"Scandal" Star Tony Goldwyn on Going Behind the Camera for "The Divide"

So excited to have Tony Goldwyn back in the studio. Great to see you.

Thank you. I'm so happy to be back.

We're matching.

We are. And we're both tan.

We worked at our like we just talked in the morning. What are you going to wear and it gives.

Yes. Yeah, we do that. I'm going to go gray. Basic gray. So I just match, I just went along with whatever you were doing.

No, no, no, I think you look better. The last time you were here, you were talking about scandal, we're talking about whether or not you had met President Obama. And I think you had just into the White House correspondence. For the first time and I hadn't met him that time. I was disappointed, but this year. You you met him. I know this because what did he say to you when you walked out? He addressed you as.

Yeah, it was it was it was he said, hello Mr. President. He stuck out his hand.

That's brilliant.

And I didn't know what to say. So I said, hello Mr. President.

Oh my gosh. So the divide. Did I read that this the the concept of the show, I think it was kind of out there, but that you and the the writer, I want to get his name right, Richard Robinas.

Richard Robinas, yeah.

Um this show was conceived over a bottle of bourbon or something.

It was. Yeah.

Really? Should we get into what the show's about?

Yeah. Yeah. So the divide I mean, you created the show, this is.

I did. So I can tell you, hopefully I'll be articulate. Um the divide centers on uh two central characters. The first African-American DA of Philadelphia, who made his career on a big capital murder case. We meet him 12 years later when one of the two guys is about to be executed. A young woman, our other main character, is an intern, just got out of law school and is not even a lawyer yet. She's an intern at the Innocence initiative, we're calling it, but it's based on the real life Innocence Project, who uncovers a piece of evidence that calls this execution into question. And she sort of pulls a thread on this case that starts to unravel this very high profile murder case. And Kasky's blood and skin were found underneath them, which meant she'd scratched him. There was not a mark on him. Why didn't the defense find these in discovery?

You being the creator of the show, I mean you've you wear a lot of hats in Hollywood. And I know you've I think we talked about this the last time. You said if you had to choose directing or acting, you would actually choose directing.

I probably would have had to choose. Yeah. Um just

And you I love that you while you you could have put yourself in the show.

I didn't. Yeah, no, I didn't want to. I really I, you know, I mean I say that I would choose directing, but it would be very painful to give up acting. I really love doing both.

I think the fans would be really unhappy too.

Well, thanks. Um but uh, you know, directing you're just so central in the storytelling and you get to interact with so many different creative departments. It's it's pretty thrilling. And this is my first time, you know, co-creating and executive producing a TV series, which is just uh, it's amazing because we, you know, Richard and I kind of make it up as we go along. Over a which is daunting. But over a bourbon. And as the show went on, many, many glasses of bourbon were required because it's not easy doing it. But it was a thrilling experience and we're really proud of the result.

I'm really excited for audiences to see the divide. The cast is unreal. I say I want to ask what's coming up in scandal. Anything you can let us know.

I have no clue.

You don't know.

I don't know. I never know.

You can read one thing that I read that Kerry Washington, because you both have curly hair, give a wonder hair product. Some hair product, she shared like a tip with you or something. A beauty.

No.

Am I making this up?

Kerry makes fun of me. She would never share a beauty tip with me. Um, no, I did. There is a cool a good hair product, um that that that they I found on scandal that they use on me, that's quite good. But Kerry didn't. No.

She didn't give it to you. Well, what's the hair product? And what does she make fun of you? What?

So I better be highly paid if I say, um, it's this Italian product called Alpha Parf and it's called it's like matte paste or something. And it works good on on curly hair, which I have.

Thanks for sharing that beauty tip. And what is Kerry She does tease you, right?

Constantly. I love her. We love

I love it.

It's great. It keeps me. It keeps me humble on the set of scandal.

So what you can tease is there will be another season.

There will be another season. And God, we left Fitz in such a awful wonderful place at the end of season three. But literally, I have no I have no clue where it's going. And I don't want to know. It's so fun to be surprised along with the audience.

Yeah. And I know Shonda, she sort of she sort of took you through that thing at the end of the season where it's like, oh, do I want to be on his side? Or do I want to be on that side?

Exactly. Was that brilliant? I mean literally up until a few episodes before the end, I was getting almost hate mail or hate tweets from people going, I'm over Fitz. Like he's a whiny. I don't he's just too dark. I can't.

They're letting you know.

Oh, yeah, they tell me and I'm sorry. I still love him. But uh and then she somehow like boomerangs it and then those same people are going, oh my God, I love him. I'm so my heart breaks for him and we want him to be reelected and have you know, Olivia back and and uh and I lost my son.

Oh my God. Listen fans, you can't do this to Tony. You can't send him hate tweets. That's not nice. You got to be on his. the team, the side, the whole way through.

Well, it's always like a warning. I'm just one of you. I'm almost over Fitz. Or I'm not Team Jake. So Scott Foley and I were at the White House correspondence dinner together and we're hanging out and like fans come up and some people would come up and sort of push Scott away and go, I'm sorry. I'm Team Fitz. And then they want to be. And then other people would shove me out of the way. I want his picture with Scott cuz I like Jake. You know.

You're like, cool. Has anybody made the t-shirts yet? They have, haven't they?

Possibly. I've not seen that. But you guys should wear each other's.

We should. And you know, we would actually. And put the hair paste. That's a good idea. I think I might make those t-shirts. Thank you for coming in. It's so good to see you. Always.

Call me tomorrow and I'll tell you what color I'm wearing.

All right, good. And we can just coordinate on a daily basis. We can take turns.