to do it, No,
we were all from the table read on. It was
like really dramatic that that was going to have to happen.
(43:06):
And it was one o'clock in the morning in Hollywood
on the sidewalk. It was starting to rain. It was late,
and we were doing that scene over and over and
over again, and I had to like get the and
and Paul mccrane was the director and he had been
on Er and I love Paul. He was he was
a doll and he was really telling me medically how
I was supposed to get through this final gasps of
(43:28):
breath before I died, and so I had to play
that out and I did, and then we wrapped and
they wheeled out a huge cake for me. And I'm
gluten free and Celia, so I couldn't add a little bit.
Speaker 6 (43:41):
But anyway, was it red velvet? Was it red velvet?
Speaker 4 (43:44):
I couldn't have any of it, but there's photographs of
me covered in fake blood in front of a big cake,
and Jeffy came and Linda came, and it was very
respectful and lovely, and honestly, I could not have asked
for a better send off. I will say that the
next morning, I was due to be on Access Hollywood
(44:05):
to promote an earlier episode, and I had so much
blood in my fingernails that I sat in my interview
chair talking to Kit and What's in Billy Bush with
my fingers curled up in my hands.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Like you can't get off and it's been all day.
Oh yeah, you have to like it's so bad. Dyes
your skin. It like dies your skin.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
I had. I had red, like I put makeup on
and I was covering my the bloody finger stumps. And
then I had to do Ellen. And when I did
Ellen again, we had already shot my death episode, but
what had aired so far was just James poking air.
And Ellen was like, I don't this doesn't smell good
for James. That's all I can tell you. Is like,
(44:48):
I don't know what you're doing, but I don't think
it's going to end well for you. And I was like, well,
I don't know. You never know. Oh god, it was
awkward to It was awkward for three months to do
press and and and I did a lot of it
and I was, you know, I couldn't talk about what
was coming, but it.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Was very so proud, you know, like of the work
you did and the character you created and the relationship
you got to be part of on television and like
it's so.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
It was.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
Forgound.
Speaker 6 (45:24):
Character's ever going to forget him.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
Right, Listen. It changed my career. I made friends with
people that I will never not be friends with. And
by the way, the two of you, like I could
not love two people more in my life, and we've
never we never had one scene so true behind episodes.
There wasn't even a moment of even a fantasy episode
that we were in together. It was crazy. I did
(45:48):
scenes with Mellie, and I did scenes with Tony Goldwyn
and everybody and David Rosen, but nobody in nobody did we.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Were we the group that went to the White House
Correspondent dinner together? Yes, yes we were the group because
I have a real memory of us.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Yes, yes, yes you can have the memory of Dane.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Our fancies, Ritz Georgetown Hotel suite. We're on a political show,
which basically means you're a beatle.
Speaker 4 (46:22):
You know, we were there with Danny was.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Getting a pedicure by someone else. We were with, I mean,
we were like having I mean, it was just you
were there for such like the highest of high years
of scandal. I feel like, I mean, I just feel
like we were all on this major ride together and
I I mean, and.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
I couldn't it will never be like I mean, like everything,
I mean, it was exactly what it was. It was spectacular,
The work was the people were amazing, the experience was great,
and and uh, you know, it was a game change
up for me and I and I had I will
never forget it. And I'm very proud of the character
I got to play. I'm proud of pushing myself to
(47:07):
do things I never thought I could do in television,
and and the relationships I made. You know, it can't
be repeated. So every time we all get other jobs,
it's not the sandwich chase that it will be the same.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Never had such a thing, my god.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
And I feel like we all walked away from the
show with those same things, right, just discovering so many
amazing things that we were able to do on the show.
I never I've never done so many freaking crazy like
they asked to do so many crazy things on a show,
and and just met so many amazing people. It was just, yeah,
it's it was an experience that will never be able
(47:45):
to recreate, right, No, I mean it's yeah.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
As a writer, I'll be honest, Like, at the moment,
I was so sad, I was so sad, like like,
it was so traumatic. It took a very long time
for me to get over having to leave this family.
That's really what was the most heart wrenching thing for me.
But when I had some distance from it. It was like,
what a smart move. It was so like it shocked
(48:09):
the view. It was exactly the right thing to do.
I mean, they almost killed James in season two and
then and then in a way, I was sort of
playing out a very similar narrative and the next unless
James was gonna wind up with a story of his
own and become a character with a separate storyline. I
was no longer in service to Cyrus in a way
(48:31):
that was that was fresh. So killing James was an
incredibly smart, bold move for TV. And you know, I
kind of respect it now. I hated it, but I
respect it.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
It's such a bit now I feel like people do it.
