Shonda Rhimes On The Ending Of ‘Scandal’ And Why She Knew Britney Spears Was Perfect For ‘Crossroads’


Shonda Rhimes, show runner of the ABC drama Scandal, is planning to feature a Donald Trump-inspired character in her show, according to ET Online.

With Scandal on its fifth season, things are going very well for the show so far. Scandal was recently renewed for a sixth season as well. Shonda Rhimes and the rest of the cast recently revealed during the Paleyfest 2016 that the latest episode of the show will feature a Donald Trump-inspired character to compliment the up and coming elections happening on the show. However, awkward parallels between the show and the actual presidential elections caused Rhimes to rewrite the dialogue as production went onward for its current season.

Shonda Rhimes spoke about the dialogue changes.

“We did have some moments where I would run back to the writers room and I would say, ‘Hey there’s some dialogue that we need to cross out because it kind of already happened.'”

It’s inevitable that the show would have similarities with what’s actually happening in real time politics, especially given the similarities between the fictional and real-life characters. Shonda Rhimes spoke about the similarities between the show and the actual elections.

“The election right now is its own thing. You can’t make that stuff up.”

The show seems like it’s going to be going on forever with its sixth season on the way. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Shonda Rhimes has said that “the show won’t run for eight to ten seasons,” but that’s where her cryptic clues ended. Whether this means that Scandal will end with season seven or if it will continue for season eleven and beyond is anyone’s guess, and it seems that Shonda Rhimes and her crew are the other ones who know exactly what’s going to happen.

“We know where it ends and when it ends.”

Away from the studio, Shonda Rhimes and Scandal leading actress Kerry Washington are actually really good friends.

According to USA Today, Kerry Washington sees Shonda Rhimes’ book Year of Yes as required reading.

USA Today reported that Kerry Washington, who usually refuses to discuss her husband or family in interviews, spoke with Elle about Shonda Rhimes’ book. She said that her husband was listening to the audio version of Year of Yes, which is described as a “first-person self-help journey,” and that they gave several copies out at Christmas.

“We bought it for a bunch of people for Christmas because I feel like it’s a little bit of required reading.”

The name Shonda Rhimes wasn’t always a credit found on TV shows, it was also found in that one Britney Spears movie. According to Broadly, Shonda Rhimes was the screenwriter behind Crossroads and she based it off Antigone. The movie is essentially a road trip which had a very realistic cast of teenage girls just being teenage girls. When Shonda Rhimes saw Britney Spears, she knew Britney was perfect for the movie.

Shonda Rhimes spoke about the opportunity she saw with Britney.

“I was much more interested in the young woman that I met than the image that people had of her. She was a person, and I don’t think anyone at the time was looking at her — because it’s such a misogynistic society — as a person. The idea that we could portray her as a three-dimensional young woman was interesting to me. To have mean-girled her and turned her into a caricature would have been a mistake.”

The movie wasn’t meant to have a cast of people acting unnaturally, Shonda wanted the cast to be as relatable as possible.

“It wasn’t that it was important to show people from diverse backgrounds — it just felt like the movie should look normal. Most movies didn’t look normal, they all looked very oddly homogenous in a way that didn’t feel realistic to me.”

Crossroads did very well in the box office and it still resonates with fans today. The film, though, and it never really launched Britney Spears’ career as a movie star, but it certainly became an unforgettable aspect of Britney’s rise to fame.

[Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer:Getty Images]

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