'Scandal' Star Thinks Fast, Speaks Faster

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The new televisions series Scandal is all about crisis management, which requires not only fast thinking to salvage a client's public image but fast speaking as well, which plays right into the niche of Katie Lowes, who plays "Quinn" on the show.


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"Everyone speaks at a very intellectual, heightened, speedy way. That's just how everyone works," Lowes explained. "Fortunately, I've been told to talk slow my whole life and that I speak way too fast," she added, citing that on previous jobs she had been asked to speak slower but executive producer Shonda Rimes was pushing her to speak faster on this project.

Co-stars Darby Stanchfield ("Abby Whelan") and Columbus Short ("Harrison Wright") recounted similar experiences with Scandal's fast-paced dialogue. Short said that speaking at the Scandal pace has carried over into his everyday life and even to auditions for other projects in the film world.


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Kerry Washington, who plays the show's main character "Olivia Pope," has had adjust not only to the fast-paced dialogue but also to the fast-paced nature of television production, as she is accustomed to the slower pace of a movie set.

"This is a totally new world for me," she said. "I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that we have a different director every week and that we got new scripts when we haven't finished the scripts we're working on."


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Although she's still getting acclimated to television production, Washington drew a parallel to a recent Broadway play in which she performed, asserting that a television show is a combination of two worlds that she loves—theater and film.


Scandal
airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.