But at the time, yeah, we all felt like we
were so safe. So it was like, oh shit, like
anyone could go it at a time. Yeah, let's see
what we do that some tweets of the time, which Danny,
you joined Twitter at this time, and I wonder what
(49:02):
the gladiators thought of this episode at VALIDESK ninety three
on March fourteen, twenty fourteen, tweeted, I think I know
hashtag who got shot. Maybe he says when he when
he says I love you to him, that's when he
does terrible things hashtag scandal that Valentina sort of sniffed
(49:23):
it out.
Speaker 6 (49:24):
Yeah, this chick at.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Katie Kompass tweeted, who else has to rewind Scott Foley's
Scandal scenes because of his distractingly huge eyeballs. It's like
two tennis balls aiming a gun.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
I can't, I cannot girls see talk tweeted, Olivia started
to make me mad. I wanted her to pick Jake.
Oh yeah, because this episode, of course, we were in
a love triangle as per usual.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Let's see Nikki with a tick. Nike with a tick tweeted.
If I had a pound for every time a member
of B six thirteen mentioned B six thirteen, I could
buy BE six thirteen. Only Eli denies its existence the
rest amateurs okay, I mean.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
And then we've got, of course, a picture at Nancy
Drew Gall tweeted, I think Olivia Pope needs this wine glass?
What do you think? And it's a picture of an
entire bottle because Olivia be drinking a lot of one.
I mean, what your Twitter experience, Dan? Were people so upset?
When you do you remember people being people being mean
(50:30):
to you on Twitter? People loving you on Twitter, people
being mad that you died. What was your Twitter fan
base reaction?
Speaker 4 (50:36):
People were devastated that James was dead. Absolutely absolutely, and
my I had a very positive for the most part
Twitter experience. A couple of people made fun of me
because James was always crying, and that, you know, the
truth is I often, I often got choked up in
these scenes with Jeff, even when it wasn't called for,
(50:57):
and so my my chin quivers when I get emotional,
and so I got I got a lot of shit
for that. But people loved James and and he was
beloved and on Twitter, I got a lot of love
and people were devastated when he died, and uh yeah,
it was uh it was. It was a thing. It
was a thing, but I was very grateful for it.
Speaker 6 (51:16):
You're the best, and.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
We love you so much in our hearts.
Speaker 6 (51:20):
I love you, we love you man, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
Danny Bugatinski, thanks so much. We love you, we love you,
we love you. And now let's hear from Scott fully
again before we wrap this thing up. In three thirteen,
did Sean ever say to you, you're going to be command.
This is going to be You're going to be running
the country.
Speaker 5 (51:40):
No, No, I don't think Sean had told you anything
before a table read. Now you learn everything in the
table read unless you're getting killed off. That was it,
and I didn't. I'm not sure even now that it
was like, oh, it was a huge deal. It was
just I don't know part of the storyline. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
Do you remember when you got that scripted? Do you
remember you had that monologue and you were looking forward
to all about history and hope?
Speaker 5 (52:06):
Yes, I had to deliver that. I had no idea,
absolutely no idea.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
We knew nothing on this show.
Speaker 5 (52:14):
I mean insane you as What we do is I
will sit down before I play any character and I
will write out this is so basic. I will write
out a list of questions, Right, who is he? What's
his relationship with his parents, his relationship with God? What
kind of cologne does he wear? Is he a front
to back wiper or back to front? All the stupid shit.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
The shit you really need to know to play someone.
Speaker 5 (52:36):
None of what I had laid out. And you have
to make those choices, right, you have to have that
in your head. You can so you can play any characters,
so you can make those choices. But no, nothing It
almost never lines up. I don't think Oh, his parents
were loving Muslims and they grew up on a sailboat
like that never lines up with what the Ritters do
because these are different people.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
It just doesn't happen, right, Yo, Do you remember was
Carrie pregnant during that episode?
Speaker 3 (53:02):
I think she was.
Speaker 6 (53:02):
I think she was because she's wearing a big old
coat and a lot of those scenes.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
Yeah, I think she was pregnant. And not long after
she and I have a pretty intense love scene.
Speaker 3 (53:14):
Oh yeah, it goes like this. She says, take advantage
of me Jake, which is hot as fuck. I think
in this episode three thirteen, you come in, she comes in,
She's like, I just want to pretend we're normal. I
don't want to talk about that we're killers and all.
Speaker 4 (53:27):
This kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (53:27):
You're like, right, yeah, I worked at Jake's apartment.
Speaker 5 (53:30):
Yes, yes, I worked.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
At ACME Limited. Today. I sold paper, I sold two reasons.
Speaker 6 (53:34):
And you will drink this whole bottle of wine by myself.
Speaker 3 (53:37):
Yeah, we're just going to make pretend all day. And
then you're like, no, I don't want you to get
too drunk that I take advantage of you and then
she like switches in her head and she says, take
advantage of me.
Speaker 4 (53:45):
Jake.
