--- description: The star on the future of Olivia and Fitz and what she thought about Viola Davis' Emmys speech title: Kerry Washington Talks Scandal Season Premiere and Viola Davis' Emmys Speech image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cb9e3c604d79b7e/698865683c16390d1c459eb5/gettyimages-489452014.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Kerry Washington Talks _Scandal_ Season Premiere and Viola Davis' Emmys Speech  by [Eliana Dockterman](/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Correspondent Sep 24, 2015 10:49 PM CUT  Actress Kerry Washington attends the 67th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater on September 20, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. Actress Kerry Washington attends the 67th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater on September 20, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.Jeffrey Mayer—WireImage  by [Eliana Dockterman](/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Correspondent Sep 24, 2015 10:49 PM CUT Kerry Washington fans are eagerly awaiting the return of _Scandal_ Thursday night, but when season four wrapped last year, the star wasn’t so sure that the show would be back. “I’m excited because a lot of times when a show’s central couple gets together it’s because it’s the end of the show,” Washington told TIME. “I thought we might be at the end of _Scandal_ when we read the season finale last year. I was like, ‘Are we done? I thought we got picked up for another season, no?’ But it turns out we are back.” She says the continuation of Olivia and Fitz’s relationship is exciting new territory. “On our show, as in life, when Fitz and Olivia get together, it’s actually a beginning of an entirely new kind of journey for them that’s unexpected in a lot of ways,” she said, teasing twists. **MORE:** [Welcome to Shondaland](http://time.com/3399174/shonda-rhimes-scandal-murder-greys/ "undefined") Thursday will also see the return of another Shonda Rhimes-produced show, _How to Get Away With Murder_, and its star Viola Davis, who became the first black woman to win an Emmy for best actress in a drama on Sunday. Washington got emotional during fellow Shondaland actress Davis’ [acceptance speech](http://time.com/4042100/emmys-2015-viola-davis-win/ "undefined") and told TIME she’s ready to get past these milestones and concentrate on performances. “I was so relieved that the moment had happened because she and I have talked about the fact that when _Scandal_ first premiered, all of the attention was about it being the first time a black woman had been the lead of a network show in almost 40 years. And now for this Emmys, it was the first time an African-American woman had won an Emmy for drama,” she said. “You want the first to happen so that it can stop being about identity politics and just start being about excellence.” **MORE:** [Viola Davis Just Became the First Black Woman to Win the Emmy for Best Actress in a Drama Series](http://time.com/4042100/emmys-2015-viola-davis-win/ "undefined") Washington also praised producer Shonda Rhimes and _Selma_ director Ava DuVernay for the opportunities that they have created for women of all races on television and in film. “She’s absolutely disrupting filmmaking,” she said of DuVernay. “There are those directors like her and Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee who are auteurs and say I know what Hollywood wants, but I’m an artist and I’m going to do what’s important to me.” The _Scandal_ star [joined](http://time.com/4042247/taraji-henson-mary-blige-kerry-washington-apple-music/?xid=homepage "undefined") _Empire_‘s Taraji P. Henson and Mary J. Blige in three Apple Music commercials directed by DuVernay, the first of which aired during the Emmys and quickly went viral. “Ava had all three of us write down tons of songs that we loved throughout our lives and asked us a bunch of questions like, ‘Tell me three songs you love about heartache’ or ‘Tell me three songs that you love that nobody would know that you love.’ And then we took it from there,” says Washington. Though the women had a lot of overlap in their music choices, Washington says she was a big fan of Slick Rick “being a girl from he Bronx.” **Read Next:** [Taraji P. Henson, Mary J. Blige and Kerry Washington Team Up in Apple Music Ad](http://time.com/4042247/taraji-henson-mary-blige-kerry-washington-apple-music/?xid=homepage "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4049386/scandal-premiere-kerry-washington-viola-davis-emmys/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4049386/scandal-premiere-kerry-washington-viola-davis-emmys/"},"headline":"Kerry Washington Talks Scandal Season Premiere and Viola Davis' Emmys Speech","datePublished":"2015-09-24T22:49:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:15:34.363Z","description":"The star on the future of Olivia and Fitz and what she thought about Viola Davis' Emmys speech","url":"https://time.com/4049386/scandal-premiere-kerry-washington-viola-davis-emmys/","keywords":["Television"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cb9e3c604d79b7e/698865683c16390d1c459eb5/gettyimages-489452014.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliana Dockterman","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cb9e3c604d79b7e/698865683c16390d1c459eb5/gettyimages-489452014.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"67th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards - Arrivals","caption":"67th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards - Arrivals","creditText":"Jeffrey Mayer—WireImage","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4049386/scandal-premiere-kerry-washington-viola-davis-emmys/","name":"Kerry Washington Talks Scandal Season Premiere and Viola Davis' Emmys Speech"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Viola Davis Emmys Speech","description":"Viola Davis Emmys Speech","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/q5uo411V/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-09-21T03:06:16.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/q5uo411V.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4049386/scandal-premiere-kerry-washington-viola-davis-emmys/","duration":"PT30S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4049386/scandal-premiere-kerry-washington-viola-davis-emmys/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```