Would Tony Goldwyn Actually Run for President? His Scandal Costar Has Thoughts

Playing a two-term president on television is one thing. Actually stepping into the role in real life? That’s a conversation Tony Goldwyn has apparently had more than once—and not always by choice.

During a recent sit-down with Kerry Washington on Variety’s“Actors on Actors”series on Saturday, June 6, Washington asked Goldwyn, 66, whether people constantly pressed him about a potential presidential run. His answer: yeah, surprisingly often.“I generally get asked about any political ambitions while standing on a street corner,”he said, before adding with a laugh that he’s learned to politely decline.“I used to say thank you so much, but that’s a really bad idea.”

Washington, 49, who played the brilliant political fixer Olivia Pope opposite Goldwyn’s President Fitzgerald Grant III throughout the show’s seven-season run, took a different stance on the matter. She seemed genuinely convinced he’d make a solid chief executive.“I don’t think you would be a terrible president, to be honest,”she said.“You’d assemble a really wonderful Cabinet and team around you. And you care!”Goldwyn playfully countered by suggesting he’d want Washington in his Cabinet—only to be shot down immediately.“You would not bring me. I would not be available,”she joked.“You’re such a nice guy, clearly.”

The conversation naturally drifted into the realm of Scandal itself, which wrapped in 2018 after becoming a cultural phenomenon. The show’s central relationship—the complex, messy, utterly compelling affair between the married President Grant and the brilliant Olivia Pope—left audiences divided over whether the couple’s ending was satisfying or toxic. Both actors agreed the finale worked, though Washington was more pragmatic about their future.“They weren’t the healthiest couple,”she admitted.“That doesn’t mean they weren’t madly in love, but they had some difficulties, which is why people loved it.”

Goldwyn leaned into the romantic interpretation, suggesting that Fitz and Olivia were fundamentally right for each other—the answer to each other’s fundamental needs, not just a dysfunction they couldn’t escape. Washington agreed they’d end up together, but with a caveat: couple’s therapy.“Yes, regularly!”Goldwyn quipped, painting a surprisingly domestic picture: Fitz spending time in Vermont to break toxic patterns, Olivia teaching him to make jam (and then ruthlessly critiquing the results). But beneath the humor lay genuine conviction.“I feel like he was very supportive of her trajectory—whether she became president of the United States or whatever her thing was,”Goldwyn reflected.“I feel like his real jones was to help this woman be, like, her best self.”

It’s a fitting coda for a show that, for all its scandal and intrigue, was ultimately about two people who couldn’t quite let each other go.