Speaker 5 (53:45):
Well, she was. She was very pregnant when we did that,
and the director was like, he was like, we were
rehearsing it and he was like, no, you get on
top her. I was like, you can't. I can't get
She's eight months pregnant. I can't do that. So he
was like, well and it was put a song on.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
It was like.
Speaker 5 (54:08):
Because I get on top of her, really and I
was like, you know, sir, she's pregnant. I cannot lay
on top of him.
Speaker 4 (54:16):
Push up.
Speaker 5 (54:17):
Then there's then we've got hold yourself off.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
It won't look real.
Speaker 5 (54:23):
So you want to be like spoon in other ways,
it's very fun.
Speaker 6 (54:29):
He said, do a push up. Imagine you having to
hold that push up for the whole scene.
Speaker 5 (54:34):
Like, but there's still she was pregnant. Man.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
Yeah. And then the other big thing that happens in
three thirteen that I have to hear about, is you
Jake Ballard kills.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
We don't know who he kills in that in this episode.
You assume it's him, but they don't show it. But
it ends up being of course, yeah, we can you.
Speaker 5 (55:00):
The way my worst day ever on Scandal, And it
began with the table read for that episode where we
all found out. We didn't find out who it was,
but it could have been Josh, and it was when
we actually had to shoot it. It was Dan didn't.
He wanted to keep working. He loved we loved having him.
(55:22):
He wanted to be a part of it. He's got
a family. This is his way makes a living. But
you're telling a story, and he was a.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
Great part, like as a game man with a big part.
Was it horrible to shoot? Like you have to feel
so bad or you're just like, I gotta get this done,
Like we got to go home, Like I can't. We
can't make this personal. I just have to like my job.
Speaker 5 (55:43):
I remember that night. I remember how it felt. I
remember the street, I remember him laying there with the blood.
I remember the gun. I remember Shanda had a screenshot
on her work computer of me holding the gun. I
remember it all.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
Why that on her computer was like opposing it morbid?
Speaker 5 (56:07):
Yeah, no, it was like her screensaver for a while.
Speaker 3 (56:09):
I remember it being so hard. It was the first
person on the inside Scandal family who had done a
shitload of episodes, and that's when we really realized, holy shit,
nobody is safe here.
Speaker 5 (56:20):
I got emotional when we did it. I was really tough.
You understand, it's not me.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
I didn't.
Speaker 5 (56:27):
I'm not the one who made the call.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
And Shawna said I remember her saying, I'm the protector
of the story. It's my job to like, not fall
in love with people, but to really look at the
show and the story that we're telling and hold it
above all else, hold it above my personal feelings and
people's personal feelings, which must be so hard. When you're right,
(56:50):
it's like my family, my bills, my all like. Also,
he was playing a gay role.
Speaker 5 (56:54):
In Shanda and Dan had worked together. Dan was a
writer on Gray's Anatomy. They had they have a hand street.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (57:01):
I can only imagine how difficult it was for her.
It was very difficult for me. I know everybody involved,
we all of us had a certain amount of guilt
about survivor guilt.
Speaker 6 (57:12):
I guess you could get yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
And it wasn't just like you Jake shoots him and
he falls over and dead in two seconds. It was
a slow, agonizing death. You're talking him through the death.
So I could see how that was.
Speaker 6 (57:26):
It's super difficult.
Speaker 4 (57:27):
You know.
Speaker 5 (57:28):
Well, you're right, I forgot about that because I shoot
him and then I go down and I talk to him.
It's going to be okay. I'll make sure your daughter
is okay. You know all that.
Speaker 6 (57:35):
And you're telling what he's going to feel as he's dying.
Oh my god. Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 5 (57:40):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Thank you, Scotty Foley, Thank you, Danny Buga. We love
you so much. In next up, we have episode three
fourteen called Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang, where we have to
really struggle through this blood curdling, gurgling.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
Uh So, stay tuned, you guys. The next one is
three fourteen and we have a special guest.
Speaker 4 (58:02):
Bye.
Speaker 3 (58:03):
We love you.
Speaker 6 (58:03):
Thank you bye everybody.
Speaker 1 (58:05):
Thank you, Thank you guys for joining us on Unpacking
the Toolbox. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share
with your friends, rate, or leave us a review.
Speaker 3 (58:16):
Unpacking the Toolbox was executive produced by Sandy Bailey, Alex Alcea,
Lauren Homan, Tyler Klang, and Gabrielle Collins. Our producer and
editor is Vince de Johnny, with music by Chad Fisher.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
Scandal is a production of ABC Signature and You can
follow along by rewatching Scandal on Hulu.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
Unpacking the Toolbox is a production of Shondaland Audio in
partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit
the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you subscribe to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Guillermo Díaz
Katie Lowes
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com